Testimony: ‘What is best for children’s health,’ ‘Dutiful parents making a conscious choice’
More of today’s testimony:
Eric Pederson said, “I think it’s pretty naïve to think that we can sit here and say what is best for children’s health.”
Megan Ulrich said, “I think we can all agree that a child drowning in its own fluids is repulsive to all of us.” But, she said, “The issue is not to be the protection of children, but the prosecution of parents who use spiritual healing.” She said some would argue that home births are unsafe, but they still occur, and instead of restrictions, there’s been collaboration between hospitals, doctors, midwives and others to ensure it’s safe. Ulrich said a solution to the problem should come from the community, as it has in that situation.
Ashley Cates, a member of Health Freedom Idaho, told of refusing medications a doctor wanted to give her daughter that she believed, based on research, would harm her. “If we did not have those faith-based exemptions in place, we might not have had the right to refuse those medications for my daughter,” she said. Cates said she feared lifting religious exemptions would lead “to western medicine and pharmaceutical drugs being the law.”
Amy Ziegler, also a member of the group, said, “I believe that people are allowed to believe what they would like, absolutely, as long as it doesn’t endanger others.” She said, “There’s room for caring people like myself that are in the middle.”
Chas Della Silva told the lawmakers, “Different forms of medicine, that isn’t the issue that you’re faced with. The issue that you’re faced with is repealing, or not repealing, all four religious exemptions.” He said the injury of a child should be the focus. “At birth in the United States you’re given rights,” he said. “I was not afforded any rights until I turned 18 years of age. I suffered terribly.”
Jessica Arno said, “I just want to choose for myself and for my own children, not have government decide. ... I feel like this law, if you let this pass, would be removing the rights of parents.”
Elexa Beikmann said she knows better than lawmakers what’s in the best interest of her own children, and said that’s true of faith-healing parents as well. “They’re at their bedsides praying,” she said. “These people are dutiful parents making a conscious choice on what kind of medical treatment they’re going to provide for their children. That is not neglect.”
