There is a fantastic and dangerous lie, unmentioned and assumed, in human society: parents know what’s best for their child. The simple fact is that sometimes parents need to be told what’s good for their child. This is why the American Academy of Pediatrics recently introduced a policy advocating state intervention where there is a conflict between the parent’s choice and what is good for a sick child.
Although respect for parents’ decision-making authority is an important principle, pediatricians should report suspected cases of medical neglect, and the state should, at times, intervene to require medical treatment of children. Some parents’ reasons for refusing medical treatment are based on their religious or spiritual beliefs. In cases in which treatment is likely to prevent death or serious disability or relieve severe pain, children’s health and future autonomy should be protected.
Unbelievably some people don’t think a child’s well-being should trump the parent’s beliefs even if those beliefs place the child’s life in danger. Brent Hunter, a chiropractor and graduate of Life University, recently crossed my radar when, on his blog over at Natural News, he made the wild claim that choosing the right medical treatment for a child is some form of oppression.
This is Ludicrous! This is America – the land of the free! This country was founded on religious liberty. America’s Founding Fathers desired a country where people were free to practice their religion and live their lives free of oppression.
No, Mr Hunter, what’s ludicrous is that it’s legal for parents to essentially murder their child in some parts of the United States. A child’s safety must always be placed above the daft and dangerous superstitious beliefs of their parents, no matter how strong their conviction.
This isn’t just a philosophical point, children are dying due to barbaric, vile and utterly incomprehensible religious beliefs. Professor Jerry Coyne wrote a piece over on his blog website detailing some of the deaths kids have suffered at the hands of their parents, all because of their faith in god and a lack of basic medical knowledge.
Here’s one case but I recommend reading the full piece for a better understanding of just how religion can pervert the basic genetic impulses of a parent to care for their offspring.
One teenager asked teachers for help getting medical care for fainting spells, which she had been refused at home. She ran away from home, but law enforcement returned her to the custody of her father. She died 3 days later from a ruptured appendix.
Brent later goes on to produce a list of conflicts between religion and vaccines. Emphasis is his.
- Vaccines are made with toxic chemicals that are injected into the bloodstream by vaccination.
- All vaccines are made with foreign proteins (viruses and bacteria), and some vaccines are made with genetically engineered viral and bacterial materials.
- A conflict arises if you believe that man is made in God’s image and the injection of toxic chemicals and foreign proteins into the bloodstream is a violation of God’s directive to keep the body/temple holy and free from impurities.
- A conflict arises if you accept God’s warning not to mix the blood of man with the blood of animals.
- Many vaccines are produced in animal tissues.
- A conflict arises if your religious convictions are predicated on the belief that all life is sacred.
Yes, vaccines do contain chemicals that are toxic to humans but, and this is crucial, you have to be exposed to deadly doses in order to die, and this just doesn’t happen with vaccines. See this piece at ScienceBasedMedicine.org for more on the “toxic myths”.
As for the conflicts between god and science, well I’m sorry but evidence-based medicine wins every time. If you’re willing to let your child suffer and die because you think a fairytale character will save them then you’re an awful parent and you don’t deserve, nor should you be allowed, to care for an innocent child.
Smithware 