Speaker 1: Hey everybody, thanks for joining us on the nonprofits. Today's Friday,
Speaker 1: February fourteenth. Happy Valentine's Day, but not such a happy story.
Speaker 1: If you tuned in to our show on Wednesday two
Speaker 1: days ago, then you saw us discuss really horrific conditions
Speaker 1: concerning young children and how they are impacted by religion.
Speaker 1: We are going to move to Australia with yet another
Speaker 1: example of how young kids can become the unfortunate victims
Speaker 1: of religious extremism, and AJ is going to take it away.
Speaker 2: So in Australia, fourteen members of an extremist Christian culte
Speaker 2: were found guilty of months laughter following the death of
Speaker 2: an eight year old girl named Elizabeth Strust. She had
Speaker 2: type one diabetes and her parents, guided by other cult members,
Speaker 2: including the leader, with held her insulin optin instead to
Speaker 2: pray for her healing. This led to her tragic debt.
Speaker 2: After six days without essentral medical care, she died in
Speaker 2: January twenty twenty two, but the court's recent verdict held
Speaker 2: all fourteen individuals accountable for the roles in this preventable tragedy.
Speaker 2: This story is from The Friendly Atheist by Herman Metta
Speaker 2: on January twenty ninth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for that. So sad to lose such
Speaker 1: an innocent kid, you know, not even having the decision
Speaker 1: to make her or excuse me, having the authority to
Speaker 1: make her own decisions about her own medical care, you know,
Speaker 1: relying on your parents who withhold and ultimately lead you
Speaker 1: to your death. You know, Rob, I'm not sure that
Speaker 1: I understand why it was only manslaughter. Can you talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about why was it just out plain murder?
Speaker 1: You know? How did we end up with a manslaughter verdict?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So when I read in the article that the
Speaker 3: parents were charged with murder and in the end, all
Speaker 3: fourteen people were convicted of manslaughter, and in the verdicts
Speaker 3: it says charge with murder, convicted of manslaughter, I was like, lo,
Speaker 3: what how? Because another thing to say before that this
Speaker 3: had already happened. She was she was sent to the
Speaker 3: hospital and was I believe, I believe she was in
Speaker 3: a coma. But she was hospitalized and they had a
Speaker 3: scare with her diabetes prior to this, not even that much,
Speaker 3: not that much before, so this wasn't new. So when
Speaker 3: I discovered that it was manslaughter, I went into the
Speaker 3: like four hundred and sixty seven sixty nine page document
Speaker 3: to try to find the verdicts, and I found it
Speaker 3: on page twenty one, so I just want to read it.
Speaker 3: So ultimately they were convicted of manslaughter because of deeply
Speaker 3: held personal religious beliefs. He says, after consideration of the
Speaker 3: whole of the evidence admissible against mister Streus the Father,
Speaker 3: there remained a reasonable possibility that in the cloistered atmosphere
Speaker 3: of the church which enveloped mister Streus, and which only
Speaker 3: intensified once he made the decision to cease the administ
Speaker 3: stration of the insulin, he was so consumed by that
Speaker 3: particular belief in the healing power of Gods promoted by
Speaker 3: its members that he came to the full realization that
Speaker 3: he never came to the full realization that Elizabeth would
Speaker 3: probably die, believing instead that God would not allow that
Speaker 3: to happen. So it was impossible for him to ever
Speaker 3: be charged with murder despite any education that came before,
Speaker 3: because it should have happened in the first place, like
Speaker 3: it should have happened even if the first time she
Speaker 3: went to the hospital didn't occur. But it makes no
Speaker 3: sense to me, and in fact, must be true that
Speaker 3: they went to the hospital, was told what would happen,
Speaker 3: and then they didn't believe it. So therefore my beliefs
Speaker 3: affect the law about how severe that is. That's actual insanity.
Speaker 3: I'm very upset at this, mostly because when I first
Speaker 3: took my notes on this fucking thing, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 3: there must be some definition of manslaughter versus murder in Australia.
Speaker 3: That means that they couldn't have been charged. No, no,
Speaker 3: he just he just believed real hard and therefore it
Speaker 3: is not murder. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. I mean,
Speaker 3: they've been they've been through this before. I mean they
Speaker 3: should be held to a higher standard having already received care.
Speaker 3: And my question would be, what does this say about
Speaker 3: their God if in the first place, because we're talking
Speaker 3: about a story that took place a couple of years earlier,
Speaker 3: they had to bring her daughter to the hospital, their
Speaker 3: daughter to the hospital.
Speaker 1: Anyway, if they thought God was so powerful, why did
Speaker 1: they have to bring her to the hospital to begin with?
Speaker 1: And then yes, at the hospital, they should have learned
Speaker 1: what was going to happen if this continued. And it
Speaker 1: did continue, and then they were let off the hook.
