A couple in Lansing, Michigan were warned by their midwife that their newborn daughter Abigail looked jaundiced and appeared to need medical care. Instead of seeking treatment, they ignored the problem on religious grounds, resulting in their baby’s death.
According to Hemant Mehta at Patheos’ “The Friendly Atheist,” the midwife for Rachel and Joshua Piland told them their baby could suffer brain damage — to which Rachel responded “God makes no mistakes.”
“Days later,” Mehta wrote, “Abigail was dead.”
According to the Detroit Free Press, the newborn suffered from “unconjugated hyperbilirubinemia and kernicterus,” treatable jaundice-related issues.
“Abigail never saw a doctor when blood was coming out of her mouth, she wasn’t eating, or her skin became further discolored,” Mehta continued.
The Pilands have been charged with involuntary manslaughter, and could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
22 comments
...RRRRAGE!!!!
PS:
So these idiots figured that if Deity make a baby sick, Deity wanted it dead!
These two are evil. I'm glad they're going to prison!
And stuff like prayers and Faith Healing should be done IN ADDITION to real, true, effective medicine! You can pray that Deity with guide the doctors and send a bit of healing vibes but YOU NEED MEDICAL SCIENCE!
This is the problem with anti-intellectualism. If your doctor says "your baby will die horribly unless you do this very simple treatment," and you respond with "Doctors? What do they know about s day's work? I have Jesus," your baby will die.
Also, where the fuck are stories like this when people claim to faith is a substitute for medicine?
These people were conned by the most successful con men in history: religious leaders. They were taken so hard, it cost them their child, and they still keep right on listening to the grifters.
I'd feel sorry for these sorts of people if their gullibility hadn't been turned into a political weapon against the rest of us.
On the one hand, they lost their baby, who they probably didn't want to die.
On the other, THEY FUCKING KILLED HER. THEY WERE BRAINWASHED INTO SITTING AROUND WATCHING HER FUCKING DIE. BLOOD WAS COMING OUT OF HER MOUTH. WHAT KIND OF A FUCKING PARENT DOES THAT??
As far as I'm concerned, whoever told them that 'god makes no mistakes' should be arrested as a fucking accessory (or whatever they call it in America) to her murder. Not involuntary manslaughter. Fucking murder.
Sorry to shout.
God doesn't make mistakes? God gave you eyes. God gave the woman in the room who delivered the girl the good sense to use her own eyes and say something to you. You watched the signs of jaundice set in and of the many ways the human body can fail few give such blatantly obvious signs that you need medical attention. Signs from GOD HIMSELF you could argue. Signs you CHOSE to ignore. You don't GET to blame God for this one. You didn't trust a miracle to deliver that daughter to you, you went to a midwife. You don't trust a miracle to put food in your belly, you work and eat. You see to your own earthly needs well enough don't you? But the exact instant you were responsible for someone else's life you didn't lift a single finger for her. You denied wisdom when it was given to you. You took her away from safety when it was in reach. You were worse than a completely passive observer as others made an effort to change your mind. Was it GOD that turned them all away? No, it was you. Can you say with conviction that of all the signs that were early for you to see, the people whose aid you turned away, coincidence conspiring to put you within reach of someone who recognized exactly the medical help that girl needed you weren't pushing God's hand away that entire time? That girl could only have been saved against your will and if it was anything short of a choir of angels that physically tore her from your arms and bade you never to set eyes upon her again you would have fought them, wouldn't you? Because anything short of that and you could still convince yourselves "God" took your child as part of a plan. If anyone thought you were ready to be parents they were tragically mistaken. I don't think God Himself could argue otherwise.
Let me revisit that first little statement, that God doesn't make mistakes. Was the "mistake" you were alluding to giving your daughter a fatal illness... or giving you a daughter you didn't want? A broken, sickly thing you couldn't bear to look at much less picture yourselves raising if being ill on the day of her birth was the beginning of a life of infirmity. Why did you choose those words? A mistake?
Idiots like this need to hear the parable/joke about the guy on the roof of his house during a flood who turns away various rescues, dies and gets chewed out by The Big One, zirself ('I sent all those rescuers, you idiot!').
Sure, I haven't read the whole Bible, but I have read large parts of it, and I don't remember the chapter and verse with the text "Ignore blatant signs of illness, especially if they are pointed out to you by professional care-givers".
God makes mistake all the time! Ask any parent of a child born with a facial cleft of some sort .
Blood coming out of a newborn's mouth is a clear warning that something is wrong.
In the words of George Carlin "If you're preborn, you're fine; if you're preschool, you're fucked".
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Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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