With summer over we shift our focus
Over the summer months Protect Idaho Kids sponsored ten PIKnics in the Park. Each Sunday we fed food-insecure kids and their families. We offered them a day at the park, provided food for later in the week with our food pantry providing over $2,000 worth of pantry items, and held drawings for prizes with the grand prize each week being a boy’s and girl’s bike. The PIKnic guests were able to mingle with the Star Wars characters who joined us at the PIKnics. The PIKnics were a major success.

We now return our attention to changing the religious exemption laws in Idaho so children do not die from treatable illnesses because their parents denying them needed medical care.

Since Idaho’s religious exemption laws were enacted in the 1970s, more than 200 Idaho children have died from faith-based communities that deny their children medical treatment. Experts indicate that most of these children would have had a 90% likelihood of living with proper medical care.

Yes, people have the right to religious freedom and parental rights, but those rights should not allow them to harm others because of their beliefs, and they certainly should not trump the very basic right of children to live. You may want to protect religious freedom and parental rights, but do you really want those children to die? Idaho laws protect all the other children in the state, but not the children of faith-healers. All Idaho children should be protected equally, and all parents should be required to provide needed medical care to their children.

We are not asking for the religious exemption laws to be repealed, rather we ask for them to be limited. The state would only intervene if, and only if, the child is in danger of permanent disability or death.

The Sarah Kester case is an example of what can happen when a wife and mother will not call authorities even when she knows her own children are being molested by their father. Her defense: her church taught her to not speak with authorities about family matters. The Daybell case is so bizarre it is hard to even use as another example of religious beliefs harming others.

With Covid-19, we have seen enough deaths. It is time for the Legislature to step up and protect these children who are unable to protect themselves. We ask lawmakers to include religious exemptions on the agenda for 2021, eliminate religious exemptions and save these children from needless suffering and death.

NO EXCUSE FOR CHILD ABUSE

Children should not be subjected to abuse or medical neglect based on the dictates of religion. Yet in Idaho, it is perfectly legal for parents or caregivers to do so. Each year, Idaho children die from "faith healing" medical neglect.

Watch the video to learn more, and send a strong message to state lawmakers: You are failing in your duty to protect the health and lives of our children.

The people of Idaho don’t want to see one more child needlessly suffer, become disabled, or die.

Contact Your Legislator

NO EXCUSE FOR CHILD ABUSE

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