Panel on Idaho faith healing devolves after audience, speakers clash over vaccines
State troopers had to quiet a crowd at a panel on faith healing at the Idaho Statehouse on Thursday night, after audience members clashed with speakers over vaccines and parental rights.
Idaho is one of only a few states in the country with a religious exemption for parents whose children die or sustain serious injuries without medical care. Idaho congregations of the Followers of Christ church, many based in Canyon County, practice faith healing instead of seeking medical care for themselves and their children.
Child advocates and law enforcement officials, including Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue, have pushed for a repeal of the exemption for years, citing preventable child deaths from usually minor illnesses and injuries. Lawmakers and groups concerned with medical freedom issues, including many in the audience Thursday, say removing Idaho’s religious exemptions could infringe upon religious freedom and parental rights.
The Thursday night panel moderated by Protect Idaho Kids founder Bruce Wingate included Donahue, former Idaho Supreme Court Chief Justice Jim Jones, Boise Police Chief Mike Masterson, child advocates, Rep. John Gannon (D-Boise), local religious leaders and two former members of the Followers of Christ church.
Idaho lawmakers declined to pass legislation in 2017 that would have removed or amended a faith-healing exemption. Subsequent bills failed to be introduced to a committee. This year, Gannon said he hopes to introduce a bill that wouldn’t repeal the religious exemption entirely. Instead, the bill would require faith-healing parents to tell law enforcement or the Department of Health and Welfare if their child’s medical condition could lead to death or serious, permanent disability.
“Provided however, that the exemption in this paragraph for treatment by prayers through spiritual means alone shall not apply if the parent, guardian or other custodian knew, or reasonably should have known, that the life of the child would be greatly endangered, or the child could sustain permanent disability, without medical treatment and failed to report the child’s condition to the property law enforcement agency or the Department of Health and Welfare,” read draft legislation of a similar bill from the 2019 legislative session.
Willie Hughes and Linda Martin, former members of Followers of Christ congregations in the Treasure Valley, pleaded for action and shared stories of the abuse and medical neglect they endured growing up in the small and private Christian sect. Hughes said his younger brother Steven died after not receiving treatment for spina bifida, a birth defect that occurs when the spine doesn’t form correctly.
“We need to actually move forward and do something,” Hughes said, “and actually start saving some kids.”
But the panel quickly devolved into back-and-forth between panel members and a number of “vaccine freedom” advocates in the audience. Several attendees used question times to press panel members to discuss vaccine issues, live-streaming themselves in line for the mic and prompting outcry from the audience and speakers who tried to remain on the topic of faith healing.
Although speakers such as Gannon assured the audience that any bill would include language that clarified the change in the religious exemption would not pertain to vaccinations or immunization, many still expressed concern over how the potential legislation could affect families who don’t want to vaccinate their children.
Sara Walton Brady, who runs a Facebook group called Idahoans for Vaccine Freedom, said she was concerned about the “natural progression” of a bill mandating that parents give their children live-saving medical care to prosecution of parents whose children become ill from vaccine-preventable illnesses. Despite her concerns and comments during the panel, she told the Statesman afterward that she was “happy” to hear advocates for the change in the religious exemption were still trying to protect parental rights.
“The line is clear,” Donahue told the Statesman after the panel. “It’s simply not bringing immunizations into the conversation.”
One audience member claimed the number of Idaho children who died because of medical neglect rooted in faith healing —advocates say 187 children have died since Idaho first enacted religious exemptions — couldn’t compare with the number of children she said were dying from medical or vaccine injuries around the country. Martin, a former Followers of Christ member, disputed this characterization.
“There are legal avenues people can take if they have been harmed by vaccines or medical care,” Martin told the Statesman in a text. “There is no recourse for people harmed by faith healing neglect.”
This story has been updated with additional comments and information from the Thursday night panel.
This story was originally published January 16, 2020 at 10:21 PM.
