I found this article on Raw Story and immediately thought about the harm principle.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/02/idaho-republican-backs-faith-healer-parents-if-i-want-to-let-my-child-be-with-god-why-is-that-wrong/
In case you don't want to read it, the essential summary is that Republican Idaho State Representative Christy Perry is arguing against banning faith healing, saying at one point that "'Children do die. I’m not trying to sound callous, but
(reformers) want to act as if death is an anomaly. But it’s not — it’s a
way of life.'” This comes on the heels of a bill by Democratic representative that would ban faith healing and allow prosecution of parents whose use of faith-healing caused death or severe disability to their children.
Obviously Representative Perry doesn't adhere to the harm principle, but her claim acts as a prompt for the discussion of whether the harm principle applies to American law. Assuming that children are at least partially controlled by their parents, Perry is arguing that government shouldn't even have a right to stop a parent from letting their child die.
I have two separate questions regarding her claim:
1) Is there any possible argument we can use under the harm principle to support this representative's argument?
2) If the state rep. is indeed right that the government should not play a role in deciding whether parents can let their children die from lack of health care, thereby refuting Mill's harm principle, then would the ideal government for her logically be anarchy?
As I'd like to bring this up in class on Thursday, I'm going to refrain from giving my own answers but I'm interested in seeing what others think about it.
I honestly think that this representative’s argument is based on the idea that faith-based healing is a religious freedom that all Americans are granted, when in actuality I think it is more of a distortion of the Bible that subscribes to groupthink ideology more than it does to genuine theology. In this sense I do not believe that parent shave the right to subscribe their child to a lifestyle they have not chosen for themselves that puts their lives in serious, avoidable danger.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the extensive research of Rita and Doug Swan, parents who lived their lives as devout Christian Scientists until the tragic lose of their son, Matthew to an avoidable illness. They began working hard to gather data and evidence showing how unethical this “ideology” truly was and how child healthcare is absolutely essential and by allowing parents to deny it they are given the ability to deny their children their right to life. Medical ethics allow consenting adults to reject necessary treatment on the grounds of religious beliefs but that right to autonomy does not extend this same control to their children.
You can read information about Rita Swan’s work directly here: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/faith-healing-religious-freedom-vs-child-protection/ but the strongest argument I take from it in an argument against Christy Perry is that while faith healing sects maybe truly and genuinely believe that they are acting morally and upholding God’s will, there are too many inconsistencies to consider this type of religious faith as legitimate.
Some examples of extreme views held by these believers include refusal to wear seatbelts, the rightness of seeing doctors for superficial things such as mole removal while simultaneously perceiving the wrongness of getting their child with diabetes life-saving treatment. While it is not exactly necessary for someone to read the Bible to ascribe to the Bible’s teachings, according to Swan’s research many supporters of faith healing were shocked once they read the Bible to find out how vastly it differed from their religious understanding and teachings. There is also a great deal of pressure in the decision-making of these parents (they are often shunned if they seek medical treatment for their children).
These influencing factors appear to be more than simply religious beliefs to the point that makes it clear that harm is being caused while the term “religious freedom” is being abused in the sense that it is upholding a warped version of theology. In the same sense that one could read the Bible and interpret it to mean “human sacrifice is morally necessary” one could read the Bible and interpret “the rejection of medical treatment for my child is morally necessary”. Simply because one interpreted it from religious texts does not make it the be-all-end-all argument for moral (or legal) rightness and simply because there is a large following in this method of medical treatment does not mean that it is any more legitimate than tolerance of other harmful faith-based ideas (such as human sacrifice, or the marrying off of young girls to significantly older men).
As for the second question, I feel that what Christy Perry is trying to do more than gain anarchy is to defend individual citizens against government control. While personally I think there is much more harm to be gained by allowing children to be subject to faith-based healing when they could receive medical treatment there is a certain extent which I understand the idea that the government should not be allowed to submit its citizens to a specific ideology or make any attempt to for a religion of the state. Do I agree Perry? No. Do I understand the rights that Perry thinks are at risk by allowing the government too much control in dictating how parents should parent their children? Yes.