Monday, July 27, 2009

Homicide?

Today I read an article about a woman in Texas, Otty Sanchez, who killed her 3 and half-week old baby.  She dismembered his body and supposedly ate his brain.  She claimed that the “devil made her do it.”  This article made me realize that this has a few similarities to the topic I am discussing.  Is it fair to say that parents who don’t take their children to the hospital due to their religious beliefs are perhaps murdering their children?

This article referred to a couple similar cases.  One was that of Dena Schlosser.  Schlosser killed her 10-month old baby by slicing off her arms saying that she killed the baby because “she wanted to give her to God.”  Schlosser was deemed mentally insane and found not guilty.

Another case mentioned in this article I remember hearing about on TV and reading about in the papers.  It was the case of Andrea Yates who drowned her five children in a bathtub at her home in Houston, Texas.  She said, “Satan was inside her” and she was “trying to save them from hell.”  Yates, like Schlosser, was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

 I can see where religious exemption laws play an important role.  Although I do not believe that a parent should be allowed to withhold life saving medical treatment, like a blood transfusion, from a child, I can see why courts found Schlosser and Yates not guilty of homicide due to a “religious belief.”  But it’s not because the courts condoned their actions because of a religious influence, but rather because they believed the two were psychologically disturbed so they were treated/punished accordingly.  The courts ordered both Schlosser and Yates to a high security mental institution where they will probably spend the rest of their lives.

Should these same rules apply for parents like Dennis and Lorie Nixon (see post below)? Two of the Nixon’s children died because they didn’t take them to the hospital because “God didn’t want them to.” To me this sounds the same as the “devil made her do it.” 

 

 

2 comments:

  1. Don't know if you've been following this case, but it showed up on one of my news feeds today.

    Jurors apparently were lenient on the mother because she was in a "traditional" marriage and had to defer to her husband's decision.

    Oh, and it turns out the sect had been involved in similar cases, but the jury hadn't heard about them.

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  2. Definitely not on the same plain as the Nixons. Although equally upsetting, one seems like more a product of negligence and stupidity, while the others are as you said "psychologically disturbed."

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