SALEM, Ore. — Frustrated with repeated deaths of children whose parents belong to a small Oregon church, the state House this week voted unanimously to remove faith healing as a legal defense for murder.

Law enforcement agencies have been struggling to persuade all members of the Followers of Christ church to seek medical help for their kids instead of relying on prayer.

The deaths of two children in 2008 prompted legislation that would allow prosecutors to seek first degree manslaughter or murder charges against parents whose children died because they were treated solely with faith.

The small Followers of Christ cemetery near the end of the Oregon Trail includes row after row of headstones marking the graves of children.

Lawmakers’ 59-0 vote sends the bill to the Senate. “It’s time we give a voice to the children who have no voice,” said Rep. Dave Hunt, D-Gladstone.

The bill would expand a 1999 law that eliminated the faith healing defense from some charges of manslaughter, criminal mistreatment and nonpayment of child support.

A phone at the listed number for the Followers of Christ rang unanswered on Thursday.

The bill is designed to apply rules equally to all parents whose children die because they didn’t get medical care, said Clackamas County District Attorney John Foote, whose office has prosecuted cases against Followers of Christ members. The current law makes it tougher to convict parents who shun a child’s medical care for religious reasons than those who shun it for other reasons like neglect.

“There’s been too many kids who have died or been injured in the last few decades because of a lack of medical care,” Foote said.

Church members Jeffrey and Marci Beagley were sentenced last year to 16 months in prison after they were convicted of criminally negligent homicide in the 2008 death of their 16-year-old son, Neil. The boy died of complications from a congenital urinary tract blockage, an easily treated condition.

Just months earlier, the Beagleys’ granddaughter, 15-month-old Ava Worthington, died from pneumonia and a blood infection that also could have been treated. Her parents, Raylene and Carl Brent Worthington, were acquitted of manslaughter.

 

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