this is a complex (fidelity to the list topic) question - but there is a lot of case law in the US dealing with exactly this issue - much of it related to the Seventh Day Adventists. Some key points (that I did not see addressed in the article) that would determine criminality would be the age of the victim, was he able to give informed consent for his religious treatment, and did the parents actively prevent him from seeking traditional treatment.
The real interesting question to me - what is the boundary between a parents right to raise children in their faith and societies interest in establishing a threshold set of shared values and practices for acceptance into the society. If parents can successfully indoctrinate a child to the point that even when he was of an age that would normally allow him to seek medical assistance on his own, despite parental wishes, he held firm to "his" faith and refused treatment - did they harm the child be establishing that kind of mind set? davew On Thu, Sep 20, 2012, at 06:59 AM, Douglas Roberts wrote: Ok, all of you "faith" proponents: at what point does practicing "faith" cross the line and become criminally negligent? Corollary question: at what point does adherence to religious faith cross a moral boundary by allowing the practitioner to select comforting dogma over moral obligation? [1]http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2205306/Russel-Brandi-Bellew -Faith-healer-parents-avoid-jail-Austin-Sprout-16-dies.html --Doug PS: <complexity> (Added to keep this thread from being completely off-topic.) ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at [2]http://www.friam.org References 1. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2205306/Russel-Brandi-Bellew-Faith-healer-parents-avoid-jail-Austin-Sprout-16-dies.html 2. http://www.friam.org/
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
