I came across this article about parents on trial for murdering their 15 year old son. From reading the article I gather the parents are very religious which brought up the question as to wether their horrible neglect (abuse) was cause from a belief that medical treatment is a sin. Or maybe they are just horrible human beings who just let their type 1 child go untreated and die a very slow, agonizing death for no reason at all!
Horrible, unnecessary, psycho, evil… how could you just sit by and watch your own child suffer such pain and agony knowing a simple shot would make it all go away?
I’m not among those who think all religion is a form of delusion, but “pentecostal” generally implies a sect that is invested in miracle-seeking of various kinds (speaking in tongues, “slaying in the spirit,” healings etc). And what gets me boiling is not the crazy but the sheer arrogance–and worse, the fact that that arrogance masks itself as humility. I mean, look, the kid didn’t have some inoperable cancer or mystery disease. He had something for which there is a perfectly effective, easily administered and widely available treatment. But you’re going to get down on your knees and pray for God to set aside the natural laws of the universe (which She Herself created) instead of just putting him in the car and taking him to the ER? And you’re praying not as a supplement to this, but as a substitute for it? And this is, you think, “humility”–bowing to the Divine Will etc? When She already put the answer right in front of you–lucky you, unlike some other poor sod whose kid has some horrible form of lukemia–but you choose not to exercise that option because “faith”? This is something you think a just and moral divinity is going to reward you for? Even by their own terms, can’t they see how radically wrong this behavior is?
Someone once pointed out to me that it’s really easy to tell what bugged Jesus the most–just do a word count. By far the single most frequent term of condemnation–and we’re talking not by just a couple, but like orders of magnitude–Jesus used to describe people who were opposed to what he was trying to impart: “Hypocrite.”
There’s also this joke, which I hesitated to post because what happened to this kid is in no way funny, but it does illustrate the point. Very faithful guy, lives in a flood zone. One day the fire trucks come up the street, megaphones blaring there’s a flood coming and people should evacuate. “I will not evacuate,” says the guy, “but trust in God to save me!” So a few hours later and the flood waters are up to his first floor and the emergency crews come by in a boat offering to rescue him. “I will remain,” he declares, “trusting in the Almighty to save me!” So finally, flood waters up to the attic, he’s on the roof, they send a helicopter… same answer. “Almighty” yadda yadda. Water’s still rising, house goes under, guy drowns. Shows up wet and disheveled on the steps of paradise, demanding to know what the heck happened. “I told everyone the Almighty would save me!” he bitterly complains. To which the Almighty replies “I sent a fire truck, I sent a boat, I sent a friggin helicopter…”
Pentecostal actually refers to the work of the Holy Spirit (the day of Pentecost). I generally have no problem with that. It’s when they turn God’s Word into an incantation that I have a problem. Just as drinking kale shakes won’t “cure” my Type 1 diabetes (or Type 2, for that matter), claiming that you can MAKE God do what you want by quoting scripture is ludicrous.
I believe God can miraculously cure someone, but that doesn’t mean I expect it to be in God’s will that it happens.
God gave us minds, too. We have used those minds to develop ways to combat disease and sickness.
It’s like that story of a man stuck on his roof as the flood waters rise.
“Save me, Lord!”
A guy in a boat comes by. “Hop in!”
“I’m waiting for God to deliver me!”
Another boat comes by as the water is 2/3rds covering his home.
“Jump in!”
“I’m waiting for God’s deliverance!”
Finally, a helicopter comes by to take him off his almost-completely submerged house. “We’ll pull you up!”
“I’m waiting for God’s deliverance!”
The house is submerged. The man drowns and is up in heaven.
“I waited for your deliverance, Lord, and it never came!”
“What are you talking about? I sent two boats and a helicopter!”
How could an entire family, the social service that put him back in the home, the school, the neighbors, the church, his friends not do anything?!?
This story has been viral over the last week and each article has it’s own “spin”. I hope the truth and answers to why and how this happened will be less opinionated. RIP Alex
One wonders how such parents could put faith in the words of a book written so very many years ago and translated into many different versions of the Bible.
