Ethics in Michigan

We’ve come to E. Lansing, Michigan to watch our growing granddaughters while their parents go to Ireland for a vacation/conference for 10 days.  It always good to be back here, comfortable after being here so many times over the years.  The walls of trees and carpets of grass are such vibrant intense green that I’m always surprised.  I like reading their local paper, “The Lansing Journal” to get a feel for what’s happening around here.  Thursday’s paper had an article that surprised and shocked me.  A friend used to teach a Ethics of Science class at the high school where I taught.  This front page article would be a good one to discuss.   The headlines are “Justices side with religious belief.”  The Michigan Supreme Court ruled it is not child neglect to withhold medical care if parents are doing so because of their legitimate religious beliefs.  It said, “ A Lansing couple is fighting to keep custody of their two oldest children after their 3-day old daughter died of conditions related to jaundice.”  The midwife recommended they take their gravely ill newborn  daughter to get medical treatment but the parents refused because they said “God makes no mistakes.”  Instead they put her in a sunny room, prayed over her as she suffered and died.  After she died they prayed for hours for her resurrection.  I am shocked that religious beliefs supersede the welfare of the child here in Michigan.  It seems wrong and inconsistent for Pro-Life conservatives to let a newborn die, isn’t the life of the child sacrosanct?  What kind of parent can watch a child suffer and die and seek no help?  What kind of sadistic God would do such a thing?  Certainly not one I could believe in!  These days Trump is stacking the courts across the country with conservative judges.  Maybe this is just the tip of the iceberg of what is to come.  I shudder to think of such a country, such a world, shaped by conservative courts.