Speaker 1: And I think it just goes to show that for
Speaker 1: some reason, religion gets a special place and it really
Speaker 1: damages people. It destroyed this young girl's short life, but
Speaker 1: it certainly destroyed the parents and Helen I want to
Speaker 1: kind of gears a little bit on that note, because
Speaker 1: you do a lot of work with recovering from religion
Speaker 1: and you come across people who have been badly damaged.
Speaker 1: How does this story resonate with you based on some
Speaker 1: of the people that you have worked with.
Speaker 4: Well, it's just this story really like affects me, not
Speaker 4: only as an you know, an advocate, but just as
Speaker 4: a parent. But you I've heard stories that are of
Speaker 4: like nobody didn't die, but of not getting proper medical treatment,
Speaker 4: you know, believing and faith healing instead of getting like
Speaker 4: mental health treatment. People believing that they had demons inside
Speaker 4: of them because they have like autism, or they have
Speaker 4: like some kind of medical condition that needs to be
Speaker 4: expelled from their body, rather than getting like medical treatment
Speaker 4: for these things. And this is what belief does to people.
Speaker 4: Because you can believe in a god, I don't fucking care.
Speaker 4: But when it's it gets to the extreme where you're
Speaker 4: not giving people like proper medical treatment. That's when this
Speaker 4: has gone too far because like as Hamant pointed out
Speaker 4: our call, like one of the basic things you do
Speaker 4: as a parent is cheap your kid's fucking alive. And
Speaker 4: the fact that they knew they were told by menal
Speaker 4: like you need to give your child your insulin. This
Speaker 4: needs to happen, and they were so like, nope, God's
Speaker 4: going to heal her. And guess what, she died. And
Speaker 4: that's what happens because when people and it does real damage.
Speaker 4: Because if let's just say she has survived and somehow,
Speaker 4: you know, so grew up in these extreme religious beliefs.
Speaker 4: As she got older, maybe she wouldn't and it wasn't
Speaker 4: as extreme as this where you know, she has hype
Speaker 4: one diabetes, maybe she has some kind of other disease
Speaker 4: where she's not going to get proper medical treatment, you know,
Speaker 4: until that other education and that other information becomes available.
Speaker 4: And you also have to accept evidence. And that's the
Speaker 4: thing about like extreme belief and not being able to
Speaker 4: see the force from the trees and believing in the
Speaker 4: power of make believe, like believing the power of magic
Speaker 4: is just insanity.
Speaker 1: And there's you know the fact that they knew enough
Speaker 1: already to go seek life saving medical treatment in the
Speaker 1: first place, should completely keep them on the hook for
Speaker 1: repeated abuse. In fact, if this were me, I would
Speaker 1: lose my mind. If my kid was sick, if there
Speaker 1: was nothing that I could do, I would do everything
Speaker 1: that I could do. And they didn't. They didn't, and
Speaker 1: they were found guilty and they had a slap on
Speaker 1: the wrist. But aj, is it only the parents and
Speaker 1: the other family members that were guilty or is there
Speaker 1: a larger, a larger cause at I.
Speaker 2: Think it might be the system as a whole. Obviously,
Speaker 2: the whole cult. It was like twenty something people in
Speaker 2: that cult. I'm not sure we could blame the medical
Speaker 2: professionals here, but somebody in the law making process messed
Speaker 2: up here. Rob mentioned this wasn't the first incident that happened.
Speaker 2: When she was about seven or eight, about five months
Speaker 2: or so before she died, she had fallen into a
Speaker 2: comma as well. Because it was exactly the same thing
Speaker 2: they prayed over her, denied her insulin, She went into
Speaker 2: a comma, and she went in the hospital. She weighed
Speaker 2: twenty nine pounds at age seven. That's like the weight
Speaker 2: of a toddler, all right, and she spent a whole
Speaker 2: month in the hospital recovering from that. At that point,
Speaker 2: her dad was sentenced to six months, but I'm not
Speaker 2: sure what the reason was, but he did not serve
Speaker 2: any time, and the mom was sentenced to eighteen months,
Speaker 2: but she served only five. As soon as she got
Speaker 2: out of prison, she was putt in parole. They did
Speaker 2: the same thing Elizabeth Night, only twenty three days after
Speaker 2: her mother was released from Joe right, So they did
Speaker 2: the whole thing again. They'd learned nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, they didn't learn anything. And you know, Rob,
Speaker 1: I want to go back to legal definitions and responsibility
Speaker 1: and talk to you about how should the community or
Speaker 1: the people of Australia in general feel about what the
Speaker 1: legal system is saying is allowed. I would say that children,
Speaker 1: the legal system is signaling to people that their religion
Speaker 1: is more important than the safety of their children, and
Speaker 1: I would not feel comfortable in that system. I don't
Speaker 1: know your thoughts on that.
