A rchive Date
[ 11-06-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Canada ]
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[Religion shouldn't be a defence in child abuse
By MINDELLE JACOBS
Edmonton Sun
June 11, 2000
If the Red Deer-area couple that refused to get medical treatment for their dying son had lived in Oregon - home base for their wacky religious sect - they probably never would have been prosecuted.
As it is, Steven Shippy and his wife, Ruth, have received only a slap on the wrist for doing nothing to prevent the death of their son Calahan, 14, in December 1998 from complications of diabetes.
Instead of finding them guilty of criminal negligence causing death, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, the judge convicted them of the lesser offence of failing to provide the necessities of life.
And the Crown has indicated it will not ask for a jail term even though the maximum punishment is two years in prison.
In a sense, then, both the judge and the prosecutor have sent out a tacit message that letting your kid die because you think God wants it that way is really not so bad after all.
For all the punishment the Shippys are likely to get, they might as well be in Oregon.
That's home to the group they belong to - the Followers of Christ, a small religious sect that has had one of the largest concentrations of faith-healing child deaths in the U.S.
In an investigative series on faith healing in 1998, the Oregonian newspaper in Portland found that of the 78 Followers of Christ children who have died in Oregon City in the last four decades, at least 21 could have survived with basic medical care.
That's a lot of deaths for such a small sect - there are only 1,200 members in the area. By comparison, noted the Oregonian, the faith-healing Christian Science Church, which has 170,000 members in the U.S., only had 28 child deaths between 1975 and 1995.
There were no prosecutions in any of the Followers of Christ deaths, even though charges were considered several times, including in the case of an Oregon City boy who, like Calahan, died of diabetes in 1998.
The reason why there were no prosecutions is simple. As astounding as it may sound, many U.S. states give faith healers religious exemptions from prosecution.
According to the Oregonian, only Hawaii, Nebraska, North Carolina and Massachusetts have no religious immunities in their legislation.
But more than 40 states have religious exemptions for child abuse or neglect charges. In other words, those who fail to provide their children with the necessities of life - and offer prayer instead - are immune from prosecution.
Oregon made some legislative changes last year requiring faith-healing parents to seek medical care for their kids. But, strangely enough, there is still a religious defence for murder by abuse.
Fundamentalist faith-healing groups in the U.S., which have a startling amount of clout, are to blame for the barbaric religious shield laws in various states and the deaths of scores of children.
And at the federal level, U.S. politicians have ignored the issue. In 1996, Congress enacted a law saying that federal child-protection legislation doesn't require parents to provide medical treatment that violates their religious beliefs.
Here in Canada, thank goodness, there is no religious immunity from prosecution for child abuse or neglect.
But our denunciation for such behaviour must be sharp and unambiguous, otherwise what good are our laws?
Justice Douglas Sirrs was obviously appalled by the Shippy case, noting that Calahan "was emaciated to the point where he looked like a starving victim from the Holocaust."
Yet he chose to convict the Shippys of the less serious charge, almost as if he felt sympathy for their cause.
"I wouldn't change a thing," Steven Shippy said after the verdict. Frightening words from a father with eight other kids.
Mindelle can be reached by e-mail at mjacobs@sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]]
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