Creswell couple Russel and Brandi Bellew@@http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27597116-41/sprout-death-bellew-medical-slater.html.csp@@ were released on bail last Thursday after being charged with second-degree manslaughter in the death of their sixteen-year-old son, Austin Sprout.@@http://www.registerguard.com/web/newslocalnews/27365920-41/sprout-family-death-creswell-church.html.csp@@
The parents belong to the General Assembly and Church of the First Born,@@http://gacfb.weebly.com/@@ a Tennessee-founded sect of Christianity that finds most forms of medical treatment to be in defiance of their faith.
According to the Lane County Sheriff Department, Sprout died on Dec. 20 and had been ill with “flu-like symptoms” for more than a week leading up to his death. Although the exact reason and manner of his death is not being released, medical professionals indicated that the boy’s condition was “highly treatable.”
The parents, now in segregated domestic pre-trial confinement, have yielded their other six children into state custody.
Austin Sprout had gained a new guardian in his step-father, Russel Bellew, after his natural father, Brian Sprout, died from sepsis@@http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001687/@@ in 2007 at the age of 35. He had not sought medical treatment for what was believed to be a simple infection.
Such deaths are shocking to the Creswell community and have prompted a public dialogue regarding faith, medicine and the decisions families choose to make.
“I firmly believe that spiritual care has a place in the family. Praying for your general well-being is a good thing.” said John Clague, University volunteer and a statewide media liason for the Christian Science Organization,@@http://www.uorda.org/Directory.html@@ when asked how to make healthcare decisions with respect to religion.
In an interview with local television, Austin Sprout’s uncle Shawn Sprout recently asserted that the death was the will of his god and thus unpreventable.
“It’s what we live for. We live to die so we can go to heaven,” Sprout said.@@ugh@@
Clague disagrees with the viewpoint and said, “If I was praying for my own kid and I thought they would die if I didn’t do something else besides pray, I would do something else. It’s not okay to trump the life of a child for religious reasons.”
Shawn Sprout also claimed that his nephew chose not to seek aid on his own free will.@@oh brother@@
Due to two Oregon criminal cases last year involving two Followers of Christ children —  a 16-month-old girl and a 16-year-old boy with easily curable medical conditions — state lawmakers worked to eliminate the use of religious belief as a criminal defense. House Bill 2721, which was unanimously passed and signed into law last June, removes “reliance on spiritual treatment as (a) defense to certain crimes in which (the) victim is under 18 years of age.”@@http://gov.oregonlive.com/bill/2011/HB2721/@@ Previously, this age had been 15, which would have excluded Sprout as a victim.
“I think people have the right to practice their faith as freely as possible,” said Jim Thomas, the executive pastor of the Eugene Faith Center,@@http://eugenefaithcenter.org/contact-us/meet-the-staff/@@ “as long as it does not conflict with the laws of the land that govern the sanctity of life. If the parents are jeopardizing the safety of the child’s life, then the laws of the land should supersede the freedom of religion.”
University senior Andrew Whalen,@@http://directory.uoregon.edu/telecom/directory.jsp?p=findpeople%2Ffind_results&m=student&d=person&b=name&s=Andrew+Whalen@@ an Orthodox Christian and a father himself, said in a less direct way that modern medicine is compatible with religion.
“I don’t really think God gave us the CAT Scan,@@http://www.medicinenet.com/cat_scan/article.htm@@ but we are endowed with a certain set of mental tools that allow us to create these things, which are most often but not always to the benefit of the people,” Whalen said.