claidheamhmor | The idiocy of some parents (Reply)

This sort of thing really pisses me off.

Here we have a deluded mother who essentially killed her child because of her own religious beliefs.

Mom expected divine healing
21/05/2009 07:42 - (SA)

Wisconsin - Just hours after an 11-year-old girl died of untreated diabetes, her mother told police she never considered taking her tired, pale and skinny daughter to a doctor for what she believed was a spiritual attack.

Leilani Neumann said in a videotaped interview played on Wednesday at her trial that the Lord was going to take care of her daughter and all she needed was prayer.

"It did scare me with her being cold," Neumann told an Everest Metro Police Department detective. "I just believed the Lord is going to heal her. I never thought she was close to death. ... It was just like this all happened so suddenly. She just looked skinny all of a sudden."

Neumann, 41, is on trial for second-degree reckless homicide for praying instead of seeking medical care for Madeline, who died on March 23, 2008, at their Weston home. Her husband also has been charged and will be tried in July.

Prosecutors contend a reasonable parent would have known something was gravely wrong with Madeline but that her mother prayed and ignored obvious symptoms of poor health instead of rushing her to a doctor. If convicted, Neumann faces up to 25 years in prison.

In the interview, Neumann told police she didn't oppose doctors and medicine but that Madeline hadn't seen a doctor since she was 3 and had never been sick. The family believes in "divine healing" by trusting the Lord, the mother said.

"I just felt that, you know, my faith was being tested. I never went through an experience like that before in my life and I just thought, man, this is the ultimate test," she said. "We just started praying and praying and praying over her."

'I believed that God was going to just restore our daughter'

The interview occurred several hours after Madeline died. Her mother told the detective she believed her daughter would come back to life.

"It may be crazy to you but that's why I'm not crying and wailing right now," Neumann said.

She also said her husband briefly considered getting their daughter to a doctor. "I said, 'No, the Lord's going to heal her.' I believed that God was going to just restore our daughter," she said.

Neumann was expected to take the witness stand in her own defence on Thursday, said her attorney, Gene Linehan.

Earlier on Wednesday, Neumann's mother-in-law, Elvira Neumann, said she advised the mother to get Madeline to a doctor on the morning the girl died after being told she was in a coma.

"I told her that she better get her to a doctor or hospital real fast," the mother-in-law said. "She wanted us to come over and pray with them to get Kara well. I said, 'No, we are going to church and we will pray for her there."'

Kara was Madeline's nickname.

Elizabeth Neumann, 16, said her sister was so weak the day before she died that she had to be helped to the bathroom and could only mumble her words.

'We were just very confused...'

The sister showed jurors how she held up Madeline and, with her father, got the girl to the bathroom.

She testified that her sister seemed "cranky but otherwise fine" the morning before she died. But she said her sister's condition quickly deteriorated until she couldn't talk or walk and urinated on a couch.

"We were just very confused about all of a sudden she was just very tired and weak, and we didn't understand," Elizabeth testified. "We were very concerned, and we were praying for her. We didn't know what was going on. ... I thought she was going to come out of it, and it wasn't anything serious."

Elizabeth said she noticed a week earlier that Madeline was tired and drank an unusual amount of water. Doctors have testified that those are both symptoms of diabetes.

Jennifer Peaslee, a regular member of the Neumanns' Bible study group, testified that she and her husband went to the Neumanns' home the day Madeline died and saw her laying on a bathroom floor unconscious.

Peaslee tried to talk to the girl but got no response.

"I was in shock," Peaslee said. "I didn't expect to see Kara like that."

She never considered advising the family to get the girl to a doctor. "Because the Neumanns believe in faith, in God healing rather than the medical doctors," she said. "If you have enough faith, the Lord can do anything."

Peaslee's husband carried Madeline downstairs and placed her on a mattress on the floor. There, the couple joined the Neumanns and their three other children in prayer, and found Biblical phrases related to healing, Peaslee said.

Peaslee said she and her husband left about 13:30. Madeline died about an hour later.

- AP

Source: News24

And then, we have the Daniel Hauser case, where Daniels parents stopped cancer treatment in favour of vitamins. Now, I'm all in favour of people making their own life decisions, but Daniel is 13, and his parents' version of home schooling has left him illiterate (he apparently cannot recognise the word "the"). He simply is not capable of making such a life-changing decision; his parents are effectively letting him die. Now, there's obviously no guarantee that chemo will actually save his life - but vitamins definitely won't.

Mother, son missing in forced chemotherapy case

(CNN) -- A Minnesota judge issued an arrest warrant Tuesday for the mother of Daniel Hauser, a 13-year-old boy who is refusing treatment for his cancer, after neither she nor the boy showed up for a court appearance.

Doctors say Daniel Hauser's lymphoma responded well to a first round of chemotherapy in February.

"It is imperative that Daniel receive the attention of an oncologist as soon as possible," wrote Brown County District Judge John R. Rodenberg in an order to "apprehend and detain."

"His best interests require it," Rodenberg wrote.

The judge had scheduled the hearing to review an X-ray ordered by the court to assess whether Daniel's Hodgkin's lymphoma was worsening.

The boy's father, Anthony Hauser, did appear at Tuesday's hearing, where he testified that he last saw the mother, Colleen Hauser, at the family's farm on Monday night, when she told him she was going to leave "for a time."

He said he did not know where they had gone.

During the hearing, Dr. James Joyce testified he saw the boy and his mother on Monday at his office. He said the boy had "an enlarged lymph node" near his right clavicle and that the X-ray showed "significant worsening" of a mass in his chest.

In addition, the boy complained of "extreme pain" at the site where a port had been inserted to deliver an initial round of chemotherapy. The pain was "most likely caused by the tumor or mass pressing on the port," testified Joyce, who called the X-ray "fairly dramatic" evidence that the cancer was worsening.

Rodenberg ordered custody of the boy transferred to Brown County Family Services and issued a contempt order for the mother.

A call to the family's home in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, was not immediately returned.

Philip Elbert, Daniel's court-appointed attorney, said he considers his client to have a "diminished capacity" for reasons of his age and the illness and that he believes Daniel should be treated by a cancer specialist.

Elbert added that he does not believe Daniel -- who, according to court papers, cannot read -- has enough information to make an informed decision regarding his treatment.

Daniel's symptoms of persistent cough, fatigue and swollen lymph nodes were diagnosed in January as Hodgkins lymphoma. In February, the cancer responded well to an initial round of chemotherapy, but the treatment's side effects concerned the boy's parents, who then opted not to pursue further chemo and instead sought other medical opinions.

Court documents show that the doctors estimated the boy's chance of 5-year remission with more chemotherapy and possibly radiation at 80 percent to 95 percent.

But the family opted for a holistic medical treatment based upon Native American healing practices called Nemenhah and rejected further treatment.

In a written statement issued last week, an attorney for the parents said they "believe that the injection of chemotherapy into Danny Hauser amounts to an assault upon his body, and torture when it occurs over a long period of time."

Medical ethicists say parents generally have a legal right to make decisions for their children, but there is a limit.
"You have a right, but not an open-ended right," Arthur Caplan, director of the center for bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said last week. "You can't compromise the life of your child."

Source: CNN