Same Parents, Second Faith Healing Death

 
Photo: Herbert and Catherine Schiable

The entire (very short) article, by MaryClaire Dale, reporting for the Associated Press, at this website:

A Pennsylvania couple who believe in faith-healing face 20 years or more in prison in the death of a second child who died without seeing a doctor.

Herbert and Catherine Schaible are being sentenced Wednesday in the death last year of their 8-month-old son, Brandon. At the time, they were under court orders to seek medical care for their children after their 2-year-old son, Kent, died of untreated pneumonia in 2009.

The Schaibles are third-generation members of a small Pentecostal community, the First Century Gospel Church in northeast Philadelphia.

A lawyer for Catherine Schaible, 44, plans to explore their religious beliefs at the sentencing. Her 45-year-old husband's lawyer argues that no malice was involved.

The Schaibles have pleaded no contest to third-degree murder in Brandon's death. They have seven surviving children.

"We believe in divine healing, that Jesus shed blood for our healing and that he died on the cross to break the devil's power," Herbert Schaible said in a 2013 police statement. Medicine, he said, "is against our religious beliefs."

A jury had convicted both parents of involuntary manslaughter in Kent's death, and they were put on 10 years of probation that included orders to seek medical care if any other child got sick.

After Brandon's death, an irate judge found they had violated parole.

Prosecutors have described the boys' symptoms as "eerily similar," and said they included labored breathing and a refusal to eat. Catherine Schaible's lawyer, though, said her client tried to feed Brandon during his illness and applied baby powder to keep him comfortable.

Their pastor, Nelson Clark, has said the Schaibles lost their sons because of a "spiritual lack" in their lives and insisted they would not seek medical care even if another child appeared near death.
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Now, just a few things from me:

--While the lawyer for Catherine Schiable can investigate whether she has the right to believe as she does, someone has to tell these two that the important person in this whole case isn't one of the parents, and so therefore their religious beliefs, while obviously important, isn't the #1 thing to take into consideration.  The most important person is the dead 8-month old son, Brandon.  So how about someone spend a little time investigating his rights, starting with his right to stay alive?

--Am I reading this right?  Did the courts give the Schiables 10 years' probation after they were convicted of manslaughter for the death of their first son?  They've done this before.  And we're shocked that such people would do it again?  Did the first judge really think that such people would change their religious beliefs simply because a judge told them to?

--Note to the Pennsylvania courts: They have seven surviving children.  Key word there is "surviving."  Which in this case translates to: "Their parents haven't killed them yet."  They've done this twice now.  They will do it again, even if you tell them not to.

--No one from the courts was going to the house to check on the eight remaining kids until Brandon died?  Someone will say that there isn't enough people to check on everyone, but I'll bet someone was checking on the kids of the parents who were poor, or amongst a minority--but who hadn't already been convicted of killing one of their kids.

--Yet another example of the continued battle between scientific facts and religious beliefs in this country: pneumonia isn't the Devil.  It's an infection caused by a virus or by bacteria.  You can believe that Jesus can win a battle with the Devil.  That's fine.  But antibiotics can win a battle with pneumonia.

--Beliefs are not facts.  If they were, they'd be called "facts" and not "beliefs."  You can believe whatever you want.  When it crosses the line in your psyche into "fact" land, you'd better have what scientists call "proof" or "provable evidence."  If you don't, you have to understand that when you say something is against your beliefs, than it's just that--a belief.  Not a fact.

--Note to faith-healing believers: If They exist, God and Jesus want you to save your kids.  They really do.

--Did you see at the bottom of the article that their pastor says they'll do this again?  Don't you think that the pastor--or even one of the Schiables--said the same thing after Kent died?

--Speaking of this pastor, can the PA law go after him now?  Now that the parents themselves are in jail, how about charging this guy with being an accessory?  He is wielding a gun, an obvious weapon, except it's verbal and not physical.  I know it's a touchy thing because now we're talking about religious beliefs again, but--legally speaking--if Person X tells Person Y to jump off the bridge because Jesus wants him to, and then Person Y jumps off the bridge, isn't Person X culpable at all?  Religion is being used like a drug here, like Ecstasy (the literalism is intentional).  It is against the law to control someone using an actual drug, and then have them commit crimes for you.  I mean, didn't Charles Manson do exactly that?  Like this pastor, he never lifted a finger to do any of the killings himself.  And I have to think that the Schiables told their pastor they were taking a wait-and-see approach with their son's pneumonia, so isn't he also culpable for that reason? So why not charge the pastor?  Can someone with legal training please explain this to me?

