Girl Dies While Parents Pray  − 31 March, 2008

This story makes my heart ache. An 11 year old girl, stricken with a treatable form of Diabetes, died after about a month of terrible illness as the diabetes ravaged her body. Rather than seeking medical treatment, her parents “prayed” for her. They believe that their lack of faith is what killed her.
How could parents let this happen??? Are they INSANE? And what about the other kids in the house? Why didn’t they alert someone? Apparently, it was a relative living in California that tipped off police, as the child had not been seen by a doctor since she was 3 and did not attend school.
The poor girl, identified as Madeline Neumann, was seriously ill for approximately 30 days before she finally died – her parents apparently did not expect her to die… What?? Are you serious??? The symptoms alone are tortuous – nausea, vomiting, weakness, no appetite, weight loss and extreme thirst and frequent urination. She died of Diabetic Ketoacidosis.
What a horrible death. How horrible that those parents killed their beautiful child in such a manner. How could they just stand by and watch her die? And apparently, the mother believes the daughter could still be “resurrected.” The poor girl was pronounced dead on Sunday at a hospital local to Weston, Wisconsin. The parents apparently run a coffee shop in the Wausau suburb. I can’t wait to see the hate mail those folks get. Extremity in any form is absolutely repulsive to me – look at what it can do – make people insane and kill their children. Obviously those folks are NOT right. They have three other kids, too – I pray that those kids are perfectly healthy into adulthood and find a NORMAL spouse. Personally, I think that the kids should be removed from that house… what happens if one of them is gravely ill? Can you imagine the suffering if something like a burst appendix?
I am all for religious freedoms – this country was founded on the concept, but when religious beliefs take the life of a child, I do have issues with that. It’s all well and good if an adult chooses to forgo medical attention for religious reasons, but to make that choice for a child is not fair. This girl was 11 years old – way under the age of consent of any sort. How can an 11 year old have the religious conviction to allow her life to end? If she can’t enter into a contract, vote or drink I think it is reasonable to believe that she would be too emotionally immature to make such a decision.
I understand that her parents believe they did the right thing for her, but the fact remains that, whatever the reason, they allowed her to suffer and die. God gave us the knowledge and medical advancement to be able to treat such an inborn metabolic error like Diabetes. Truly, if you believe that God heals – you can say God heals through our knowledge and our health care providers. If He didn’t want us to know, we wouldn’t, right? God is omnipotent. And if God wants to take us back, He does. Look at that recent story about the woman who was on vacation boating with her family in Florida, and a spotted eagle ray leaped out of the water, hit her in the head, killing her.
What these parents did also goes against all parental instincts, too. That’s what makes it so heinous, I think. They must be insane to do what they did to their own child. The last time she had seen a physician was as a 3 year old for some shots. What happened in those intervening years? They obviously cared enough to vaccinate her as a youngster, but then, 8 years later, they rely solely on the Almighty to heal her?
Personally, I feel that charges should be pressed. I do feel that children under the age of 18 need to be protected from insane parents – whether they are parents who actively abuse their children or do it passively, like these people. If they can’t use common sense, they don’t deserve the gift of a child.