Should parents be allowed to opt out of modern medicine?
Earlier this week, a Lethbridge, Alberta jury found David and Collet Stephan guilty of “failing to provide the necessaries of life” for doing just that. Their one-and-a-half-year-old son, Ezekiel, died of bacterial meningitis in 2012 after his parents treated him with home remedies and naturopathic medicine. The Stephans also own a nutritional supplement business and use naturopathic medicine.
We’ve seen this question before.
Jehovah’s Witnesses follow a Biblical interpretation that prohibits blood transfusions. An American-born sect called Christian Science rejects invasive modern medical interventions and instead preaches reliance on prayer and “right thinking.” These are just a couple prominent examples.
For the most part, these anti-establishment blips on the radar of mainstream society go altogether unnoticed. The obtuse moral compass of outlying sects are hardly worth the trouble of trying to unravel for most of us. But every once in a while a child is endangered when her parents don’t consent to a life-saving blood transfusion. Or a child raised within Christian Science dies from a treatable illness after suffering for months.
Then, suddenly, the rest of us sit up straight for moment and we say, “Hold up. Can they do that? Should we even allow them to do that?”
And the law isn’t clear. Some cases are prosecuted while other aren’t. Sometimes medical treatment is court ordered and other times the authorities don’t step in until it is too late. The allowance for religious exemptions from our obligation to provide basic medical care for our children varies from country to country and from state to state.
Increasingly, however, we’re seeing another kind of abstainer from modern medicine. Their objections are not rooted in scripture a doctrine of faith, though. They are, rather, devotees of schools of natural or alternative medicines that reject much of modern medicine. Their natural habitats include artist’s communes and small islands off the coast of British Columbia. You can sometimes spot them on trips to your local community garden or at an outdoor folk festival.
And, hey, sometimes this alternative medicine and natural lifestyle stuff gets trendy. Like when health and wellness stores start popping up next to Starbucks and your mother-in-law offers to refer you to her naturopath. We saw this trend take an alarming turn when parents began to withhold vaccinations in significant enough numbers to allow for the resurgence of measles and whooping cough in certain communities. Last year I interviewed several parents who opted out of vaccinating their children and explored some of the reasons for their choices.
I said it then, and I still maintain, that it is dangerous when ideas that undermine science and reasoning gain popularity. Most of us simply aren’t equipped with enough information to be able to decipher studies and raw data for ourselves. It’s can be hard to tell the pseudoscience from the real stuff. So we need to keep talking about it. The mainstream media has to continue to debunk false psuedoscience wherever it rears it’s head and public health policies should absolutely enforce rules like mandatory vaccinations in public schools.
But, of course, it’s not that easy.
I also think we need to allow for dissenting fringe opinions. We can’t dictate the values and principles by which people decide to live their lives. Nor do we actually want everyone worshiping at the alter of consumerism, modern science, and the church of Pfizer. The rights of people living according to an alternative value systems, be they hippies or libertarians, need to be protected just as much as those of different faiths and cultural backgrounds.
And a dedication to alternative medicine can be as legitimate a reason for eschewing modern medicine as any other religious belief. For some people, the commitment to alternative medicine is not simply a lifestyle choice — a stop at Noah’s Natural Foods between yoga class and a day at the office — but instead constitutes a set of values that permeate and guide their entire life.
Religious freedom isn’t just about our right to worship (or not) for an hour a week. It’s about our rights to live our daily lives and raise our families according to our own beliefs.
So do I think David and Collet Stephan were wrong not to bring their son to a hospital before it was too late? I do. Do I subscribe to their naturopathic brand of health care? I do not. Do I think this case should serve as a warning to others about the limits of natural remedies? I sure as fuck do.
But do I think their behaviour was criminal? No, I don’t.
By all accounts, these are loving parents who were caring for their son according to the same principles they lived their lives. It is a horrible tragedy that this young boy has died and I’m sure these parents are torn apart. They have already lost their youngest son. I’m not sure any good is being served by giving them jail time and having the rest of their family torn apart. (Although I do agree that the naturopath who treated the boy should be charged.)
I was reading about cases of children who suffered or died because of their parents’ conscientious or religious objections to medical intervention while I was mulling this case over. And it is the stuff of pure heartache. While we need to take democratic principles like religious and moral freedom very seriously, how can you balance that or any principle against the life of a child? You know what, you can’t.
So I think we need to allow authorities to intervene and order medical treatment in some cases, possibly even taking temporary custody of the child away from the parents when necessary. But that does not mean the parents themselves are criminal. In cases where the parents have otherwise proven to be loving providers, the loss of their child is punishment enough.