Two bits of anti-medicine news, both from the United States northwest, and both dealing with difficult situations:

1) In Oregon, lawmakers are making it harder for people to use religion as an excuse to avoid medical treatment. The Followers of Christ, a fringe Christian group, advocates faith healing and not standard medicine, and as a result several children in that group have died in recent years. Because of this, a bill has been introduced into the Oregon state legislature to remove religious belief as a defense against homicide. If convicted, a parent whose child has died because they used faith healing instead of real medicine will be charged with homicide and have a mandatory sentence.

Stories like this always leave me conflicted. As a parent myself I always want the best possible medical treatment for my child, and I don’t want other groups interfering with that decision. However, the State has a right to protect the best interests of that child in case the parent cannot. Decades worth of evidence has shown that faith healing does not work, and in many cases the children in the Followers of Christ church had easily treatable illnesses and needn’t ...