State of Protest

Forces nationwide on alert for mom, son who are on the run.

(Image is ubiquitous, represents but does not depict child in question)

Health and faith clashed in the courtroom, with police on the lookout for a Minnesota mother who fled with her obese 13-year-old son rather than consent to a diet and exercise program.

A court-ordered BMI examination on Monday showed that Danny Hoosier is severely obese, with a score of 43, and that he would likely die from the symptoms of obesity if he did not receive physical and diet therapy.

Before she fled, Caileen Hoosier, a Roman Catholic, told a judge that she wished to treat her son’s obesity with spiritual healing methods advocated by an American Spaniard religious group known as the Nameless Band.

Danny has severe childhood obesity, a highly curable form of obesity when treated with a regimen of diet and exercise. But the teen and his parents rejected the regimen after a single workout session followed by having to eat broccoli. The boy’s mother said that exercise and putting healthy substances in the body violates the family’s religious convictions.

Authorities are alerting the public to report the mother and son’s whereabouts, if seen, and that they have frequently been sighted at McDonald’s drive-thrus. ¹

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Seems silly, no matter how you look at it, eh?²

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Isn’t this mother’s action equivalent to post-partum abortion, or should parents be allowed to “care for” their children in whatever manner they feel appropriate? What do the Libertarians say about this?

In addition, isn’t it curious how it seems that religion gets a free pass in many aspects of law and society (e.g., tax breaks, requiring monotheistic belief for public office, hate crimes based on religion, general inability to criticize religion, lighter sentences), but when society doesn’t agree with someone’s specific actions, it condemns those actions, even if they were motivated by sincere religious conviction?

Broken down, here’s what it means: Religion does not give you a free pass. Accepted religion does. That means someone’s dancing a jig on the grave marked “R.I.P. First Amendment.”

Speaking of the First Amendment, does this case threaten to violate it in the reverse respect? In other words, by not allowing someone to practice their religion as they see fit (no matter how kooky we perceive it), isn’t that “prohibiting the free exercise thereof”? Heck, perhaps the First Amendment does need an overhaul. It obviously doesn’t take into account all the wacky religions out there, and all the wacky people who do crazy things in the name of their religion. What the Supreme Court and others say is, “Oh, the founders didn’t mean absolutely no prohibitions! There has to be some reasonable guideline to keep the kooks from doing really crazy stuff.” Hmm, I wonder who establishes those guidelines. Could it be… mainstream Christians?

Either we need to eliminate reading between the First Amendment’s lines, risking religious justification for all sorts of heinous acts, or we need to eliminate religion as a justification for any action. In other words, if an act is harmful, it’s harmful. If it’s not, it’s not. Religious conviction should not be able to adjust that fact.

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UPDATE:

Believe it or not, my satire has manifested in reality.

From CNN:
Authorities arrest mom for medical neglect of 555-pound teen

South Carolina authorities have located a 555-pound teenager and his mother, who faces a charge of violating a custody order, police said Thursday.

Alexander Deundray Draper, 14, “is possibly at a stage of critical health risk,” social services said.

Alexander Deundray Draper, 14, of Travelers Rest, South Carolina, and his mother, Jerri Althea Gray, were located at about 4:30 p.m. near a laundromat in Baltimore, Maryland, by the Baltimore County Sheriff’s Office, said Matt Armstrong, a spokesman for the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office in Greenville, South Carolina.

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“The understanding was that the individual was of the weight where it was decided by medical authorities that he needed treatment that was not being provided for by his mother,” Armstrong said.

Earlier in the day officials said the boy “is possibly at a stage of critical health risk.”

Gray was supposed to appear in family court Tuesday with her son and failed to do so, the sheriff’s office said. During the family court hearing, the boy was ordered into state custody because of medical neglect, as well as his mother’s failure to appear. The Department of Social Services then contacted the sheriff’s office, authorities said.

The warrant said Gray was served with papers Monday and told to report to court for a hearing in which the department would seek state custody of Draper. “The defendant has avoided the custody proceeding and has concealed the child,” the warrant says.

Wow. Or is this more satire? How can anyone be sure?

1. Yes, this is satire. Yes, I have to say it. The real subjects of this insanity are Colleen and Daniel Hauser. Daniel has Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a highly curable form of cancer when treated with chemo and radiation. His parents did, in fact, reject chemo after only a single treatment, and now mother and son are on the run, and the court has issued an arrest warrant for her arrest. [<]
2. Note that my perhaps even more subtle satire here deals with the fact that in the real case, the mother said that putting toxic substances in the body violates the family’s religious convictions. When I read the story, I wondered how much fast food the kid had eaten (and how much more he’ll be eating on the run). We’re constantly putting toxic substances in our bodies. Quite a bit of it is natural. What the mother really meant to say is that under circumstances of her choosing, she’ll allow her god to kill her child, because that’s what Jesus would do. Or Abraham. Or someone ancient. She shouldn’t interfere. Funny how she still manages to find a way to ingest food. You know, if God wanted her to survive, she wouldn’t have to eat food at all, or take any action whatsoever to preserve her own life. Fucking hypocrite. [<]