Child Welfare Often Trumps Religious Freedom

When I was suffering from a bout of writer’s block, the editor of the Hartford Business Journal recommended that the sure cure was a cut in pay, longer working hours, and no distractions such as lunch or bathroom breaks.

Who would have thought? In a matter of weeks, I was cranking out snappy, funny, perceptive, interesting columns about utility regulation and the Permanent Commission on the Status of Women, whatever that is.

That’s not to say I couldn’t have cured myself through faith or alcohol, but sometimes, it pays to listen to the professionals.

Nowhere is the clash between faith and responsibility more pronounced than in matters of medical care, when religious belief or personal idiosyncrasy comes between patient and medical professional.

In May, the news media were all atwitter over the case of a 13-year-old boy with cancer, whose mother refused his chemotherapy and then fled with her son, before finally returning and agreeing to treatment. At the same time, a mom in Wisconsin was convicted of second-degree reckless homicide for failing to seek treatment for her daughter’s diabetes. Mom prayed for healing. The child died.

From the most homegrown of local courts to the loftiest appellate jurisdictions at the federal level, these cases pop up with some regularity. In general, the courts have kind of concluded that while adults can refuse medical treatment, the state often has sufficient justification to demand treatment for minors, even if it trumps First Amendment rights for “freedom of religion.”

As George P. Fletcher, a law professor at Columbia University, described a similar case in the 1990s involving a mother held liable for the death of her child: “The defendant mother said that she should not be liable because she believed, in good faith, that prayer would heal the child. She has a right to believe that, but she has no right to inflict the costs of her belief on the child or the father.”

Adults have much more legal flexibility and “freedom” to refuse medical treatment — as well as engage in dangerous activities related to religion — than children. In the South, there are still occasional cases involving handling of poisonous snakes by members of Pentecostal groups — with judges sorting out what may be appropriate for adults and what may be illegal for children.

A 1996 state Supreme Court in Connecticut ruled that competent, informed adult patients can refuse hospital treatment, in a case involving a Jehovah’s Witness at Stamford Hospital.

As far back as 1880, a Pennsylvania court found a father guilty of child neglect for failing to obtain medical treatment for one of his children.

To be sure, the courts and legislatures are somewhat conflicted about how intrusive the states should be in such personal matters of faith and love. A 1989 case in California involving two Christian Science parents whose daughter died of meningitis went to the jury, which found them not guilty of involuntary manslaughter, but guilty of “child endangerment.” A compromise, to be sure.

One of the most painful of these kinds of cases staggered through the Pennsylvania courts in the late 1960s and early 1970s, involving a boy with a severe spinal curvature, whose mother refused corrective surgery because of a religious objection to blood transfusions. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania eventually ruledthat the state could not intervene because the child’s “life” was not at risk. In the complex language of law, these cases are known as “icky.” They don’t come up terribly often, but the end result never leaves everyone happy.

Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.