 February 17, 1999
___By Mark Larabee
___Religion News Service
___PHILADELPHIA, Penn. (RNS)--Just before Christmas 1996, 1-year-old Patrick Foster caught a bad cold. As the sniffling persisted, Daniel and Anne Marie Foster did what they had always done when one of their three children got sick: They prayed the devil would be driven away.
___But regardless of how sick Patrick got, there would be no visit to a doctor. And no medical treatment, not even an aspirin.
___The Fosters' church, the Faith Tabernacle
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PATRICK FOSTER after his recovery from an operation to remove a 6-pound tumor, was like any other child his age, according to his aunt, Diane Foster. He could tire out the adults and could eat up several bowls of his favorite cereal. (RNS photo)
| Congregation Church in North Philadelphia, teaches that God, inspired by the prayers of true believers, will heal sickness and disease. For church members, as for thousands of faith-healing Christians across the United States, to seek a doctor's care would be to turn their backs not only on their faith, but on God himself.
___Patrick was in the Lord's hands, Anne Marie Foster would tell police.
___But Patrick was not healed. As winter turned to spring, he became more lethargic and gaunt. It was March when Daniel and Anne Marie Foster noticed the growth bulging from their son's left side.
___As the growth swelled, the Fosters increased their prayers. Four times each week they attended services at Faith Tabernacle, asking their pastor to pray aloud for Patrick.
___Then, one day in early May, a neighbor saw the listless boy sitting on his father's lap on the front steps. Patrick's body was so wracked that he needed his father's help just to lift his head.
___The neighbor called the child abuse hot line.
___Social worker Michael Bonetti arrived only hours after the phone call. By now the growth weighed six pounds, almost a third of Patrick's weight. A pinkish rash covered the boy's cheeks and hands. His left eye was swollen shut; his lips were cracked and white from dehydration.
___Bonetti urged the Fosters to rush Patrick to a hospital. They refused. The following afternoon Bonetti returned with the police and a court order demanding the Fosters release Patrick to a doctor's care.
___At St. Christopher's Hospital, doctors said Patrick likely would have died in another 24 hours. The large mass growing from his abdomen was a Wilm's tumor, a common form of childhood cancer that 90 percent of patients survive if they receive prompt treatment.
___Doctors removed the tumor but doubted Patrick would live. He spent six months in the hospital, his parents and extended family always at his side. The prayers were never-ending.
___But the battle over what was best for Patrick Foster was just beginning.
___Under court order, Patrick has lived for the past year with his aunt and uncle, Diane and Tim Foster. The judge allows Patrick to spend four hours a day with his parents and two siblings. One day each week, Patrick is allowed to visit his parents for eight hours. He says he loves his parents and knows they love him.
___Daniel and Anne Marie Foster are not bad people, says Daniel's brother, Tim. "They're honest and loving. They believed they were doing what was best for Patrick."
___But a jury convicted them of conspiracy and child neglect, both felonies. In September, a judge sentenced them to 14 years' probation and ordered regular medical treatments for their son.
___The Fosters' attorney, Arthur Jarrett, said loving parents shouldn't be prosecuted for doing what they think is best for their children.
___"It's not neglect if you actually believe it and you do what your religion says to do to get healed and you do it fervently," Jarrett said. "You can't prosecute religion away. It does not alter the religious practice. Outside of venting a public desire, it furthers no interest."
___Patrick's aunt and uncle are not convinced he will be safe if he goes home.
___"I'm not saying he shouldn't see his parents," Diane Foster said as her nephew scooted his tricycle across the back patio. "But he should be safe first. This is not religious freedom. Believe what you want. But Patrick doesn't know God. He's 3 years old."
___Until 1985 Pennsylvania rarely prosecuted faith healers. That year the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a faith-healing couple whose son died of untreated cancer. Since then, prosecutors have routinely investigated complaints of abuse or deaths of Faith Tabernacle children and taken their parents to court, if necessary, to protect lives.
___Joni Clark married into a faith-healing church just after graduating from high school.
___She lost her first daughter, Libby, just days after she was born because her church, End Time Ministries, and her husband, wouldn't allow a doctor to be called. She also nearly died from the trauma of labor.
___Doctors later told Clark that Libby would have had a 99 percent chance of survival had she been born in a hospital.
___"After my daughter died, the anger that I had, I never got over it," Clark said.
___Clark began a secret, personal war against the church, all the while having four other healthy girls without the help of modern medicine. She told other women about birth control and childhood diseases and helped them get proper treatment if their babies became ill.
___"I could never get past the fact that women and children were paying the price in this group," she said.
___By the fall of 1986 she decided to leave the church, divorce her husband and go to law school.
___In 1990, after Clark testified at hearings in the Legislature, South Dakota became the first state in the nation to repeal its religious immunities, making it a crime to deny medical care to children.
___Last April's edition of the medical journal Pediatrics included a study that documented 172 faith-related child deaths in the United States between 1975 and 1995.
___Across the country, 43 states grant faith-healing parents sweeping immunities from prosecution on child neglect and abuse charges.
___Six states grant immunity on religious grounds for manslaughter, homicide or murder by abuse.
___The controversial decision pulled that state into a long-simmering national debate: At what point does a parent's right to exercise free religion conflict with the state's duty to protect every child's basic right to life?