But this is a different scenario from the more usual ones where the child needs an operation, a procedure or something relatively short term. This child needed a lifetime of needles, insulin and money to keep him alive. Well within the realms of possibility, but how do you compel the parents to provide the care that would be needed well into the future. Is it in the child’s best interests to take him away from his home and placed in a foster home? I despair at man’s inhumanity to man.
other articles I’ve read said that Alex and his siblings were registered as homeschool students and that Alex rarely or never left the home and had not seen a doctor since moving provinces. So it’s very possible that neighbours, friends, and educational and medical professionals had no idea what was happening.
He actually was taken away from his parents when he was young due to concerns that they weren’t treating his diabetes. Then, somehow, a judge allowed him back into their home. Then they moved to a different province and there was no communication between government agencies that this family may need close monitoring.
Just sad all around. I put the blame squarely on the parents, although there is some failure of the child welfare system. It doesn’t seem to be completely a religious thing to reject hospital care, I’ve read other stories where the father said he wanted to take the kid to the hospital but the kid refused so he didn’t take him. The parents obviously knew the kid was in bad shape but didn’t act.
The blame does not rest solely on the parents. Among others, there were friends who saw this child in this dire state…yet, as opposed to calling an ambulance or the police, they chose to stay and pray. God gifted us with the intelligence needed to discover treatments and cures for a myriad of conditions. For this to occur in this time and age, in a modern society, is absolutely appalling and unforgivable. I hope the parents and others involved get their just punishment.
They can of course practice their religion, up until someone dies because of it, like now. They will now face the consequences which I hope will be as harsh as if a stranger killed the boy because that is what they did.
I suppose that is one of the dangers of a system that allows parents to opt for home schooling of a child, it is too easy for some parents to hide abuse from the outside world. Home schooling might have a place in some farming neighbourhoods and remote fishing villages but it is difficult to justify a place for it in large cities today.
I think the parents of this unfortunate little boy should have their beta cells surgically removed (if this were possible) and then not be given insulin. Ever. Then their church buddies can come visit them in prison and pray over them while they waste away in horrible pain.
So, the government owns our kids and we should have no say in how they’re educated?
I’m no religious fanatic and think what the parents did to that little boy should be classified as murder but the last thing I want is some unanswerable bureaucrat “deciding” they don’t like how I’m raising my kids because they disagree with my view point.
I am forced to wonder if the judge who allowed this child to be returned to a set of parents who had explicitly denied his diagnosis and demonstrated an inability to care for his medical needs had the necessary understanding about type 1 diabetes that was needed in this instance.
I can’t really fathom why this child was EVER returned to those parents under those circumstances unless the judge lacked the understanding that without regular, consistent, thoughtful insulin injections, death by starvation or by DKA were the only possible outcomes. When that is factored into the equation, you can’t under any circumstances say that life with parents who may love the child but can’t or won’t care for him is what’s best for the child’s well-being. So I can only conclude that the judge failed to do his/her homework, and/or whomever was advocating for the child likewise failed to ensure that the information was transmitted.
“What I remember is the mother still not accepting the diagnosis of diabetes and initially did not want to learn how to manage it. Eventually she did comply on how, to get the child home, but never did acknowledge the diagnosis.”
As always these articles leave you with more questions than answers–was it just the pentecostalist belief in “gifts of the spirit”–miracle cures–that they were clinging to? The obstinacy just seems… excessive… even with such beliefs in play. Curious about what this particular sect’s tenets really are, I did some googling around and found the article below. It’s a kind of outsider-insider’s take on the sect in general. It’s not about the situation in the OP but I think sheds a lot of light on it. Apparently they have a deeply ingrained us-versus-them mentality that is rooted in historical causes like their repression under Soviet rule, the shock of being transplanted to the West and trying to preserve their identity in a much more permissive society. The writer describes is very eloquently making the case that the result of that history has been toxic to the community to which he belongs. I suspect that the unspeakable abuse of this boy will strengthen that case considerably.
For most people, myself included, being able to vote for who you want on your local school board, participating in PTA meetings at your kid’s school, communicating regularly with your kid’s teachers and monitoring how your kid is doing, gives me more than enough control over my child’s education.
For those who want control beyond that, balancing their concerns against the desire to prevent the concealment of severe child abuse as was the case here, I would opt to prioritize protecting the safety of the child over the ideologies of some parents, any time.
