Forty-eight states—all except West Virginia and Mississippi—allow religious exemptions from vaccination. (California would be the third exception if its bill becomes law.) A similar deference to religion applies to all medical care for children. As the National District Attorneys Association reports, 43 states give some kind of criminal or civil immunity to parents who injure their children by withholding medical care on religious grounds.
If your faith mandates spiritual healing and your child dies because you offer prayer instead of insulin or antibiotics, your chances of being charged with a crime are slim. There are religious exemptions for child neglect and abuse, negligent homicide, involuntary manslaughter. Several states allow parents to use a religious defense against charges of murder of their child—and in some places they can’t be charged with murder at all. And even when parents are prosecuted, acquiescence to religious belief often leads to their being acquitted or given light sentences, including unsupervised parole. None of this, of course, applies to parents who refuse medical care on nonreligious grounds; those individuals get no immunity from prosecution.
Some states allow religious exemptions from required testing of newborns for metabolic disorders, such as the inability to break down fats or amino acids, that can kill an untreated child but are perfectly treatable if caught early. Some states allow exemptions from giving newborns hearing tests or prophylactic eyedrops that can prevent blindness in infants infected with herpes. Seven states allow religious exemptions from testing children for lead levels in their blood, and six even allow religious exemptions to students learning about disease in school. In perhaps the most bizarre and potentially dangerous law, public school teachers in California can legally refuse to be tested for tuberculosis on religious grounds.
These exemptions have produced the expected result: Hundreds of children have gotten sick and died because their parents resorted to faith rather than medicine.
We live in the 21st Century. There is no longer ANY excuse for this kind of negligent child abuse to be allowed to continue.
The rights of your religion, or superstitious beliefs, end when it potentially causes injury, or possibly death, to your chld.
Period!
This is unbelievable ! Are all those states pushing to revert back to pre-19th century medicine ? Truly a theocracy is a fucked up place to live in for women and children.
ReplyDeleteI suppose in no state there is an exemption of prosecution for a doctor who refuses, on non-religious reasons, to treat a religious male's non-transmissible diseases of the dick ?
The supposed religious people in the USA are screwing it up royally!
ReplyDeleteEvery child should be vaccinated for the various diseases and no excuses given whatsoever! It's called protecting each other for crying out loud.
Remember too - religion and government were NEVER meant to mix!
The religious right takes the Duggar approach. Kill one kid through negligence, ignorance and misplaced mouth breathing faith and just pop out a replacement.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that why you have so many kids? In case a few die from diseases or farming accidents?
DeleteI cannot think of one valid religious reason for not vaccinating children from diseases that can kill. Some of the advocates for not protecting children from diseases are the same people who oppose abortion for any reason, even maternal health. These people are USING and ABUSING religion, not practicing it.
ReplyDeleteBeaglemom
Something else killing our children. Guns.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/2015/05/22/jackson-three-year-old-victim-of-fatal-shooting/27828943/
"Jackson police said a 3-year-old child died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Friday evening."
Sad.
Just read an excellent book on this topic. Bad Faitth by Dr. Paul Offitt
ReplyDeleteI don't care what religion one belongs to, but if you send your kids to public school, public playgrounds, daycare etc etc etc, you are purposely allowing your child to spread whooping cough, measles and a bunch of other diseases, some deadly, some with long lasting irreversible effects (like sterility) to other kids, including mine. There's no reason in the world.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to hasten your child's meeting their maker, by all means do, but don't take others with you. And the word isn't just child abuse, it's murder. You want your "rights" respected? Fine, but it's a two way street, your "rights" aren't better than anyone else's who trust science to cure their kids, not belief.