Are Christian Science Parents Forced to Ignore their Children’s Health Care?
An enormous amount of pressure is exerted by church members to ensure that the Christian Science parents conform to church teaching on medicine. Without this pressure many parents would renege and seek medical care for their obviously extremely sick and possibly dying child. In the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses, the parents are threatened with disfellowshipping if they permit their child to receive a blood transfusion, meaning that no fellowship with them will be allowed. Disfellowshipping from a church can be serious because church members often include family, friends, relatives, children, and siblings-and to be cut off from these persons is often profoundly traumatic. Consequently, many persons in religious groups that forbid or discourage use of modern medicine face the choice of losing either their child or their family and their major support system. The Christian Scientist church does not practice formal disfellowshipping as do Jehovah’s Witness and certain other religions, but th
