A few days ago, in Wisconsin, 11-year-old Madeline Neumann died from undiagnosed diabetes. Her parents prayed over her as she deteriorated, instead of taking her to the hospital.
According to most reports, the Neumanns are a normal American family. They are not members of some weird death-cult. They didn’t show up at military funerals with signs that read “God Hates Fags.” This is, in a way, all the more troubling.
My initial response to this story cannot be published here on account of the vast number of obscenities it involved. I was shocked, and outraged, and demanded immediate removal of the Neumanns’ other children from their home. While breaking up a family in the wake of a tragedy is grim business to say the least, one does hope that law enforcement will keep an eye on the Neumanns. Imposing probation and ordering counseling is the least that can be done.
The fact that the Neumanns’ other children have indeed, for now, been removed from their home may ultimately serve to educate the parents on the fact that their actions, or, rather, their inaction, was indeed wrong.
I am not Christopher Hitchens, and do not wish to use this death to score a point. Let’s put it this way, most parents, religious or not, would take their child to a hospital at the first sign of serious trouble. When it comes to religion, the Neumanns are the exception, not the rule.
As a person of (some) faith, I find that the Neumanns are the perfect illustration to the saying that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” Clearly, the Neumanns “knew” certain passages from the Bible concerning God’s omnipotence and power to heal, etc. And yet did they also not realize that if God allowed His or Her children to create life-saving penicillin, He or She might just want us to use it? Considering that life is a gift and all?
My atheist friends often shrug and say, “well, how can you argue with the crazy crazies?” I consider this position to be defeatist. Why, you can argue with them in all sorts of ways.
The Neumanns, by all accounts, lived a thoroughly modern life. They ran a coffee shop. I’ve worked in several coffee shops, and I can tell you that human invention is a staple of coffee shop life. Your beans won’t grind themselves if you shut your eyes and pray really hard. Neither will your milk steam itself, or your iced drinks blend themselves.
It can be said that the human spirit operates on faith – the same cannot be said for the human body or, for that matter, a 21st century coffee shop. Coffee shops have safety regulations. For example, employees must wear close-toed shoes while at work, so that if they do accidentally spill a giant hot mocha, their feet won’t get scalded. I seriously doubt that the Neumanns would tell a barista, “honey, it’s OK to wear sandals, God’ll heal you if anything goes wrong.”
Likewise, the human body also comes with a safety instructions. Lethargy and vomiting are code-words for Big Trouble- Let’s Go To Hospital Now, for example. So why follow one instruction and not the other?
Human anxiety over medicine is as old as medicine itself. And hey, we have reason to worry. Centuries ago, unscrupulous physicians used the poor as lab rats. Nowadays, unscrupulous drug companies push potentially dangerous products onto an unsuspecting populace. This is all besides the giant farce that HMO’s and other such abominations have made out of American medicine in general.
Like all things in life, medicine can be a double-edged sword. And yet, the medical establishment is a cornerstone of any society that wishes to survive. If you read the Bible and, instead of cherry-picking quotes for your own self-rationalization or, for that matter, amusement, you may notice that God steps in with medical miracles when human innovation fails. Jesus didn’t elbow some midwife out of the way, for example, yelling “I can do it better!”
Is there a lesson in that? Perhaps.
And as for young Madeline, did she die as the result of someone else’s malicious intent? No, she died because her parents were ignorant – not only of health issues, but of their own faith. I can only hope that someone will be able to help them educate themselves on the matter.
Social ostracism is the worst thing that can happen to the Neumanns right now; it will only serve to radicalize their position even further. Remember, they have three other children, children who ought to be able to live out the rest of their lives to their fullest potential.
Social ostracism is probably the last thing on my radar. Whether they’re intent was malicious; whether their religion was to blame, I could care less.
These people obviously lack the “CHILD IN DANGER – DO SOMETHING!” gene which in my mind makes them a clear danger to their other children. They shouldn’t be in charge of another human life. Let them stick to coffee and keep the kids far far away.
Natalia said: “According to most reports, the Neumanns are a normal American family. They are not members of some weird death-cult.”
That depends on what’s called “normal.” According to online reports, the Neumanns apparently followed, or at least gave excessive credit to, the teachings of some Christian spiritualist named David Eells, and were praying with David Eells over the phone while their daughter was deteriorating.
