Not zealotry, Michelle, but ignorance. I have strong feelings about such cases, since I am religious (though light years from being a zealot). This case is similar to people who believe in alternative medicine - in which prayer is considered to be of some value in healing, though double-blind studies discount the possibility. In certain aspects the case is like that of Terry Schiavo. It is tragic if the child dies, but it would be better to treat the parents with information and some time in jail, than society by imposing sterilization.

They're either psychotic or mentally retarded or evil. Those are the options.

No, the solution is as monstrous, we have a constitution that forbids cruel and unusual punishment for a reason, this act of sterilization is (or actually used to be) irrevocable (obviously Michelle has never seen those billboards for reversing vasectomies. The guy can get himself fixed right up and have kids with another woman). The government can take away our freedom, but it can't take away our body parts. The far simpler solution is (after jail time) lifetime probation, and if they have children and have not shown themselves to be reformed to have the children taken away.

Where are the wingers in this case?  They're always for the rights of the unborn, but do they care at all about the rights of the *born and here now* group?  Probably not.

Ah, the “three generations of imbeciles are enough” argument, as laid down by Justice Holmes in Buck v. Bell (upholding a statute compelling sterilization of the mentally retarded).  

This line has become on of the more infamous in Supreme Court history, and rightfully so. Who is allowed to have children? Apparently not religious nuts. What about teenagers? People on welfare? Women in advanced child-bearing age? People who could pass on genetic defects? The Bush twins?

I’m sure you’re not actually advocating sterilization as public-policy as much as taking these people out behind the prayer barn and sticking a hot poker up their baby-makers. I sympathize, and am willing to stoke the fire. But forced sterilization has been policy before. It could easily happen again.

It’s hard to understand how someone would shun medicine under the belief prayer will cure their child. But how is that worse than deciding to take our nation to war after consulting a “higher father.” I’m all for religious freedom, but at some point the state must come in and say “enough.” Charge them with a crime, try them, and let them go to jail. And after Bush is behind bars, try the Wisconsin couple too.

If they are truly right with God, He will reward them with Heaven, and we’ll all be sent to Hell: I can live with that risk.

adam, leave your hands off the Bush twins. They are the only thing that shrub managed to do right.

I take this as a Modest Proposal more than anything - the thought of a modern newspaper seriously coming out for sterlization for any reason being too montrous to contemplate - but the bigger issue is, I think, what Adam noted: not so much private decisions made (with better or worse private consequences) for the love of God, but the public decisions and the public discourse that still revolve around religion and the Cecil B. De Mille depictions of a Judeo-Christian Almighty.

What is with the relatives, who didn't report this to Children's Services in time to rectify the situation?

"With apologies to similar believers everywhere..."

Absolutely no reason to apologize.  One need not apologize for insisting that children receive evidence-based health care, for testing a well to ensure it is free of bacteria instead of relying on a witch doctor's analysis, for revealing the age of a dinosaur's femur, for demanding equal treatment under the law regardless of gender or sexual orientation, for publicizing HIV's actual routes of transmission and methods of prevention, for prosecuting authority figures who molest, for consulting a statistical programmer instead of a psychic, for asking a reference librarian instead of a Ouija board.

On the contrary, failing to point out someone's addiction to myth would require a subsequent apology.  First and foremost, to the addict (love the sinner, hate the sin!), then to the rest of us.

Sorry, Michelle.  I see all manner of incompetent, indifferent or amazingly stupid parents in my office every day, not to mention the countless well-intentioned people who have chosen to believe what they hear on Oprah instead of what's recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.  The poor 11-year-old  is, admittedly, an extreme case, and I don't know why a court order wasn't obtained by the begging relatives.  But this young lady is a martyr to the principle we uphold as Americans that the state cannot dictate who is allowed to have children.  

Yeah, that definitely brought back memories of Oliver Wendell Holmes. (You know, back when we were Civil War buddies.)

Child Protective Services can take kids away from unfit parents. I'd say they should be blacklisted, and if they have any other children, or if they have any kids in the future, they should be put in foster care.

No way, Michelle. There's a slippery slope there the size of Mt. Everest. Even contemplating that brings out all the ugly possibilities of societal engineering, and we CAN NOT go there. We lose innocent children to all sorts of other ugly practices as well (second-hand smoke, no seatbelts, etc.) that are just as deadly but utterly wrong to enforce with sterilization. Liberalism fights a constant tension between benign social improvement and active social engineering, and this is way over the proper line.

This 11 year-old is a martyr to a culture that embraces low-brow religion and disdains science and reason.  The idea that the state cannot sterilize people because they are idiots is not an endorsement of idiocy, but a check on the power of the state to take ownership of our bodies - an invasive and demeaning abrogation of our most personal liberty.

Neil

I think there's a difference between idiocy in the strict sense of the word and people who act like dangerous idiots in the looser sense.  The appropriate direction here would be manslaughter and/or involuntary killing, or some charge that actually takes into account the reckless ignoring of mortal danger to a minor, rather than mental incompetence.

I'm not allowed to injure or kill somebody, just because my religious beliefs make it ok.  If I'm a Rastafarian, I can't smoke marijuana even though it's part of Rasta culture, so how do I get to willingly and fatally endanger my child and get away with it?  What needs not to happen in this case is a fudging of the facts by issues of religious belief.  If their lawyers want to go with that defense in the trial, good luck to them.