--There's a twisted version of Munchausen Syndrome going on here.  I mean this literally.  Notice that the parents very clearly believe that this case is about their religious beliefs, and not really about Brandon at all.  It's like this is their way of having all of the attention, of preaching about their religion.  Their their their.  In interviews, they keep saying "my," or "our," as in: "Medicine is against our religious beliefs."  It's narcissism.  Once parents like this are convicted of killing one of their kids because of their beliefs--whatever they are--can't we then at least put them in a mental health facility?  Narcissism and Munchausen's can be very dangerous personality disorders--as we see here--so if there are legal issues because of religion, can we not go this route?  Again, someone with legal training needs to explain this to me.

--If these parents were to say that the family dog told them to withhold medicine for Kent, wouldn't they have been in a jail or in a facility after that?  I don't mean to offend by comparing Jesus to the family dog--that's not what I'm doing--but if these parents were to have said that anything else at all (the family pet, the Devil, their dishwasher, whatever) told them to withhold medicine for their children, wouldn't they already have been whisked away?  Haven't scores of people done exactly this, and been carted away?  Why then is this any different, from a legal perspective?  These people are hearing voices just like all of the others who've said "The dog told me to..." or "The Devil told me to..." and yet they're less culpable because they say that it's Jesus speaking to them?  Yet again, someone with legal training, please comment or send me an email.

Because none of this makes any sense to me at all.

Guest Interview--Writer Julie Holland, Weekends at Bellevue, Part 2

photo: Cover of Weekends at Bellevue, from the previous interview post (see below)

As the title suggests, this is Part Two of my interview with writer, and Dr., Julie Holland.  She is the author of Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych. ER.  This was a very easy and quick read, interesting and entertaining.  Part One of the interview is here.  Thanks to all who commented and emailed about it.  If you're interested in the book, or in Dr. Holland's other writings, go to her website here.

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4.  One of the running themes of your book is the courage to accept change.  Change was one of the hardest things for your patients to deal with, and your narrator also struggled with this, especially after the death of your friend, and after you felt yourself burning out at Bellevue.  Can you speak more of this now, and maybe about how some are better able to deal with change, while others perpetually struggle?

I think resilience is crucial to survival. Adapt or your species will die out. But many people are rigid, and get thrown off easily. They need to know what’s going to happen and how to prepare, but in life there’s really only so much you can predict. I honestly think that some of my experiences with psychedelics helped me to be flexible about my surroundings, to look at things from different perspectives, outside the box, as it were. The things that help me deal with change now are primarily a buddhist philosophy, and naturally not caring about much anyway. The older I get, the more nonplussed, but Buddhism teaches you to have an open hand, not grasping, not clinging. It comes, it goes. That is the basis for life. Nothing stays. At Bellevue the big drag for me wasn’t the unexpected. That was the fun part. It was the people coming in repeatedly, the ones who were “stuck.” Hitting spiritual brick walls, in the guise of addiction or other self-sabotage. Obviously in this case, change is needed. Insanity really is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results.

5.   Could you boil your thoughts down to a few paragraphs each about the benefits of MDMA and Cannabis?

MDMA and Cannabis are both Schedule I drugs. This means our government deems them to have no medical use and a high potential for abuse. They both have lower levels of addictive potential than cigarettes and alcohol, and they both have broad indications for therapeutic use, so they are inappropriately scheduled. MDMA assisted psychotherapy has been shown to be safe and effective in treating post traumatic stress disorder in various patient populations. I’m the medical monitor of two clinical research trial now enrolling veterans with PTSD from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. One is using MDMA assisted psychotherapy, and the other is using various strains of cannabis to diminish their symptoms. MDMA is a catalyst that allows psychotherapy to go deeper, more quickly. I think of it almost like anesthesia for surgery, except you’re awake, aware, fully present, with enhance memory not only for the traumas, but for the session. Cannabis is an ancient medicinal plant that was in the pharmacopeia until the 1941. It was made illegal soon after alcohol became legal, and the AMA resisted the move then.  Recently, the American Medical Association came out supporting investigation and clinical research of cannabis for medicinal use. And The American College of Physicians recently expressed similar support. They have called on our government to move cannabis out of Schedule I. There is impressive medical evidence mounting that cannabis can treat a wide array of symptoms, from lack of hunger to muscle spasms, autoimmune diseases, migraines, seizures, pain, nausea, and the most surprising to me, cancer.

6.  Did you know when you were younger that you wanted to be--or that you would be--a professional in the medical field, and a published author?

I went to public school in a town outside of Boston. My mom was a science teacher, and paid attention to who my teachers were and how I was doing. I was in the advanced tracks, took AP classes, etc. I was a good student and got good grades, but I had plenty else going on in my life growing up. I had great friends in high school, and played in a band, so the big choice in my life was always between medicine and music. Not between medicine and writing. I was very interested in drugs and the brain and went to Penn because they had a major that combined neurology, behavior, and psychopharmacology. I was premed but threw away my application to med school once I found a band I thought could really “make it.” I ended up staying with that band until my 3rd year of med school, when I really couldn’t straddle both options anymore. The writing really came later for me.