In 2011, Pamela Jade Eells died of pneumonia. The 16-year-old from New Plymouth had long suffered from a rare but treatable infection in her pelvic bone. Since the infection was never treated, she developed pneumonia until her lungs filled with fluid.
Pathologist Charles Garrison, who performed the autopsy, described Pamela’s final days this way: “If you’ve ever been in a situation where you can’t breathe, it’s pretty desperate. You’re drowning in your own fluids.” Another physician likened Pamela’s dying to “being waterboarded four or five times a day.”
Pamela’s bone infection and pneumonia could have been cured with antibiotics. Instead, she was given no medical care. Pamela’s parents were members of the Followers of Christ, a religious group that believes that only prayer can cure the sick. And so the Eells allowed their daughter to die an agonizing death.
Pamela’s tragic case is just one of many in which Idaho children become disabled, get very sick, and die. That’s because Idaho state laws allow parents to deny their children needed medical care if they use “prayer or spiritual means alone” to “treat” their children.
Stunningly, legislators seem unmoved by the suffering of these children, insisting that the laws should remain as they are to protect so called “religious freedom.”
In March of this year, senators serving on a task force to study the issue strictly limited public comment and provided no recommendations. At one meeting, despite the unusually high number of child deaths among the Followers of Christ group, legislators made little mention of the need to protect children’s health and instead pontificated about their own beliefs about “faith healing.”
Committee chair Jeff Siddoway tried to persuade attendees that, in cases in which children had died, more child protections still were not needed. His reasoning was based on his belief that lawmakers were essentially doing the dead children a favor by preventing them from receiving necessary medical care. “Those children that have gone on, they’re probably where we’re all trying to get,” said Siddoway.
It is confounding why legislators would take such a position. In defending the current laws, they are essentially advocating that parents deny their children needed medical care, a form of neglect they themselves would most certainly not perpetrate against their own children.
As a person of faith, I know that a loving God does not want children to suffer or die from illness, especially when we possess the knowledge to help them get better. What is also clear is that these elected officials are out of step with the majority of Idahoans. You’d be hard pressed to find many people who think children should have to suffer or die for their parents’ religious beliefs.
Legislators are simply not doing their duty to protect children who desperately need protection from adults responsible for their care. It’s time for us as Idaho citizens to stand up and demand that legislators protect the children of our state and stop sacrificing their health and their lives.
from Don T Breathe - Google News http://ift.tt/2jVQrWc
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