Argumentative Essay: Is Faith Sufficient?

Is Faith Sufficient?

About two months ago, in a parenting class I was attending, our facilitator told us about a story of a couple who initiated faith healing for their ill child instead of going to a doctor for treatment. The child ended up dying, four years later another child dies. They were arrested for involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to probation time. A debate came into action on whether or not the parents was committing child abuse by being negligent, or were the parents indeed good parents who was just seeking the best for their children through faith. MAKING THE DECISION TO USE FAITH HEALING INSTEAD OF DOCTORS AND MEDICINE CAN BE A GOOD CHOICE HOWEVER; THEY SHOULD BE INTERCHANGEABLE TO SOME POINT UNDER CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES.

The parents believed in faith healing and was charged with second degree reckless homicide. It was later revealed the couple couldn’t be charged with child abuse due to section 948 of Wisconsin statutes that provided a criminal exemption for religious parents who choose to treat their ill children with solely prayer. (Krause 46). Another story was stated in Oregon on Carl and Raylene Worthington being charged with manslaughter and criminal mistreatment on the death of their 15 month old daughter who died of pneumonia and a blood infection, both curable through medical treatment (Krause 46). Krause stated he read of hundreds of faith healing related deaths and the author’s input behind it from a book written by Shawn Francis Peters, “When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children, and the

Krause provides information between Pediatrician Seth Asser and children’s advocate Rita Swan from the journal “Pediatrics” that revealed they investigated 172 child deaths from American faith healing churches during a 20 year period and discovered the majority of them were a result of religion-based neglect (Krause 46). 140 out of the 172 deaths were said to be conditions that under medical treatment, would have provided a 90% survival rate. An additional 18 deaths came from diseases resulting in over 50% recovery (46). According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine within the U.S. National Institutes of Health, it is reported that in 2002, 62% of Americans used some form of alternative medicine. Out of the10 most common alternative medicine therapies, prayer for self was at 43% and prayer for others at 24.4%, making them the two most commonly named therapies (Masters 268). In a study on psychiatric inpatients in Orissa, India it was found a majority of 85.5% of the patients believed in supernatural causation and 75% sought faith healing before seeking any medical