Faith healing: Finally, Oregon looks and sees the emergency
Susan Nielsen ("The Oregonian," May 15, 2011)
Oregon, USA - Finally, Oregon sees the headstones. The death reports. The
photos of children disfigured or killed from lack of medical care.
Finally, Oregon will change its status as the nation's most lenient state
for parents who let their children suffer in the name of religion.
It took decades to get here.
It will take minutes to vote on legislation that will declare an emergency
and mandate immediate change.
"After 50 years, we have an emergency bill," says child advocate Rita Swan,
a little wryly. She temporarily moved from Iowa to Oregon this year to
lobby for reform. Though she's pleased the national tides have turned against
faith-based child abuse, she mourns the children lost along the way --
including her own.
The Oregon Legislature appears poised this week to approve House Bill 2721,
which would force the state to stop granting extra legal privileges to
parents with certain religious beliefs. Parents who let their children die of
medical neglect would no longer automatically receive special treatment and
lighter sentences by using religion as a defense.
Oregon would no longer maintain a two-track legal system, one designed to
treat a type of child abuse as above the law.
"It's been happening for years," says bill sponsor Rep. Carolyn Tomei,
D-Milwaukie, who is joined by Sen. Bruce Starr, R-Hillsboro, in leading the
charge. "It gives one chills, and it's time to say, 'Enough.'"
Many states once granted immunity to parents who treat their sick children
with prayer alone. Most states abandoned this approach after realizing they
were enabling child abuse more than protecting religious freedom. Oregon
remains one of the few states to automatically shield faith-healing parents
from prosecution for homicide or first-degree manslaughter. Oregon also
exempts faith-healing parents from mandatory sentences under Measure 11.
"Oregon's current laws," says Swan, "reward fanatacism and absolutism."
They also appear to violate basic equal protection laws: Though most
parents in Oregon are required by law to meet the minimum standards of
parenthood, a chosen few are not.
The consequences of this double standard stretch back decades.
Oregon is the longtime home of the Followers of Christ church, a sect based
in Oregon City in which members believe in treating sickness with prayer
and oil rather than medicine. Getting glasses or dental care is sometimes
considered OK. Seeking medical help for yourself or your sick child is not.
This helps explain the church's high child mortality rate, its long history
of children dying from treatable conditions, the rows of kids' headstones
in the church cemetery.
Mickey Lansing, executive director of the Oregon Commission on Children and
Families, says she'd heard about the church long ago, when she was a
student at West Linn High School. Even then, the church "was well-known for
children not receiving medical care and, in some instances, dying because that
did not occur," Lansing told lawmakers in recent public testimony.
She added, "In August of this year I will be attending my 50th class
reunion for West Linn High School. Fifty years is a very long time for this to
continue."
Since 2009, several parents in the Followers of Christ church have been
prosecuted or sanctioned for failing to provide their children with medical
care. One child was a 15-month-old girl who died of untreated pneumonia and
an infection. Another was a teenage boy who slowly died of an untreated
urinary blockage. Another child suffered a massive untreated growth that
disfigured her face and compromised her vision.
These high-profile cases roused the Legislature from its slumber. They also
inspired Swan, the national child advocate, to drive to Oregon and lobby
for change.
Swan says her son died in 1977 after she and her husband, under the
direction of their church, withheld necessary medical care. She still
struggles to
talk about this child whom they "loved without measure" and failed.
Instead, she explains why a single legal standard is not just a moral
imperative
for Oregon, but also a clearer guideline for people in religious sects.
"It would relieve parents of the moral tension of violating laws of the
church," she says. "It would clarify what society expects of them."
The Oregon House unanimously approved this faith-healing bill. The Senate
is expected to approve it this week, after adding an "emergency clause" to
speed its enactment. The sudden urgency, after so many decades of deference
and inaction, is a strange and bittersweet relief.
--
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