Is It Neglect To Deny Surgery For Religious Reasons?

Amish parents Gideon and Barbara Hershberger's son, Eli, now one and a half, was born with a heart defect that is fixable through surgery, but the couple's refusal to allow the invasive procedure may see them losing their son to the state. Claiming that the procedure violates their religious principles, the Amish family is fighting to retain the right to decide what treatment Eli gets, but the state of New York's Department of Social Services, charging neglect, is demanding that the boy be taken from them so that he can be operated on. A judge is expected to make the ruling on December 23.

Cases like this — which would also include Christian Scientist parents and those who believe, as the Jehovah's Witnesses do, that blood transfusions are forbidden — pit such strongly-held beliefs against one another that they are almost impossible to parse. On the one hand, the role of parents in making medical decisions for their children is a fundamental right most of us would fight for (particularly in our own families). But on the other, if a child can be saved by a procedure that is performed thousands of times a year, who on earth would let that child just die for his or her parents' religious beliefs?