[Blue_Nose]

This issue is fairly straight forward - the state steps in when a parent has demonstrated they aren't reasonably capable of protecting the welfare of their child.

That's the case if vegan parents are starving their child, that's the case if drunken parents are beating their child, and that's the case here where religious parents don't provide their children with necessary healthcare. The reasons or excuses for any of the above are immaterial.

[BartSimpson]

RUEZ RUEZ:

The health and welfare of a child trumps any religious freedom people have in this country.

That's easy to say until someone twists that around to say that the state is the best and final arbiter of what's best for children and that parents trifle with the state at their peril.




I'm not defending these people, but what I am doing is saying that empowering the state with arbitrary authority is a very dangerous thing - as we in the USA saw when 400 children were taken away from their parents in Texas on the basis of a completely faked phone call. It finally took the Texas Supreme Court to order CPS to return the children to their parents.

[Blue_Nose]

It's not "arbitrary authority" - doctors know how to make kids not die a lot better than religiously-driven parents.

[Zipperfish]

Godwinned.