A Philadelphia judge refused to dismiss charges of third-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter against a faith-healing Pennsylvania couple after they lost a second child to bacterial pneumonia.
Herbert and Catherine Schaible were charged after their 8-month-old son, Brandon, died in April, report the Associated Press, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News. The couple prayed for Brandon’s recovery and did not seek medical help.
The Schaibles were sentenced to 10 years of probation in 2011 for involuntary manslaughter in the death of their 2-year-old son. The couple had relied on prayer rather than medical treatment in that case as well. The Schaibles were required to get medical care for their children as a condition of probation.
Judge Benjamin Lerner noted the condition in a hearing on Wednesday, according to the Inquirer account. "They promised never to let something like this happen again," Lerner said. "But when push came to shove, they prayed, with no more attention to that promise than a puff of air."
This is the kind of story that drives me crazy, because it is far more prevalent than I think people realize.
I once worked with a boy with severe mental illness issues and learned that his parents, both college educated by the way, had once taken him to see both a faith healer and an exorcist. His parents were actually very nice and loving people, they were simply convinced that God could solve any problem and that all they had to do was to have enough faith.
When their son did not get better they blamed themselves for not being good enough Christians to earn God's grace.
To say that this exacerbated the problem is an understatement. The kid suffered from nightmares and psychotic breaks that made him very challenging to work with.
So I am glad that this judge reinforced that just because you are superstitious moron is NO excuse for allowing your child to suffer.
I wonder how they feel about a woman's right to choose?
ReplyDeleteThey sure look like a couple of stupid fucks.
Sooner or later we'll probably have a case in which somebody's house catches fire and the parents, instead of calling the Fire Department, prayed for God to come and put out the fire. Really, that makes about the same amount of sense!
ReplyDelete>>> Tom
Gryphen, like homeschooling, religious and academic colleges are two very different animals. Please do not conflate the two. I have a "college educated" (at a podunk bible thumping baptist "college") acquaintance Not only is she a creationist, but she has such severe misunderstanding of evolution, she wouldn't pass 1st grade science. But she has a degree!
ReplyDeleteExactly. A degree is not an education.
DeleteThere are more than a handful of Ph.D.s I know who can't write a simple English sentence.
Separately, for an entirely different reason and forgetting about the Palin connection, I went to the University of Idaho website today. The school's had 5+ presidents in the past 10 years. The tuition is extremely low, but so too, I'd assume, are the faculty salaries and the level of faculty education. And the degree of commitment of their various presidents, who can't wait to get a job offer somewhere else.
But they did accept all those crazy-quilt Sarah Heath course credits from Who-the-Heck-Knows Colleges, and granted her a degree. They didn't educate her, however, as she's proven multiple times.
Michelle Bachmann has a law degree, proving your point that a degree is not an education in all certainty.
DeleteThen again, Michelle's J.D. is from Oral Roberts University, which really isn't a school, either.
'God' doesn't give a shit about your kid. It's up to the PARENTS to give a shit. Always.
ReplyDeleteDUH!
DeleteOf course, the faithful always explain the lack of action on his part by claiming he gave us "free will".
What crap!
That's not free will. That's abuse and murder.
DeleteWhat these two don't realize is grace is given freely through faith/belief in Jesus Christ, according to scripture. If medicine is "man made," what about the car they drive? Shouldn't they be walking or riding a donkey everywhere?
ReplyDeleteI'm glad they are facing charges on both now. As it should be, and maximum sentences on both charges, please, for both of them!
Oh, yeah, and, checking the University of Idaho website, it appears that both "communications" and "journalism" are not majors, but minors.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, Sarah Heath couldn't have "majored" in these subjects, as she's claimed.
Also, too, there are three University of Idaho campuses. Did she attend the main one, in Moscow, or one of the other two? It makes a big difference.
Whatever the answers, it's clear that she scraped up credits here, there and everywhere, probably got in-state tuition at UI by claiming she was a resident by using a family member's address, and somehow they shoved her through their system and sent her out the door.
Not an education, Sarah. Just a flim-flam job.
She NEVER graduated from UI, you can take that to the BANK. Trust me.
DeleteSeriously, take a look at these two. Given their very "special appearance" and the fact that they believe in god and seem to have no impulse control leads me to believe that the State should step in and either "snip" him or give her a tubal ligation. They've not proven themselves intelligent enough to have children. At what point do we allow people like these to just keep having kids, when they've proven themselves inadequate to care for them?
ReplyDeleteI do think that we see here two special people that have gotten together and procreated out of control without any oversight whatsoever. We need to "fix" them just as you would your dog or cat.
Can anyone tell me what, if any, good superstition can do, please?
ReplyDeleteHey, asshats, "God" didn't answer your prayers the first time, what makes you think anything's changed since then? I'm glad the judge made this decision, but how in the name of anything good did they get ten years probation for murdering their first kid? What's the justification?
ReplyDeleteMy heart breaks for those poor babies :(
ReplyDeleteThey're only able to prosecute because of the groundwork laid by the Oregon courts in the multiple cases of child deaths in the "Followers of Christ" "church" which finally led to the conviction of Dale and Shannon Hickman after their premature 3 pound baby died in spite of their every effort to save it with prayer and annointing him with oil.
ReplyDeleteThese people are disgusting and should be sterilized. Their infant mortality rate is 26 times greater than the population of the rest of the state. They let their children die horrible deaths from simply treated maladies such as a Urinary Tract Infection.
"Church" my ass. "Collection of psychopaths" is more like it.