Rhianna Rose Schmidt is as dead as she will ever be. Her parents, Dewayne and Maleta Schmidt, let her die of sepsis two days after she was born. Sepsis is deadly, but can be treated with antibiotics. The Schmidt family belong to the General Assembly and Church of the First Born. Other children in this Church have also died. Aspen Daniel died from dehydration in 1998. Bradley Glenn Hamm died from pneumonia in 1999, the third child of the Hamm family to die. It is not the case that Rhianna, Aspen or Bradley died because their parents did not have access to medical help, or that their parents could not afford medical help, or that medical help was not available through charity, or that they were unaware that medical help existed. These children died because their parents knew they could get medical help and specifically chose to withhold it from their children, up to and including watching their children die. They let their children die because they "relied on God" to heal their children.

Based on the teachings of most world religions (as well as most "alternative" religions), if something happens it is because God wants it to happen. Humans should not interfere with God's plan, even when God's plan is to kill children. Religious people say that these things happen for a reason, either to teach the survivors a lesson; or so we all learn something we can't learn, until we are dead, which isn't really being dead, because we will be alive again, in the life that happens after we are not alive (yeah, I know). If antibiotics are not in God's plan, then is washing your hands with soap and water after using the bathroom in God's plan? Are synthetic fibers in God's plan? Is it in God's plan that we cut our toenails, when God clearly made us to have toenails that keep getting longer? Saying that medical care for children is not part of God's plan is true enough in the sense that there is no God. Other than that, saying "prayer" is an excuse for fatal neglect is nothing but child sacrifice.

Imagine there are two families with young children. One family is made up of devout religious people, the other family is made up of evil performance artists. The children in each of these families grows sick. One family prays that the children get better, one family appears to pray that the children get better, and neither family gets medical help for their children. The children die. How does the state determine which family "really" prayed? When the state excuses fatal child neglect because their caregivers prayed for them, it is legislating that some forms of prayer are condoned while other forms of prayer are not. Any neglectful caregiver could say they prayed - silently - for their dead child. Is the state fit to determine this is not the case? If freedom of religion is to be preserved in the United States - and this atheist thinks it should - then the state should never favor one religion over another. Prayer should never be an excuse for letting children die needlessly.

Unfortunately for children in the United States, if you "pray" for them while you neglect or abuse them, you can get away with murder. Aspen's parents never had charges brought against them. Bradley's parents got away with the first two deaths (should have quit while they were ahead). In a study done of 172 children who died between 1975 and 1995 due to their caregiver's religious decisions, 140 had conditions with a 90% survival rate (given medical care). Only 43 of these cases came to trial. Any one of those children could have grown up to cure a disease, write a catchy tune, be a clever lover, or even be a religious leader. Instead, they were child sacrifices and the parents got away with it. In Oregon, over eighty children whose parents belonged to Followers of Christ Church died from medically preventable causes since the 1950s. In over half of these deaths, the state did not attempt to establish the cause of death, the record was lost or their deaths were listed as due to natural causes. Even when an Oregon medical examiner brought these deaths to the attention of the District Attorney's office, the prosecutor declined to file charges. Oregon's child sacrifice laws were only done away with in 1999. What do the laws say in your state?