In the state of Georgia, where I live, this kind of religious lunacy is not that uncommon. Fortunately, the state of Georgia does prosecute cases like this either as negligent homicide or reckless endangerment of children. These prosecutions are widely publicized, and hopefully, religious parents learn from these prosecutions that they are required to provide medical care for their children regardless of religious beliefs. The U.S. Supreme Court has already ruled that religious belief is not a defense in cases involving the abuse/neglect of children.
What’s especially troubling is the news that Madeleine Neumann had not seen a doctor since she was three years old, i.e., she was a growing child and she had not seen a doctor at all for eight years. If that is shown to be part of a pattern of neglect of medical care for Madeleine, I’m pretty sure that in the state of Georgia, that could be used as evidence supporting at least a charge of reckless endangerment of a child. Wisconsin law is probably similar.
The question is when Madeleine’s parents have reason to know that she was seriously ill? Some neighbors report that they saw Madeleine a week before her death and that she looked fine. But the Neumanns’ own extended family report that the child was obviously seriously ill for anywhere from a week to 10 days before her death. The question of when the Neumann parents “should” have known that their daughter was seriously ill would have bearing on the question of whether the parents’ behavior from March 21-23, 2008, constituted criminal neglect. The claim by a U. Wisconsin professor that if the parents did not actually intend for Madeleine to die and if they had a good-faith belief in the power of prayer, then the parents could not be criminally charged, would apply only if Madeleine’s symptoms could have fooled a “reasonable” parent — i.e., under the circumstances, could a “reasonable” parent possibly have reacted as the Neumann parents did?
This is where the eight-year hiatus in Madeleine’s doctor visits figures in. In the state of Georgia, it could probably be shown that a “reasonable” parent would have provided at least yearly doctor visits for a growing child; the same is probably true in Wisconsin law. In other words, a “reasonable” parent would have known that Madeleine’s symptoms were serious because yearly doctor visits would have made the parent aware of Madeleine’s diabetes (the Neumann parents did not know Madeleine had diabetes). So a “reasonable” parent would not have been fooled by Madeleine’s symptoms, and thus the Neumann parents can be held liable for not being aware that their daughter’s symptoms were serious.
I bring up this long argument because Natalia expressed the hope that education could help people like the Neumann parents understand the need for proper medical care for their children, regardless of the parents’ religious beliefs. In the state of Georgia, it seems that only widely-publicized prosecutions for neglect and abuse can teach religious parents that they are legally required to provide a certain standard of care for their kids. In Georgia, religious parents sometimes use their religion as a pretext for shielding their own childcare practices from public scrutiny, and such parents might pay lip service to educational efforts but later seize opportunities to again prevent public scrutiny of their childrearing. That’s why, in Georgia, widely-publicized prosecutions seem to be a necessary component of educating religious parents that they will be required to provide a minimum level of care. I actually suspect that the Neumann psrents themselves were engaging in a pattern of shielding their childrearing practices from public scrutiny, both through homeschooling their children (public school nurses could have noticed Madeleine’s condition) and through failing to provide yearly doctor visits for Madeleine. That’s why I hope the district attorney in Wisconsin will bring the full weight of the law to bear on the Neumann parents.
These arguments are not meant to ignore the distress felt by everyone over Madeleine’s death. But I do believe that public prosecution is the most effective way of preventing future cases like Madeleine’s, by teaching religious parents that, at some point, they will be held accountable for their childrearing practices.
Correction to the above post, 5th paragraph, 1st sentence: “… when Madeleine’s parents have reason to know” should read “… when DID Madeleine’s parents have reason to know”.
Unfortunately Wisconsin has a “faith-healing” law. They tried to strike it down after a child was killed in an exorcism, but the loonies outnumbered the sane people.
I doubt the death of Madeline Neumann will therefore make a difference, as sad as it may sound.
Hence the need to make sure that, at the very least, her parents a damn aware of the fact that what they did (or didn’t do) was wrong wrong wrong.
The case exposes the rediculous nature of “faith.” Butcon when the author concludes that the parents should have realized that God allowed the development of insulin, etc, she is committing a similar crime . . . she is prepetuating the belief in an at once omnipotent God that somehow needs human help to affect change on earth, make insulin, etc. Why? In reality, faith is required precisely to explain the fact that God does not intervene in human activities–(presumably because he doesnt exist). God did not invent insulin. People of various religions developed insulin. Besides, why bother calling 911 at all? Using the same redicuous retrospective fuzzy logic, one might conclude that if God had wanted to save the girl, he would have helped change the parent’s minds about their faith in healing, and she might have lived. But, sadly, God was just not involved. The parents utterly illogical belief system killed the child. Chalk another one up for religion.