When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children, and the Law

by Shawn Francis Peters

Relying on religious traditions that are as old as their faith itself, many devout Christians turn to prayer rather than medicine when their children fall victim to illness or injury. Faith healers claim that their practices are effective in restoring health - more effective, they say, than modern medicine. But, over the past century, hundreds of children have died after being denied the basic medical treatments furnished by physicians because of their parents' intense religious beliefs. The tragic deaths of these youngsters have received intense scrutiny from both the news media and public authorities seeking to protect the health and welfare of children.

When Prayer Faith Healing, Children, and the Law is the first book to fully examine the complex web of legal and ethical questions that arise when criminal prosecutions are mounted against parents whose children die as a result of the phenomenon known by experts as religion-based medical neglect. Do constitutional protections for religious liberty shield parents who fail to provide adequate medical treatment for their sick children? Are parents likewise shielded by state child-neglect faith laws that seem to include exemptions for healing practices? What purpose do prosecutions really serve when it's clear that many deeply religious parents harbor no fear of temporal punishment? Peters offers a review of important legal cases in both England and America from the 19th century to the present day. He devotes special attention to cases involving Christian Science, the source of many religion-based medical neglect deaths, but also considers cases arising from the refusal of
Jehovah's witnesses to allow blood transfusions or inoculations. Individual cases dating back to the mid-19th century illuminate not only the legal issues at stake but also the profound human drama of religion-based medical neglect of children.

Based on a wide array of primary and secondary source materials - among them judicial opinions, trial transcripts, police and medical examiner reports, news accounts, personal interviews, and scholarly studies - this book explores efforts by the legal system to balance judicial protections for the religious liberty of faith-healers against the state's obligation to safeguard the rights of children.

262 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2007

About the author

An internationally-recognized expert on religious liberty issues, Shawn Peters has been featured by CNN, PBS, Court TV, Time magazine, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of four books and has twice been recognized by the American Society of Legal Writers for outstanding achievement. He currently teaches in the Integrated Liberal Studies Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Reviews

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fantastic, but incredibly depressing read. Reading about a child dying on each page was incredibly hard, but I feel that it is an important situation to learn about. My only criticism of this book is the bias of the author. While I agree with Peters' opinions majority of the time, sometimes his own bias is the only thing on the page. I would have preferred if there was a bit more of a deep dive into the other side. Besides that, it was an amazing book and I highly recommend it.

[Jacob Hudgins · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating subject. In cases of faith healing Christian sects, when do parental rights and religious liberty hold sway and when do a child’s rights supersede them? How does the state determine a compelling interest to protect children, especially before they die as a result of parents who will not seek medical treatment for them?

Peters details the long, horrific history of children who die of treatable or preventable diseases because their parents insist on applying James 5:13-15 to the exclusion of modern medicine. Christian Science practitioners, Pentecostal groups, and Jehovah’s Witnesses are the most frequent offenders. Sometimes prosecution follows the death of the children, but almost never do serious penalties occur. It is harrowing to read of the suffering of these poor children.

I felt that the book lacked some things. How did this issue change as the medical field made advancements (from, say 1800 to today)? Why do the overwhelming majority of Christian groups find no conflict between James 5 and modern medicine? The narrative simply moves from one case and its fallout to another, never drawing broader conclusions or providing analysis. Even a general summary would’ve been helpful.

[Tanya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shifting between heart-wrenching stories of children allowed to suffer and die due to the dictates of their parent's religion and the legal battles that resulted, the book proves an excellent resource in structuring an argument against religious exemptions to child abuse and medical neglect laws. Reading the book from cover to cover, however, was difficult simply because of the similarities from case to case. Fortunately, common sense and compassion for the welfare of children has repealed many of these exemptions since the book was written in 2007, but there's still much work to be done.

[TK Larsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

well writtebook about child abuse do to neglect based on religious ideas