Word: oregon
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...also represents a legal conundrum. Terry Gustafson, district attorney for the Oregon City area, says of a recent death, "If you or I had committed the same crime against our own child, we would be looking at 25 years in the penitentiary." Yet Gustafson refuses to prosecute, calling it futile. Reason: an Oregon statute that exempts faith-healing parents from manslaughter charges. In protesting that law, Gustafson finds herself in high-powered company: the Academy of American Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and the National District Attorneys Association all oppose similar immunities in six states and lesser exemptions countrywide...
...problematic laws have defenders. The First Church of Christ, Scientist, the largest U.S. religious body favoring spiritual healing over medical attention, has long argued for them. Christian Science spokesman Gary Jones describes as "terrible" the prospect that public rage at the Oregon deaths might "stop the inquiry into more effective means of treatment" by spiritual means. Champions of repeal, of course, feel otherwise. A report in the April issue of the professional journal Pediatrics documented 140 child deaths "from religion-motivated medical neglect" between 1975 and 1995, attributed to 23 religious denominations in 34 states. Its co-author, Texas critical...
...Followers of Christ Church seems to have originated in Kansas in the early 1900s. Its breakaway Oregon City branch was led by Walter White, an authoritarian, apocalypse-preaching pastor known as the Apostle, who died in 1969. After finishing their schooling, church members try to avoid socializing with the outsiders, but several own local businesses. "These are law-abiding people with a good work ethic," says a prosecutor's investigator. "The only way they really differ is in their faith healing...
...make parents who fail to obtain medical treatment for their seriously ill children liable. However, a 1974 federal child-care program made funding contingent on the states' exempting faith-healing parents. That requirement no longer exists, but 41 states retain exemptions from local civil-abuse and -neglect laws. In Oregon, Arkansas, Delaware, Iowa, Ohio and West Virginia there are also exemptions from criminal homicide or manslaughter charges. Says Gustafson: "I've spent nights trying to figure out a way to bring the message to this church that you can't kill your kids on the basis of religious beliefs...
...Oregon deaths make even some of the exemptions' predictable champions a bit queasy. Jones, of Christian Science, says he personally believes "taking care of a child is a sacred responsibility. If one form of treatment is not working, parents have an obligation to investigate other alternatives," including doctors or hospitals. He maintains, however, that even Oregon-style exemptions (he prefers "accommodations") are "a door to religious freedom." Steven McFarland, head of the Center for Law and Religious Freedom, a conservative Christian group, demurs. "The First Amendment protects religious belief absolutely, but not religious practice. Child welfare is a classic example...