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At first glance, the Phillipses seemed prosecutable. Child-neglect laws in nearly every state make parents who fail to obtain medical treatment for their seriously ill children liable. However, a 1974 federal child-care program made funding contingent on the states' exempting faith-healing parents. That requirement no longer exists, but 41 states retain exemptions from local civil-abuse and -neglect laws. In Oregon, Arkansas, Delaware, Iowa, Ohio and West Virginia there are also exemptions from criminal homicide or manslaughter charges. Says Gustafson: "I've spent nights trying to figure out a way to bring the message to this church that you can't kill your kids on the basis of religious beliefs. But the law is clearly on their side." For their part, the Followers have mostly kept silent about the news stories as well as Lewman's and Gustafson's activities. A church-board member told TIME, "I know what the D.A. here is trying to do, but it's our business, and we just don't want to talk about it. Just don't believe everything you read."
The Oregon deaths make even some of the exemptions' predictable champions a bit queasy. Jones, of Christian Science, says he personally believes "taking care of a child is a sacred responsibility. If one form of treatment is not working, parents have an obligation to investigate other alternatives," including doctors or hospitals. He maintains, however, that even Oregon-style exemptions (he prefers "accommodations") are "a door to religious freedom." Steven McFarland, head of the Center for Law and Religious Freedom, a conservative Christian group, demurs. "The First Amendment protects religious belief absolutely, but not religious practice. Child welfare is a classic example," he says. "If irreparable harm to a child is about to occur, the state's duty to protect the child trumps. Those folks in Oregon should know that the cost of their belief can be criminal prosecution if they allow a child to die."
More common than a blanket defense of exemptions is a query: Isn't there a way to discourage faith-healing-related deaths that is less harsh and more proactive than throwing well-meaning, bereaved parents in jail after the tragic fact? In 1994 Minnesota passed a law requiring parents to alert authorities if their medical boycott endangered their children, leaving it to the state to intervene if necessary. The results are inconclusive: a check on the state's biggest county shows that no one has self-reported. And Michael McConnell, a lawyer who has defended faith-healing parents in neglect cases, is worried that exemption-repeal advocates have no patience for more such experiments. Anger, he suggests, has made them "so contemptuous of the parent that they are likely to overlook solutions that would work much better."