Quote:
Originally Posted by RandyWayne
Ya, the prosecutor is going for broke with that charge. As insanely angry as these cases make me, any semi-intelligent juror would/should realize that the parents didn't maliciously murder their kid.
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We had a case in this state several years ago. Some friends of ours had gone to visit relatives for Thanksgiving and their son (I think he was around 12) was on the couch sick. These folks went to a UPC church here in Ohio. The pastor was a District Presbyter and preached against going to doctors or using medicine. When our friends returned at Christmas time for another visit, the boy was still on the couch sick. Someone reported it and local officials came in and charged the parents with some crime.
Cases like this have some difficulties for both sides. On one hand parental care is usurped and religious freedom is broken and on the other hand the child's welfare is at stake. When a parent prays and fasts for his/her children and holds out from taking them to the doctor or giving medicine it is not easy. One problem in cases like this is that the parent may not really want to do that but feels pressure from the leadership and the saints in the local church to remain faithful. Then, if/when healing does not come the parents can be branded as weak in faith or that they must have some kind of failure or sin and God is withholding His healing to bring correction and growth. It's bad either way. Also, it brings a reproach with the neighbors.
Well, the parents were taken to court. The Pastor was asked but refused to testify on their behalf. This pastor had a policy that he would not even go into a hospital to pray for anyone.
When the judge asked the mother why she would not take her child to the doctor all she could do was say, "I did take my child to a doctor. I took him to Jesus the Great Physician." Well, it's been several years since this case and I don't remember how it turned out. The child survived and I think was returned to his parents in time.
A young couple from that same church moved to our town some time after that. They had a small baby. One day my wife was babysitting him and when she changed his diaper she was shocked at what she saw. His scrotum was huge from a hernia. When she asked the mother about it she got the standard answer that they were trusting the Lord for their baby's healing and they did not go to doctors. The couple soon moved back to the rural area where they had come from so I don't know how the child turned out but that was something that could have been corrected by surgery but they wouldn't (because of personal faith or conviction) or couldn't (because of how it would look to the pastor and church members) do it. One time the mother of that little boy said to us, "Bro. R.... hasn't been to a doctor in years." Some times I can be kinda smart mouthed (some of you may have noticed that on this forum) and I asked, "Well, where did he get his glasses then?" The mother tried to assure me that that was different but could not explain how.
Here in Ohio we have had several cases we know of personally in UPC and ALJC churches where people would not or could not use doctors and medicine.One time we saw a woman in tears as she explained to her pastor how that when she was involved in a car accident and the police and ambulance came she was powerless to stop her mother (or whoever it was) from going to the hospital because the ambulance crew and police insisted on it and over rode her objections. In this same church when the tornado of 1974 hit our area, they proudly played a tape of the pastor's wife screaming as they pulled pieces of glass from her body instead of letting her seek medical attention. I've also preached in one of the churches here where the women do not go to a doctor or hospital to have babies but a local midwife takes care of them. These are good people. I am not criticizing them. I just don't see some of these things the way they do.
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