A 20-year old woman who was born with a hole in heart wants her parents prosecuted because instead of allowing an operation to be performed on her whilst she was still a baby, they (her parents) rather resorted to faith and claimed God will heal her.
Currently, Mariah Walton from Idaho relies heavily on an oxygen tank and may have to undergo a dangerous heart and lung transplant, according to the Guardian.
These could have easily been avoided if Mariah’s parents let doctors treat her when she was an infant, or even when she was a child. But the fundamentalist Mormon parents said no.
“Yes, I would like to see my parents prosecuted,” Mariah told the Guardian. “They deserve it. And it might stop others.”
Mariah suffers from pulmonary hypertension and has difficulty breathing. If her parents allowed doctors to close the congenital hole in her heart after she was born, her life would have been completely different.
Instead, her parents prayed and relied on “alternative” medicine, according to the newspaper. They believe that faith and prayer can conquer illness and disease.
Mariah did not have a social security number or a birth certificate until she left home two years ago, according to the Guardian. I feel it is not OK for people to be allowed to ignore modern science that saves lives.
The Independent also reports that in Idaho, parents cannot be prosecuted for neglect if they refuse medical care before their faith, and state senator Lee Heider said last year there were no plans to change the law, as freedom of religion is a right under the First Amendment to the US Constitution.
Campaign group Children’s Right to Live said efforts to change the law are still ongoing, but warned new proposals could in fact put lives further at risk.
A spokesperson for the group told The Independent lawmakers had “considered two bills on the topic”. One aimed to “rearrange the left language in the laws to create the appearance of making reforms without actually changing anything substantive,” they said.
“Another would have made things worse by expanding the loophole to cover parents who neglect their children in the name of ideological as well as religious beliefs and practices.”
This is a very sad news indeed and we sympathize with the young woman. This clearly demonstrates the weird influence religion have on people that some of us are not happy with.
