On June 24, 2023, Blair and Taylor Edwards of Portland (Oregon, USA) gave birth to Hayden via a delivery at home. Despite appearing healthy and eating for a day and a half, the baby developed jaundice (a yellowing color of the skin). He stopped eating, developed problems breathing, his lips turned blue, and tragically he died at 3:05 pm on June 26, 2023.

The parents, who are members of the Followers of Christ Church (a sect that abstains from medical treatment in favor of prayer) did not seek medical attention in the many hours that were available to them after observing the deterioration of their baby. What they did do was invite friends and family over to pray and anoint the sick baby with oil.

According to the Mayo Clinic, infant jaundice is a curable condition as long as the baby is given medical treatment. The Mayo Clinic lists “high-pitched cries” as a symptom of the condition, so it’s likely that the baby was in agony for hours before dying.

The couple were charged and eventually pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal mistreatment. They were sentenced to 30 days in prison. Part of their deal was to be placed on probation for five years and to be monitored to make sure their other children (including future ones) obtain medical care.

These are the atrocious religious “parents” who received 30 days in prison for killing a baby because apparently praying achieved nothing:

They prayed to their almighty god and he failed to follow through for them. Surely the curing of a simple curable illness was within the ability of a deity that is supposed to have created two trillion galaxies? What should the failure tell them, and others in their creepy church? What’s the bet that the message won’t be that there’s no such thing as “god” and that’s the most likely reason why prayer achieves nothing? Hey Blair and Taylor: why didn’t your prayers work? Is it because you didn’t pray hard enough, or could it be something a lot more obvious?

One interesting aspect to this is that the mother (and that term is used in its loosest possible sense) attempted some sort of “treatment” when she poured cold water on the baby – resulting in a temporary improvement in the baby’s breathing. So she does believe in intervention to attempt to cure a condition, just not the sort of medical intervention that a hospital would provide?

Does anyone reading this want to know why they acted the way they did? Because of passages like: “Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord” (james 5:14) and “And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him” (luke 10:34). What horrors like Blair and Taylor fail to acknowledge is that sort of medical treatment was all that was known at the time to the people who invented the bible, and if they had known better, they would have availed themselves of that better care. But of course, the advances in the intervening 2,000 years are irrelevant to people like these. And the really frustrating aspect to all this is that they failed to act on the second part of the verse because they could have: set him (their baby) on his own beast (that Chevy Silverado parked out the front), and brought him to an inn (the local hospital), and took care of him (given him the latest treatment available).

Of course, none of this would be possible if it weren’t for the effects of indoctrination: no doubt from one or more parents and from the leaders and elders at their church. Incidentally, child deaths have plagued the Followers of Christ Church for decades because “of 78 children buried in the church cemetery from 1955 to 1998, at least 21 could have been saved by medical intervention“. That’s another “triumph” for religion. And that also means that the authorities are to blame for allowing such an organisation to continue with its practices – for decades.

And speaking of the authorities, so it’s 30 days in prison for what is effectively murder (or at least manslaughter), after they knowingly caused the death of another human being? Would non-religious parents have been given such a lenient sentence for a similar case of maltreatment towards another human being? Hayden died because they had an excuse? And what’s more, the death is something that would have been avoided by any real parents acting under a secular framework, i.e. one where they separate the idiocy and nonsense of religion from the practical problem at hand, e.g. by driving their baby to hospital or by calling an ambulance.

Here’s a word of advice to anyone in that creepy church (or similar): if you want to practice nonsense like abstaining from medical intervention, do it to yourself. When it comes to helpless beings, like babies and children, do everything that society and science has made available to you to keep them alive and allow them to grow up so that they can make a decision about abstaining from medical care – when they reach an adult age. Your god will understand. Geez, this is a basic concept in decency that any parent operating under a secular framework instinctively understands. Why can’t you?

Original article: https://www.kgw.com/article/news/crime/oregon-city-faith-healing-couple-charged-criminal-mistreatment-baby-dies

Psst, Blair and/or Taylor Edwards, do tell us: are either of you going to seek medical assistance when one of you gets something easily treatable but potentially fatal, such as appendicitis?