In case I didn't make it clear, I think these lunatics should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.  Likewise, I don't think their religious beliefs should have been granted the power to deprive their child of life-saving care.  I have personally been involved in obtaining court orders to deliver necessary medical care over parental objection.  But, that being said, I don't think the state has the right to sterilize the parents.

I don't know the law in this area, but my belief is that a parent's refusal to seek medical treatment for a very sick child which results in the child's death should be treated as a willful homicide and punished by a gazillion years in prison.  Sterilization in lieu of prison strikes me as too light a punishment anyway.

What hildner said. Isn't there some kind of statute concerning "reckless endangerment" of one's kids-- leaving them inside a car for an hour with the windows closed on a 100-degree day, etc?

I think people should be allowed to take the option of sterilization over a jail sentence, if that is the alternative. I don't think it's any crueler than a long prison term. It's unusual, sure, but so what. I don't agree with jhildner that it's too light, because putting them in prison costs us all a lot of money, and removes them from the taxpaying side of the ledger. If you just want to punish them more, then fine them or something and give the money to diabetes research. I hate prison.

tep- yes, but reckless endangerment is a misdemeanor, so you probably wouldn't be satisfied there. It all depends on Wisconsin law, and someone said there was actually a faith-based exception to whatever the crime would be in that state, so this "we aren't religious" stuff they are saying might bite them in the ass. This will be very interesting.

Allowing the government to dole out sterilization for any reason is the beginning of a slippery slope towards legitimizing eugenics as policy.  These people killed their child and should be punished according to the law.  Yes, in America there is freedom of religion, but this ridiculous superstition and severe misunderstanding of the nature of prayer is not religion, it is sticking one's head in the sand.  

Here's what's interesting to me. This kind of behavior grows DIRECTLY out of a culture that is increasingly anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, radicalized, reactionarily religious and fundamentalist--cultural elements, I remind you all, that hold considerable sway in our politics and that are specifically pandered to by vast swaths of our political establishment, including the current Administration. Why is anybody surprised or shocked by this natural outgrowth of rabid religious fundamentalism? We've been cultivating this kind of tragic stupidity for decades, and continue to do so.

I would get flamed if I were to argue that it's crazy and ABUSIVE to teach your kids that the god of the Israelites created the world in seven days (6000 ya), ABUSIVE to teach your kids hat human beings were created de novo, that evolution is "just a theory" (it is not--it is a fact and the cornerstone of  modern biology), and ABUSIVE to teach them that homosexuals, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, atheists and most liberals will burn in hell for all eternity. I would get massively flamed if I were to argue that the hysterical crusade against the development of stem-cell based therapies boils down to a blood sacrifice to the Christian god. I would get massively flamed for pointing out that every time we indoctrinate a child with fundamentalist religion--Christian, Muslim or otherwise--we are abusing that child, and perpetuating a cycle of superstition, ignorance and hate that has plagued this planet for millenia and threatens to engulf us all in the century to come.

Creationism. Intelligent design. Gay bashing. Speaking in tongues. Everybody who doesn't believe like we do will burn in hell. Suprressing biomedical research. Noah's ark. Death for Onanism. Israel and Armageddon. Adam's rib. Miracles and signs. God's chosen people, chosen nation, chosen President. Left Behind. Strictly literal readings of Genesis and Revelations. Rejecting the cornerstones of modern cosmology, biology, archaeology and earth science.

No, that sfuff's not crazy and stupid.

But faith healing is.

I give up.

As for forced sterilization--I am sympathetic to the impulse, but it strikes me as unconstitutional and smacks of the Orwellian. That's a long, ugly road.

I agree with Ms. Cottle completely. It is actually a Biblical mandate for the civil authority to enforce sound doctrine. Letting people endanger their children in the name of religous freedom makes no sense at all. You will invariably find when issues like this occur that it is inspired by an aberant understanding of what the Bible teaches.

Christianity is not copyrighted. The result is that anyone can define Christianity as they please and announce that they are "Christian." If Coca–Cola were not copyrighted, then anyone could produce a drink of similar color and taste and put it in cans identical to those of the Coca–Cola Company. If the ersatz drink were deadly poison, then the Coca–Cola Company would likely die along with the consumers of the fake drink. It is little wonder that the Coca–Cola Company defends their copyright with great ferocity. In past times the Christian Church defended its "copyright" with equal ferocity and for the same reasons. Today there are doctrines dressed up to look and taste like Christianity that are deadly poison. To distinguish the true from the false, one must learn and understand doctrine, which for Christianity, is the equivalent of Coca–Cola’s secret formula. The difference is that Christian doctrine is laid out for anyone to learn and understand.

"To distinguish the true from the false, one must learn and understand doctrine, which for Christianity, is the equivalent of Coca–Cola’s secret formula. The difference is that Christian doctrine is laid out for anyone to learn and understand."

That simple, huh? Except this open source code of Christianity doesn't seem to have prevented Christians from engaging in millenia of bloodshed and persecution of _each other_, not to mention people of other faiths.  

That's because it's not just a source code. It's a virus.

Sorry. I don't buy it. I'm with Hitchens: religion poisons _everything_.

sullydog, you've lit a lamp in the dark, but those who most need to see will refuse the gift of light.