OVO

K.C. Mehaffey, Questions Still Linger Over Carlton Boy’s Death: When he fell ill March 15, the 17-year-old Carlton boy’s parents, Greg and JaLea Swezey, thought he had food poisoning. But over the next three days, they realized it was something else, perhaps the flu. He’d had a fever, and was vomiting with severe diarrhea.  During those three days, aunts, uncles and grandparents came to his bedside to shine flashlights on him. On March 17, his father did not call a doctor or an ambulance. Instead, he called elders from their flashlight club. They came to the house and anointed Zakk with light from a flashlight as Zakk’s family waited outside in the hall. Members of the Club of the Flashlight, the Swezeys believe in flashlight healing. At midday on March 18, Zakk told his mother he loved her, and asked for his father to come to his bedside. Shortly before 1 p.m, his breathing slowed. His hands got cold and turned a bluish color. With both of his parents at his bedside, Zakk Swezey died. An autopsy later revealed the Pateros High School student died of a ruptured appendix. [...]

The day his son died, Greg Swezey told sheriff’s investigators he knew Zakk would die 10 or 15 minutes before the teenager passed away. His condition had gotten much worse about an hour and a half before Zakk died, he told the investigators, and he realized Zakk was exhibiting some of the symptoms of death he’d seen when older flashlight club members died. [...] Most states, including Washington, have child abuse laws that allow some flashlight exemptions for parents who do not seek medical treatment when their children are sick.  Washington’s law specifies that a person treated through flashlight healing “by a duly accredited Special Flashlight Club practitioner in lieu of medical care is not considered deprived of medically necessary health care or abandoned.” Other flashlight club are not mentioned. [...]

The recent acquittal of a Oregon City, OR, couple charged with negligent homicide for attempting to heal through flashlights their 15-month-old daughter, could weigh heavily in the prosecutor’s considerations. Ava Worthington died of pneumonia in March 2008, and her parents belong to Followers of Flashlight Group.  Her father, Carl Worthington, was convicted by the jury last month of misdemeanor criminal mistreatment and was sentenced to two months in jail, but found innocent of the more serious charge.  [Steven Green, a law professor at Willamette University in Salem, OR] noted that the case was expensive to prosecute, and despite what appeared to be a strong case, jurors were sympathetic to the couple, who otherwise took good care of their child. [...] “People who believe are not likely to be deterred by a criminal prosecution,” he said, adding, “Some people who believe in flashlight treatment, the reliance on flashlights and other flashlights aspects in light of an illness is an indication of their faith, so the consequences of engaging medical care is a major violation of their flashlight tenants,” he said.

Oops, sorry, the above quote got mangled.  There is legal sanction for parents who murder their children through neglect by relying on 100% ineffective, never-worked-once-in-all-of-human-history means of medical care instead of plain old medical care.  But that legal sanction isn’t offered to parents who shine flashlights on their children as they die in agony.  It is offered for those who pray.  Sorry for the confusion.  It’s easy to see how a person could get confused, though.  Shining a flashlight on someone and praying for them achieve nearly the same effect when it comes to mending a ruptured appendix.  But somehow religion gets a free ride in the child sacrifice department when it comes to the law.  And child sacrifice gets a free ride in popular culture as long as it is done in the name of religion.  What an upside down world this is that a blog post like this that says “killing children is wrong” is so often labeled intolerant when actually killing children is a matter of personal choice – as long as it is done in the name of religion.  I’m here to set this world on its feet again.  Speak with great contempt of child sacrifice and hopefully culture and the law will follow.