Jean Fisher, special crimes unit chief for the Ada County prosecutor’s office – a position she’s held for more than 20 years – just shared three tragic stories with lawmakers about children denied medical care by their parents on religious grounds. One involved a 16-year-old with cancer that was “eminently treatable.” His mother fought long and hard against care being provided. By the time a court ordered it, it was too late and he died.

Both the others involved 8-year-old girls. One was suffering seizures at school; her mother refused to get her medical treatment even as the seizures increased to 13 a day and the child fell and hit her head at school while suffering seizures. Yet the mother went to the dentist and the father had glasses. “The family was very cooperative,” Fisher said. “Their faith was that they believed in prayer. But if the law said they had to do this, they would do this. So they were looking for a law to get them to do it. The judge ordered it. They complied.” Finally, a court ordered treatment, and the second medication that a neurologist tried finally ended the seizures. “She was 8 and she was suffering terribly,” Fisher said. The parents weren’t charged.

The other 8-year-old girl, in Canyon County, had “a terrible heart defect,” Fisher said. “She was going to school. The school knew she had a heart defect. She had limited P.E., limited activity at the school. It got to the point where her lips were blue, her fingernails were blue, she was very, very ill and weak. She suffered a long time with this. … It was a family of faith that tried to do this by prayer.” Prosecutors investigated, and a judge ordered testing; the child went to a cardiologist.  The doctor “said if this had been caught at an earlier time it was eminently treatable, but her systems had been so affected by now that she was going to die, and she would fight for breath to her very last day. And she was 8 years old and there was nothing that we could do about it. That case was tragic.”

Fisher told the legislators, “We would like to see this exemption lifted.”