Speaker 3: More specifically, what the legal system is saying, because in America,
Speaker 3: in most first word, where am I first world places
Speaker 3: that you know, your intention has a big part of
Speaker 3: the sentencing. So what this is saying is that what
Speaker 3: you believe will happen is more important than what does happen,
Speaker 3: and that's materially different from intention. Your belief is different
Speaker 3: from your intention because I'm not a lawyer. If I
Speaker 3: intend to kill someone in America, then that's murder because
Speaker 3: that's my intention. Now, if I intend to do huge
Speaker 3: amounts of great bodily harm but like really just believe
Speaker 3: that God's gonna keep them alive, that would probably still
Speaker 3: be murdered because like I'm intending to do things that
Speaker 3: would result in death, whereas this is different. This is
Speaker 3: your belief structure said that, Ah, they won't die. So
Speaker 3: that's the problem. It's like, yeah, it's going to affect
Speaker 3: the kids, It's going to affect literally everyone, because now
Speaker 3: a person's personal belief about what should happen due to
Speaker 3: magic Land has more import than what the rest of
Speaker 3: reality has told us. That's actual insanity. Yes, someone failed
Speaker 3: her in the legal system before she got there, and
Speaker 3: the judge failed here after yep, yep.
Speaker 1: And I think the medical community might have failed her
Speaker 1: as well, you know, because because of the already documented
Speaker 1: treatment and lack of care. If you will, Helen, I
Speaker 1: was I want to talk to you about maybe the
Speaker 1: lack of education, the lack of medical understanding, or maybe
Speaker 1: even a failure of the medical system. You know, what
Speaker 1: can we say about those things and how they could
Speaker 1: have been used or not used to prevent this young
Speaker 1: girl's death.
Speaker 2: I really wish.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry that maybe Child and Family Services after the
Speaker 4: first incident was keeping a very very close eye on
Speaker 4: this family. I think that was a failure of the system,
Speaker 4: because there was because they knew, they knew that this
Speaker 4: is an extremely religious fan you know, they're all part
Speaker 4: of this weird ass cult and that believed in divine healing,
Speaker 4: which isn't a thing. And the child had been back
Speaker 4: to the hospital in the hospital because they weren't getting
Speaker 4: insulin and they got really sick, and just a short
Speaker 4: time later, the child died. So that was a failure
Speaker 4: of the system.
Speaker 1: Jump in, go ahead.
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry. I just want to agree with you. Yes,
Speaker 3: it's worse than that, right, Their belief actually the relevant
Speaker 3: their their church. Doesn't matter. Child went to hospital because
Speaker 3: they were unwell, then was immediately hospitalized again for same thing,
Speaker 3: doesn't matter what their church says, CPS should go. This
Speaker 3: is a pattern.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, because because there's been other incidences of other
Speaker 4: like in the United States where people that were had
Speaker 4: extreme religious practices families. Then CPS got called because they're like, hey,
Speaker 4: their beliefs are now causing harm to an innocent child.
Speaker 4: There's been core cases for a blood transfuse is for
Speaker 4: Jovah witnesses for children or doctors hire lawyers and go
Speaker 4: to court being like, if we don't medically intervene, this
Speaker 4: child is going to die. So that is a failure
Speaker 4: of the system.
Speaker 1: One.
Speaker 4: Two I am sorry.
Speaker 2: Sorry, Actually, actually there are three other states. When I
Speaker 2: was researching this case, there were three other cases, one
Speaker 2: in Oregone, one in California, and one in Texas where
Speaker 2: kids were type one diabetic. Children died because of the
Speaker 2: exact same thing, faith Kulen being refused to insually and
Speaker 2: diet and dying of That's.
Speaker 4: The thing we like again, we always say, like your
Speaker 4: belief is, you know, you believe whatever you want, but
Speaker 4: like you swing your arms until you hit the tip
Speaker 4: of my nose and then we're going to have a
Speaker 4: fucking problem. And the thing is, though, is that the
Speaker 4: swinging of the arms caused children to die. That's the
Speaker 4: problem with like we were talking about with the back
Speaker 4: lader story, like when people have these extreme beliefs, children
Speaker 4: get her. I'm sorry, Like, like, your your main job,
Speaker 4: your one of your main jobs as a parent is
Speaker 4: to keep your child alive. And how do you keep
Speaker 4: your childlife If a child needs some kind of medical treatment,
Speaker 4: you get your child the fucking medical treatment.
Speaker 1: So I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: I'm just very angry about.
Speaker 1: The time is so fucked up.
