Christian Parents Being Charged With Manslaughter For Killing Their 2 Year Old Dies

2 year old Kent Schaible had a case of bacterial pneumonia for a week and a half before he died at home, as his parents and their pastor “intensely prayed”, and only prayed.

At no time that day did his parents, Herbert and Catherine Schaible, seek medical treatment for their son’s sore throat, congestion, liquid bowel movements, sleeplessness and trouble swallowing, Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore said in court yesterday.

"All it would have taken is a simple visit to a doctor for antibiotics or Tylenol, maybe, to keep this child alive," she said during the couple's preliminary hearing.

Despite the attempts of the parents’ two lawyers to persuade the judge not to, he has decided to go to trial with the charges of involuntary manslaughter, conspiracy to commit involuntary manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child.

This is a growing trend across the country where parents are slapped with criminal charges for turning to religion rather than medical care for sick children who later die.

The Schiables are members of First Century Gospel Church in Pennsylvania. The church believes that the sick can be healed through prayer rather than by medicine.

There are many other churches and organizations that believe the same.

Francis Carmen, Catherine Schaible's attorney, said that the couple's decision to forgo medical attention was not due to their religion, but because they thought Kent had a cold.

A Philly.com article reported:

"The commonwealth wants to use [the Schaible's] religious beliefs as a self-fulfilling prophecy that, somehow, because they are different and because they exercise religious beliefs that are not necessarily in line with the majority of us," he said, "that is the cause of them failing to recognize that this child was as ill as he was."

Hoof, on behalf of Herbert Schaible, said that his client did everything in his power to care for his son in the days before he died - feeding him and giving him liquids.

I think the prosecutors will ask if he tried giving him a Tylenol or taking him to a doctor.