Saturday, August 1, 2009

For The Love Of God

Dale Neumann was found guilty today of second degree murder of his daughter, who he let die an anguishing and painful death instead of taking her to the doctor. His wife, Leilani, was convicted of the same charge earlier this year. Outrageously, they are both still out of jail, free on bond.

The arrogance and narcissism of Dale Neumann is demonstrated in this quote in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Neumann, who once studied to be a Pentecostal minister, testified Thursday that he believed God would heal his daughter and he never expected her to die. God promises in the Bible to heal, he said.

"If I go to the doctor, I am putting the doctor before God," Neumann testified. "I am not believing what he said he would do."

What Neumann did is worse than what he worried about doing. What he did was put himself in front of God by presuming he knew what God meant and not using the doctors that most people of the Christian faith would recognize as being a gift from God.

Illy-T has more on this matter.

In a similar matter, where we can compare our state's lunatics to those in other states, comes this story from Oregon, in which a father was convicted of second-degree criminal mistreatment. He was also charged, and acquitted of second-degree manslaughter. The man's wife and co-defendant was acquitted of all charges.

Here's a description of what that poor child went through:
Ava Worthington died in March 2008 while church member gathered around her for prayer, "laying on of hands," anointing her in oil and administering small amounts of wine. She had a softball-sized cyst on her neck that may have interfered with her breathing and swallowing, then contracted a blood infection and pneumonia.
At the bottom of the article is another cause for concern. The wife's own parents are also facing charges on a similar faith-based healing death:

In January, Raylene Worthington's parents, Jeff and Marci Beagley, are scheduled to go on trial. They are charged with criminally negligent homicide in the death of their 16-year-old son, Neil Beagley, who died in June 2008 of an untreated urinary tract blockage. A state medical examiner said a simple surgical procedure could have saved his life.

I think what really gets to me is that there is all this kind of crap going on, where people are allowing their own children to die painful and unnecessary deaths, but then the right goes on a rampage of fear and smear about nationalized health care and trying to construe and twist living wills and hospices into President Obama trying to kill the elderly.

I wish for once, just once, they would start addressing the real problems, instead of fighting their make-believe bogeymen.

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