On Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008, 11-year-old Madeline Kara Neumann died from untreated diabetes.
Her parents, Dale and Leilani Neumann, say they didn't know their daughter had diabetes. They did know she wasn't well and they prayed for God to heal her.
Today, they pleaded not guilty to second-degree reckless homicide.
From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:
Dale and Leilani Neumann did not speak during their arraignment this morning in Marathon County Circuit Court. Their attorneys entered not guilty pleas for them.
...[They] face up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
A judge recently ordered biweekly check-ups for the Neumanns' three surviving children to make sure they get any needed medical care.
The Neumann's daughter did not have to die. She would not have died if she had received proper medical care.
Kara's parents are responsible for her death and they need to be held accountable for what they DIDN'T do.
4 comments:
If you think about it, you're taking an extreme position.
For example, If your child had leukemia, would you like to live a country that held you criminally accountable for failure to pray for your daughter if she succumbed to this disease?
The Neumann's are no more guilty in the tragic death of their child than you would be for failing to pray for your sick child.
This family has suffered enough. Even if convicted, the conviction will be overturned, so this is just a bunch of needless suffering.
But I suppose it makes some in the atheist community happy.
Well, if anybody wants to discuss this, or look at an alternative viewpoint, please see Doctors are magic.
What are you talking about?
There are no laws in this country requiring parents to pray for their children. There are laws to protect children from parental neglect.
I believe the family has suffered greatly, but that doesn't mean that the parents shouldn't be held accountable for what they did to their daughter.
Seeking medical care and praying for healing are not mutually exclusive.
Comments further above suggest, to a small degree, what I sense the supporters of the argument for the Neumanns' complete innocence are trying to create with this case: legal grounds for the validity of prayer as a legitmate treatment for a medical condition - a treatment that can be legitimately chosen instead of what is known to work - coupled with a "beliefs defense"(if you believe something strongly enough and have demonstrated your devotion to this belief, that makes it as good as real, and therefore it should be acceptable as real in the courts). I anticipate the possibility that many aspects of the legal idea of parental responsibility will be challenged by this in the courts once this this case runs its course. I am sure that the prosecution will win this one, because they are clearly in the right for neglect and manslaughter; but I anticipate quite a challenge to their case based on the right to have certain ideas.
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