___Police saw Bo Phillips' death as a clear case of abuse because the state medical examiner ruled the disease was easily treatable. "If you or I did this to our child, we would be prosecuted," said Jeff Green, a Clackamas County sheriff's detective.
___But District Attorney Terry Gustafson did not take the case to a grand jury. Instead, she called for legal reform. Gustafson said Oregon's criminal law -- which includes shields for faith healers -- is poorly worded and confusing, robbing faith-healing parents of their rights to due process.
___Bo died in his parents' bed Feb. 23 after days of painful symptoms caused by diabetes.
___The family's church, the Followers of Christ Church in Oregon City, has amassed one of the largest concentrations of child deaths in the United States over the last four decades. More than 70 children in the faith-healing church have died since 1955. Doctors say at least 21 of them, including Bo Phillips, could have been cured with basic medical care. In addition, three mothers have died in childbirth in the past 10 years.
___Little is known about how most of the children died -- including 15 infants listed as stillborn -- because death investigations before 1985 were either inconclusive or nonexistent.
___Across the country, various groups are battling to stop children's deaths in faith-healing communities. Sometimes lawmakers spearhead the effort, sometimes child-advocate groups and sometimes prosecuting attorneys.
___The leading lobbyist in favor of religious exemptions is the Christian Science Church.
___Prosecuting faith-healing parents who refuse medical care for their ill children appears more related to the will of prosecutors and child advocates than to the specifics of any state's laws.Michigan has successfully prosecuted faith-healing parents for years. The state has no religious shield for homicide.
___In Indiana, where one of the nation's largest faith-healing churches was founded more than 30 years ago, district attorneys ignored dozens of child deaths for years before eventually bringing charges against two parents. But a strong lobbying effort by the Christian Science Church helped defeat efforts to eliminate Indiana laws that protect faith-healing practices.
___In South Dakota, one woman led a grass-roots fight that resulted in the nation's first law eliminating religious immunity for faith-healing parents.
___Joni Clark married into a faith-healing church just after graduating from high school. She lost her first daughter, Libby, just days after she was born because her church, End Time Ministries, and her husband, wouldn't allow a doctor to be called. She also nearly died from the trauma of labor.
___Doctors later told Clark that Libby would have had a 99 percent chance of survival had she been born in a hospital.
___"After my daughter died, the anger that I had, I never got over it," Clark said.
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JONI CLARK (right) helped eliminate religious shield laws in South Dakota by telling lawmakers about the death of her first child when she was a member of End Time Ministries. Clark lives in Sioux Falls with her four teenage daughters. (RNS photo)
| Clark began a secret, personal war against the church, all the while having four other healthy girls without the help of modern medicine. She told other women about birth control and childhood diseases and helped them get proper treatment if their babies became ill.
___"I could never get past the fact that women and children were paying the price in this group," she said.
___By the fall of 1986 she decided to leave the church, divorce her husband and go to law school.
___In 1989 she began lobbying to get South Dakota to change its laws granting religious defenses for the crimes of child abuse, neglect and nonsupport. The law also allowed parents with religious objections the right to decline immunizations and metabolic screening for newborns.
___Clark told her story to community service groups, legislators and anyone else who would listen. By 1990, the State Affairs Committee forwarded a bill to eliminate these religious privileges. The Christian Science Church and its lobbyists were the only opposition.
___Later that year, after Clark testified in the Legislature, South Dakota became the first state in the nation to repeal its religious immunities, making it a crime to deny medical care to children.
___In Pennsylvania, despite laws still on the books that offer some immunities to faith-healing believers, prosecutors have won case after case against parents whose children died after being denied medical care.
___Prosecutors there frequently intervene in an attempt to save lives, as they did in the case of Patrick Foster.
___Under court order, Patrick has lived for the past year with his aunt and uncle, Diane and Tim Foster. The judge allows Patrick to spend four hours a day with his parents and two siblings. One day each week, Patrick is allowed to visit his parents for eight hours. He says he loves his parents and knows they love him.
___Daniel and Anne Marie Foster are not bad people, says Daniel's brother, Tim. "They're honest and loving. They believed they were doing what was best for Patrick."
___But a jury convicted them of conspiracy and child neglect, both felonies. In September, a judge sentenced them to 14 years' probation and ordered regular medical treatments for their son.
___The judge also ordered them to purchase health insurance for their three children, to buy a thermometer and to take classes at a local hospital on how to recognize childhood illnesses. And he warned them that if they ignore his orders, he will send them to jail.
___"The criminal law is the way we draw lines for what is acceptable in our society," said lead prosecutor Mimi Rose. "We also want the non-faith-healing community to know that this is not OK."
___The Fosters' attorney, Arthur Jarrett, said loving parents shouldn't be prosecuted for doing what they think is best for their children.
___"It's not neglect if you actually believe it and you do what your religion says to do to get healed and you do it fervently," Jarrett said. "You can't prosecute religion away. It does not alter the religious practice. Outside of venting a public desire, it furthers no interest."
___But to Rose, the prosecution is furthering the interest of Patrick, the one person in the case who cannot look out for himself.
___Patrick's aunt and uncle are not convinced he will be safe if he goes home.
___"I'm not saying he shouldn't see his parents," Diane Foster said as hernephew scooted his tricycle across the back patio. "But he should be safe first. This is not religious freedom. Believe what you want. But Patrick doesn't know God. He's 3 years old."
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