Speaker 4: So I just want to I just want I want
Speaker 4: to read this right now. I just want to see
Speaker 4: I just want to read what the judge said, is
Speaker 4: that as so they were talking about the husband and wife.
Speaker 4: As with her husband, the complete application of misistrusted part
Speaker 4: of the legal duty she owes her daughter constitute is
Speaker 4: such an egregious departure from the standard of care a
Speaker 4: reasonable member of the community would observe in the same
Speaker 4: circumstances as to amount to a crime against the state
Speaker 4: that is deserving a punishment. Again, like her husband, when
Speaker 4: her conduct was viewed objectively, it must be seen as
Speaker 4: having involved grave moral guilt and disregard for human right. Now,
Speaker 4: do I think that this she should have prosecuted them
Speaker 4: for murder?
Speaker 1: Yes, Bob, We're gonna let's jump over to Rob. He
Speaker 1: had an objection. No, that's okay, I got feelings.
Speaker 3: It was just like, hey, like, but you want to
Speaker 3: swing and swing your arms until the tip of mare knows.
Speaker 3: But Helen, if I intervene in the swinging of your arms,
Speaker 3: then I have impeded some of your rights to harm
Speaker 3: someone else. Wouldn't that be wrong of me to stop
Speaker 3: you from being able to harm others? That would be unjust.
Speaker 3: So I want to take I want to.
Speaker 1: I have a hot take. Uh you know, and not
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm not taking side. I'm not trying to sympathize
Speaker 1: with the parents, but I want to. I want to
Speaker 1: look at this from an even more strategic view, if
Speaker 1: you will, a larger a larger step back, and just
Speaker 1: just let's just look at how religion impacts people. First
Speaker 1: of all, it comes for the children first, It always does, right,
Speaker 1: The children are usually the biggest victims. But those that
Speaker 1: make it to adulthood lack the problem solving skills, the
Speaker 1: logic to act like normal human beings. I mean, not
Speaker 1: only did they lose their daughter, they refused legal representation.
Speaker 1: Now got they only got the slap on the wrist,
Speaker 1: which I am dumbfounded by But I mean they believe
Speaker 1: that God would save their kid, and then they waltzed
Speaker 1: in the church on murder charges and decided God would
Speaker 1: protect them and so they didn't need a lawyer. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is insane. The things that religion makes people do,
Speaker 1: not only to their own loved ones but to themselves
Speaker 1: is asinine.
Speaker 2: AJ go ahead, Yes, that's what blew my mind. Okay,
Speaker 2: Like they saw this child go through a whole month
Speaker 2: in the hospital recovering from the first incidents, right, and
Speaker 2: then she gets out of the hospital and mom gets
Speaker 2: out of jail, and they're like, oh, hey, you know what,
Speaker 2: let me try these second time because it didn't work
Speaker 2: the first time, so maybe you will work the second. Okay.
Speaker 2: I have type one diabetes too. I have my my
Speaker 2: glucosmeter and my installing pampan said it keeps me alive.
Speaker 2: If I take this off, I will probably die within
Speaker 2: you know, a couple of days, probably less than that.
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. Insulin. Type one diabetics don't produce any insulin.
Speaker 2: Insulin is like a key to the cells. It opens
Speaker 2: the cells with the glucose kitchen and it gives you
Speaker 2: on the energy that your cells need to survive. When
Speaker 2: this process is broken, when you don't have insulin is
Speaker 2: horrible on the body. Okay, like you're you're, you are
Speaker 2: going to suffer from extreme thirst, nausea, vomiting, abdomino pain,
Speaker 2: factive confusion, headache, muscle pains. This child went through that horrible,
Speaker 2: horrible suffering for six days at home and they didn't
Speaker 2: take her to the hospital. They just continues to pray.
Speaker 2: It's like the massive amount of mental gymnastics that must
Speaker 2: have come to there's just it's just so hard to
Speaker 2: believe that people can do that because of their religious beliefs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and on that note, you know, I'm gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna wrap up the show. I'm going to open it up.
Speaker 1: If anybody else has anything they want to add, speak
Speaker 1: now or forever, hold your peace. Excellent discussion, guys, really heartbreaking,
Speaker 1: really heartbreaking, And thank you guys. I love the emotion.
Speaker 1: I love the heartfelt kind of relation to this girl
Speaker 1: who will never know us. But you know, people should
Speaker 1: know that there are voices out there, people like us,
Speaker 1: speaking up and trying to make the world better for
Speaker 1: you and still giving you room to practice whatever religion
Speaker 1: you want. Just don't hit the tip of our nose,
Speaker 1: that's all. And if you want to hear more stories
Speaker 1: about us fighting for your right to worship, but our
Speaker 1: right to exist without your worship, and keep tuning into
Speaker 1: the nonprofits, and don't forget to check us out Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays,
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