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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 20939
[Legal]
Date Posted:
7/24/2009
3:40:05 pm EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 3,063
RSS: 12,607
Comments: 9
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Faith-Healing Parents Found Not Guilty Of Manslaughter
Author: KGW.com, NWCN.com and Associated Press Source: KTVB (OR)
Title: FAITH-HEALING PARENTS FOUND NOT GUILTY OF MANSLAUGHTER
After six days of deliberations, an Oregon City jury found Carl Brent Worthington and his wife Raylene Worthington not guilty of manslaughter in the death of their young daughter, but found the husband guilty of a lesser charge.
Prosecutors say the Oregon City couple chose prayer over seeking medical help to save their sick 15-month-old daughter, Ava, who died in March 2008 of pneumonia and a blood infection. Doctors say she could have been saved by a simple antibiotic.
The Worthingtons were charged with manslaughter and criminal mistreatment. The wife was acquitted on both charges, while the jury found Carl Brent Worthington guilty of criminal mistreatment in the second degree.
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Community Thoughts: There are 9 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| In Memory Of A Friend... | Jul 25th. at 10:17:06 pm EDT
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Katmandu (elba, Alabama) - Email Me
This really PISSES me off because I lost a childhood friend because of crap like that. She had simple ____-ing pnuemonia and her genetic donors wouldn't take her to a doctor. Their faith would heal her. BS!!! Did not "God" give these people the brains to not only use faith but also medicine? Hey, they always want to point to the bibile, I'm sure there's something in the Old Testament that says King Soloman took something when he was ill.
Faith and medicine can and do work hand in hand.
For little Ava....
For Elizabeth (thanks for helping a little kid get used to attending school) ...
For the others like y'all unmentioned......
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| Sad.. Just Sad. | Jul 25th. at 8:33:13 pm EDT
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Brigidt (Gresham, Oregon) - Email Me
As an Oregon native, born and raised, this makes me even more loathsome of my birth state. To think that people would have the gall to completely ignore the importance of post-natal care for a child as young as her, and to put their complete faith in their God.
I respect their choices, but that was neglect. Any healer I know, read about, read on or studied has ALWAYS meant their practices should be coupled with medical care. I pray for Ava, and that she may rest in peace now.
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| Please Excuse My Language... | Jul 25th. at 5:09:53 pm EDT
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Aurora Callo (Olympia, Washington) - Email Me
...but this pisses me off. There are two types of people in America who are treated like property: animals and children. The world needs to learn once and for all that a living creature, regardless of its intellect, has rights.
I *strongly* dislike children, but I recognize that they are helpless and unable to voice their thoughts (the very small ones, at least) . It's the responsibilty of those of us who can do these things to speak and act on the behalf of those who can't.
Religion is becoming an excuse to forgo responsibilty and compassion. Faith-healing, animal sacrifice, gay marriage...the list goes on.
I can't rightly remember who said this, but I believe it was Ralph Waldo Emerson:
"The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide."
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| Oh! | Jul 25th. at 1:44:57 pm EDT
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Panthea Ge (T-Town, Michigan) - Email Me
In the eyes of the law, children are property and the laws apply differently to them. Rights are granted or denied by their owners.
THAT'S the real problem. This is just another symptom.
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| Behind The Veil Of The Cultural (Religious) War | Jul 25th. at 10:39:58 am EDT
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karrie9 (Kenosha, Wisconsin) - Email Me - Web
Little 15 month old Ava Worthington died of a longstanding condition, a cyst on her neck that impeded her breathing and fostered disease that killed her -- pneumonia and a blood infection.
I can't imagine how there **wasn't** longstanding suffering before Ava's fatal infection, and the end must have been terrible for her too.
How many readers empathetically put a hand up to thier neck and or chest when reading this? How many noted that Ava wasn't called by name often enough in articles about this case, as if journalists and others are putting emotional distance between themselves and the child's suffering, her humanity?
Her parents claim they didn't even know their daughter was seriously ill.
Liars.
They may not view it as cruel and fatal deception, through the veils of their brainwashing, but they should be held accountable!
If ignorance is no defence in the eyes of the law, then the ignorance of religious brainwashing shouldn't be either.
Just how did Ava's parents escape manslaughter charges or worse? I'm still trying to grapple with that.
Prosecutors thought that manslaughter was the most they could go for that'd be close to what actually happened, and they couldn't even get that?
Bottom line seems to be that our courts overcomplicate such cases, unwisely protecting various ugly mixes of deception and abusive power struggles ("religious rights," heh) in a political landscape of protracted cultural (religious) war.
...And that's what happened to little Ava Worthington's right to life and justice?
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| A Strange Disparity | Jul 25th. at 1:51:16 am EDT
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kenneth (Des Plaines, Illinois) - Email Me
What I can't quite get my head around in these cases is this: If those parents had been jail guards looking after a convicted death row inmate, they would have faced disciplinary actions, civil, and possible criminal liability for such an appalling lack of due care if that inmate died on their watch. It seems religious belief in this country is an absolute shield against responsibility of any kind for children.
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| "Faith" Versus Science - And "God" | Jul 24th. at 11:59:16 pm EDT
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nasionnaich (Stanchfield, Minnesota) - Email Me
I was watching an episode of the TV show "Numbers", when I heard something that made me "sit up and take notice": One of the characters, in trying to show how utterly stupid people who rely solely on "faith healing" really are, said what amounts to
"God endowed Humans with a brain to think with. Using that brain, Humanity has invented many wonderful and miraculous ways to fight disease and heal the Human body. To shun or denounce the miracle of Modern Medical Science is to shun and denounce God Himself."
Yeah, the episode had to do with how a blind reliance on "faith healing" by a small "Christian" cult church resulted in the deaths of more than three people (ok, there was murder involved in one death...but two of the deaths could easily have been avoided had the 'church' allowed medical help on-scene) . I do not remember the exact words used in the TV show, but that is essentially the message.
Here's what the "faith healing" people have been doing: They have been shunning and denouncing their own God.
--nasionnaich
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| What Bothers Me... | Jul 24th. at 9:09:34 pm EDT
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
is that they claimed they weren't aware that she was even ill. A child of that age can run a fever at the drop of a hat, and most parents usually watch their kids like hawks.
Looks like these aren't most parents......
My condolences for the child, but I have very little sympathy of any kind for the parents for allowing religion to override common sense.
I would also hope that she doesn't have any more kids as long as she is involved in that religion, but that in itself is far fetched.
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| *retch* | Jul 24th. at 4:39:41 pm EDT
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Panthea Ge (T-Town, Michigan) - Email Me
It's going to take some work to shed this feeling of revulsion caused by the thought of these monsters watching their child die.
It makes me very angry that any moron with gonads can become a parent.
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