A 20-year-old woman, Mariah Walton, is waiting for a heart and lung transplantation and says that her condition could have been avoided if her parents did the right thing when she was born. Actually, with appropriate treatment when she was a baby, those problems she faces today wouldn’t even exist. She was born with a small hole in her heart and her parents refused to seek medical care because they believed she could be healed through prayer. “It would have been solved. If I had a surgery when I was one year old, I would have been just fine,” Walton said in an interview with KTVB News.
Congenital heart defects, also known as a congenital heart anomaly, are problems with the heart's structure that are present at birth. These defects can involve the interior walls of the heart, the valves inside the heart and the arteries and veins that carry blood to the heart or the body. Congenital heart defects change the normal flow of blood through the heart.
People, parents who deprive medical help to their child because they believe in faith healing must take responsibility for endangering lives. Similar cases have already occurred many times and they can be easily avoided by appropriate punishment for such parents. "I think it's time to prosecute them," she said. They (her parents) thought they were doing everything right, Walton said, but that shouldn’t keep them from being criminally prosecuted under the law. Walton is supporting legislation in Idaho that would require medical treatment for children in imminent danger of dying.
In an interview with KTVB News, Walton tried to explain what made her parents to act like they did: “They would say “doctors are evil” and “doctors kill more people than they help people.” So my dad and my mom… they rejected any kinds of stuff like that… They used to pray over me. They’d say, “God’s going to heal you, just have faith,” and all kinds of stuff. It was a mix of… their faith, prayer, and government… Those created a fantasy in their head…”
Asked about whether laws to prosecute faith healing parents would interfere with their religious freedom, Walton said, “You’re also infringing on the rights of those children who want to live. They have a right to live, too.” More children die because of faith-based medical neglect in Idaho than in any other state. In Idaho, there is a law that protects parents from prosecution if their faith prohibits them from seeking medical care. Children are unable to fight for themselves and that’s why the law must protect them from faith healing.
Photo Credits: Pixabay
