{"id":1161,"date":"2020-01-08T19:49:25","date_gmt":"2020-01-09T02:49:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1161"},"modified":"2020-01-09T11:02:14","modified_gmt":"2020-01-09T18:02:14","slug":"if-canyon-county-cared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1161","title":{"rendered":"If Canyon County Cared"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Demonstration on the Capitol Steps<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For the past eight years, advocates have come to the Idaho\nlegislature requesting repeal of Idaho\u2019s \u201cReligious Shield Laws\u201d. Advocates say\nchildren are dying because parents refuse life-saving treatment for their\nchildren. Religious Shield laws protect parents from prosecution in these\ninstances. And so far, the legislature has done nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, not quite nothing, legislative defenders would\ncounter. They had an interim committee meeting. Okay, one meeting, then\nnothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Governor Otter, to his credit did something. He started a\nChild Mortality Review Team by executive order in 2013. Their reports are\navailable on line. The reports show that 2-5 children in Idaho die annually\nfrom treatable diseases where parents refused to seek treatment for religious\nreasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report doesn\u2019t locate these deaths, but the religious community famous for this is the Followers of Christ Church in Canyon County in southwest Idaho. One Child Mortality Report estimated the death rate for children in the Followers of Christ community to be ten times the rate for the rest of Idaho.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was contacted as a new (but not young) Idaho State\nSenator by advocates for removing the religious shield laws, I wondered what\nthe local authorities thought. I knew they had some recourse. I don\u2019t like\nsolving local problems in the legislature. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spoke with the then-coroner of Canyon County. My main\nquestion, an allegation made by former church members wanting the shield laws\nremoved, was: are all these child deaths being reported and adequately\ninvestigated by the county coroner? The allegation was that some dead children\nhad been buried without a birth certificate, without notifying the coroner of a\ndeath. Both of these acts are illegal, and not protected by religious shield\nlaws. But the then-coroner assured me she had a \u201cgood relationship\u201d with the\nchurch community and she had recorded and investigated all the deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To check this out, I got pictures of all the headstones of\nchildren in the Peaceful Valley cemetery, where Followers of Christ inter their\ndead. There were over fifty. I asked the Idaho Department of Vital Statistics\nto correlate the headstones with death certificates. They reported \u201cnear\u201d 100%\ncorrelation. So, it looked like, unless there are unmarked graves somewhere\nelse, the coroner did indeed record the deaths. I did not review the adequacy\nof her investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also asked the Canyon County prosecuting attorney if he\nwas aware of instances of child neglect or abuse that he had not prosecuted because\nof the religious shield laws. His lawyerly answer was, \u201cYou guys in the\nlegislature make the laws, not me. I just prosecute the laws you make.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not sure changing the law is a necessary step. If Canyon\nCounty cared about child deaths in their community they could form their own\nChild Mortality review team. They already have a Multidisciplinary Task Force\nfor the Prevention of Child Abuse. Every county in Idaho has one by law. These\ntask forces get together on a regular basis and review all referrals to the\nDepartment of Health and Welfare Child Protection Services (CPS) about abuse\nand neglect. Members of the task force include law enforcement, CPS, school\nofficials, and others. I was a member of our county task force as a physician\nand as the county coroner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started a Child Mortality Review in our county in the\nearly 2000\u2019s when I became aware Idaho was not reviewing child deaths in a\nsystematic fashion. This was before Governor Otters Executive order. The\nprosecutor, law enforcement, CPS would attend. I would present the case and my\nfindings and ask for their input. Did I miss something in the investigation? Is\nthere something more I should be doing? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Canyon County elected officials, but more, if Canyon\nCounty voters demanded such work from their elected officials, maybe some\nhelpful discussions would occur. As it is, it just looks like Canyon County\ndoesn\u2019t care about preventing children dying because of their parents\u2019\nreligious beliefs. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the past eight years, advocates have come to the Idaho legislature requesting repeal of Idaho\u2019s \u201cReligious Shield Laws\u201d. Advocates say children are dying because parents refuse life-saving treatment for their children. Religious Shield laws protect parents from prosecution in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1161"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1165,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions\/1165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}