Religion: Faith healing in Oregon on trial. The first week in the trial of Jeff and Marci Beagley for the negligent homicide of their son Neil concluded on Friday with a doctor's testimony that signs of Neil Beagley's failing health gave his parents ample warning that the teenager needed immediate medical treatment.
Neil Beagley of Oregon City was only 16 when he died in June 2008 of complications from a urinary tract blockage that doctors said could have been easily treated. Neil and his parents refused to seek medical treatment in favor of prayer. The decision proved fatal.
The Beagleys are also the parents of Raylene Worthington, whose 15-month-old daughter, Ava Worthington, the Beagleys' granddaughter, died in 2008 of pneumonia and a blood infection that would have been easily treatable. Ava's father, Carl Worthington, was convicted of second-degree criminal mistreatment, yet spent less than two months in jail for her death.
Jeff and Marci Beagley are members of the Followers of Christ Church, which rejects doctors and medical treatment in favor of faith healing. The church has become notorious in Oregon for allowing children to die rather than seek routine medical care.
The Beagley's defense hangs on the claim that Neil, being 16 years of age, had the legal right to refuse medical attention under Oregon law. Yet poor Neil never had a chance. Home schooled and isolated, surrounded and raised by religious zealots lacking any moral compass, Neil was brainwashed from birth.
In addition to the negligent homicide charges, Jeff and Marci Beagley should be charged with 16 years of child abuse. What else can we call parents who isolate their children and feed them a diet of nothing but religious mumbo jumbo and biblical non-sense?
Comments
These two parents should be put in prison as they would anyone else who ignores their parental responsibilities -- for whatever reason or excuse. If their god didn't come through with a cure, then they should put him in prison too.
When they find him.....
I would imagine that if the facts are accurate, the parents would be found guilty of negligent homicide. The isolation and brainwashing factor of many children in this country and elsewhere needs to be addressed vociferously. But it is the religious pathology that is at the root.
D.M. Murdock/Acharya S
Freethought Examiner
I think these parents should be jailed and then deprived of the life giving medicine - food and water.
Off with their heads!
Just evolution.
That's what a belief in the imaginary can do to a person. As ones beliefs ultimately informs ones actions.
I know first hand how dangerous religious obsession can be. I didn`t die ( technically speaking),but I lost my entire life due to my parents thinking this way.
If people want to practice religion I wish they would live by the motto "God helps them who help themselves."
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