Last spring an 11-year-old girl from Wisconsin named Kara died because her parents prayed for her to get better — instead of calling a doctor to treat her diabetes. The girl’s parents are being tried this spring for reckless endangerment. Kara’s condition was easily treatable.

I can’t imagine her parents wanted her to die. At least, I would like to think they didn’t want her to die. But as a parent who would do whatever necessary to help my kids, I just can’t understand the logic. And certainly there is a time for prayer if you believe in that sort of thing, but not instead of medical treatment that would save her life. Religious Jews would drive to a hospital on the Sabbath if their health were at risk. Wouldn’t God prefer that? If you believe in God, isn’t it God who helped to “create” the scientists who are discovering these treatments? Isn’t it in some way under that guidance that we’ve come as far as we’ve come medically?

Kara’s parents are challenging the trial by saying their religious freedom is being trampled. They are right — it is being trampled — and to that I say, when it comes to a child who can’t make her own decisions, too freaking bad. There is a time and a place for everything. If you want to pray for your own health, instead of getting treatment, be my guest, but a child has the right to get treatment when her parents are choosing to deny it to her. Kara is dead because her parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, chose to pray instead of calling a doctor.

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Tags: health & medical, religion & philosophy // 1 Comment »