Have faith and ye shall be healed...

..or so they thought.

Fox News:

[?="Rest is spoilered."]Vergin said he expect the investigation to wrap up by Friday and the findings to be forwarded to the district attorney to review for possible charges.

The family moved to Weston from California about two years ago to open a coffee shop and be closer to other relatives, the Neumanns said. They live in rural Weston, in a modern, middle class home in the some woods. A basketball hoop is set up in the driveway.

Officers went to the home after a relative in California asked police to check on the girl. She was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.

According to Vergin, the parents told investigators Madeline last saw a doctor when she was 3 to get some shots. The girl had attended public school during the first semester but didn't return for the second semester, he said.

Mrs. Neumann said she deeply loves all her children and has nurtured them spiritually, emotionally and physically.

"Our lives are in God's hands and whatever we go through we are just going to trust him," she said. "We need healing. We are going through the healing process."[/?]

So if you read the skinny, you get the gist. The parents never took their daughter to any medical practitioner and instead used the power of prayer as a means to relieve illness. I'm not going to say it was a lack of faith that allowed little Madeline to die, but it is also stated that the form of diabeties she suffered from was easily treatable with medical attention.

Prosecutors on Fox News last night (I actually saw the story last night on TV first) were saying things about bringing up charges of negligence, reckless endangerment, abuse, manslaughter, so on and so forth. The kicker in this is that there is a statute that allows for parents to make a choice between medical treatment and the power of prayer without any criminal liability if choosing the former in the state they live in. So really, they are at a point where they are coming out of this without having to suffer charges (personally I'm still up in the air about whether or not they should be charged) and still have 3 other children who could eventually be at further health risk.

What of this do you think? Should there be a limit or ammendment to the law already in place? Should these parents be punished for their belief?

Idiots.

I think the kid should have been taken off them.

It basically boils down to a simple question, would Madeline Neumann be alive today if her folks had been atheists?

No. Their daughter would be alive if they had sought medical attention for her.

So, you're saying she wouldn't be alive in her folks had been atheists?

Obviously they should be punished for their beliefs, people are punished for their beliefs all the time. They let someone die when they had it in their power to prevent it; easily within their power actually - but their belief system interfered with protecting a life within their care. Personally I'd go with manslaughter here; there was no malicious intent - and any community service they might have to render should be done in children's hospitals.

That is all good and well, but at first sign of illness no one had brought her to see a doctor. The girl had not received any form of medical care since 3 years of age. The fact of the matter is that if even the smallest of precautions had been taken this young girl would not have died.

So, you're saying she wouldn't be alive in her folks had been atheists?[/QUOTE]

Correct. Just because they are atheists does not mean they would get her medical attention. Hell they could be part of the FSM church, but until you phrase it "... and brought her to see a doctor." my answer doesn't change.

A seemingly healthy 11 year old suddenly dies.

The rest is spin.

Isn't this a repost?

Took a while before I got a break:

The particular problem that killed her, diabetic ketoacidosis, is caused in the very late onset of untreated diabeties, as well as hypoglycemia. There are noticable symptoms of both diabeties and diabetic ketoacidosis that were ignored by the girl's parents. You read what you want to read, obviously you've already spun it your own way, but I'm not going to take the word of a woman whose neglect led to her child's death. Why would anyone? Despite being strong in her convictions she would definitely want to say that nothing appeared wrong in her own defense.

I realize that they did "try" to help their daughter in their own way, which in their state they are allowed to do, but at which point does it become wrong of the parents to allow their child to die because they chose not to seek medical help? What I was trying to get across to begin with, the question I was asking was at what point do you hold the parents accountable? Is there a minimum amount of time for the child to be sick before you would consider it life threatening?

Usually, that sentence ends with '...and btw, I'll need all your belongings to make it happen'

Na, seriously. This isn't the first such case, even have them here every few years. I think children should be taken away from such parents. And no, that's not because of the religious loonyism, it's because they are hurting and killing their own children in their complete insanity.

Don't worry, they have three more munchkins that can become bastards of the state.

More bleach for the gene pool. Hopefully the parents will evolve and knock out that bullshit.

If not, then it's just that much less competition.

Of course they have.

Not too mention that if their hot virginal fundie daughters survive to 15, you can easily impress them with antibiotics.

The girls father was a cop???? Former cop?? I bet he was too stupid to be a cop.

Yep... having "beliefs" doesn't exempt you from responsibility or free you from obeying the law.

Sad.

Its alright to pray that your child gets better, but part of the process is going to the doctor to at least give her a fighting chance.

Some people take faith/religion/belief to an extreme level and it only ends up screwing them over.

There is a Russian saying: "When at sea in a storm, pray for salvation, but continue to row for shore."

Give a man a fish and he will eat for one day.
Teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life.
Give a man a religion and he will starve to death while praying for a fish.

locustinferno agrees: Find me the original post and I'll concede.

http://www.wordforge.net/showthread.php?t=59539

Ain't nothing sudden about it. Chances are good there were a lot of symptoms that parents were ignoring before that last month, and, let's be frank, she wasn't "ill" for 30 days. She was dying for 30 days. They could have prevented her death.

And why didn't they? Because they thought that even though God has blessed the world with thousands upon thousands of talented physicians, they were going to ignore it all and just go directly to the source. As Franklin said, God helps those that help themselves. Or, if we're going strictly Biblical, God helps the helpless - these people had every opportunity to get the help they needed for their daughter, and they didn't.

Now, I ain't saying prayer has no business in treatment. Simply the knowledge that people are praying for someone who is ill can have tremendous health benefits. But it needs to be part of the treatment, not the treatment.

Then we agree that this child didn't die because of some vague faith.

Again that's a valid perspective that has nothing to do with religion. As the mother said herself "The family does not belong to an organized religion or faith."

Correct. Just because they are atheists does not mean they would get her medical attention.[/QUOTE]Much like if they had faith does not mean they would not get her medical attention.

This is an unfounded opinion. Why so willing to believe the symptoms were obviously ignored? No where in the article does it suggest the mother is incompetent or blinded by some sort of faith. The only reason this mother of four who lost a child is being showered with scorn instead of sympathy is the religion is evil angle that is so popular these day. We've already agreed this could just as easily have happened to an atheist family.

Here's what the American Diabetes Association has to say about the symptoms:

Guess the thread title mislead me. Sounded like you blamed faith for this child's death.

Time is but one of many factors in that equation. And in this case the time for which the child was noticeably sick is highly questionable.

^A quote from Police Chief Dan Vergin.