the answer to your question would be... YES!!!

Genovese syndrome.

After all, if the neighbors heard it, others were, and certainly SOMEONE (else) would call.  Has called; did.  Calling oneself would be an unnecessary distraction, and one would be sucked into the situation... pissed off neighbors.  Better to let a child continue to cry in pain.

Can't hear it.  Out of ear, out of mind.

Talk about something to be ashamed of...

that nothing could be done.  

... plugging that website!

Since I seem to be the "fundamentalist evangelical" in the group I bristle at your comments. I would also say that abuse is a relative term since my POV is that bringing a child up to worship satan constitutes abuse of children. Since I would never tell another human being to raise their children according to MY beliefs then I would not interfere. Do I grieve at the loss of these children, you bet. Were these parents wrong? I would have to know the circumstances but most likely, yes, they were wrong. If charges were not brought then I would say that none could have been brought since society has not been lax in bringing charges.

So as a fundie I bristle at your comments here.

EXCUSE ME?

Fuck me?

So we scream "fuck you" back at each other WHAT DOES THIS SOLVE?

I'll live the rest of my life with the consequences of childhood sexual abuse aggravated by fundamentalist "Christians".

You paint with such broad strokes! Should I label each person who has abused me as a part of the "group" that they represent? Ok, lets see here. and is also bisexual. So all people with an IQ less than 80 are horrible and so are all bisexuals.

Yours is an example of hatred in the extreme.

Don't forget to lump all Jehovahs Witnesses and Christian Scientists with the Christian Fundies you seem to hate so much. They also have thought twice about modern medicine how it "heals" so wonderfully---NOT. Doctors have made so many mistakes over the years, I could hand you a list. Let's talk about the mistakes that they have made with my children...and I took them to the doctor, to some of the best hospitals in the country.

I can't speak for Texas or Missouri, but for 20 or  30 years in New York and Massachusetts there has been a well developed (and sometimes overzealous) system of Child Protective Services, whereby 'mandated reporters', such as teachers, daycare workers, emergency room triage nurses and police can call on a broad spectrum of legal and profession services to evaluate and intervene in cases of suspected abuse and/or neglect.

Also, a large part of the problem 'went away' of its own accord as Christian Scientists began to reevaluate their practices in light of the post-antibiotic medical era, and the medical profession developed "transfusion free" surgery -- accommodating the Witnesses and Adventists who sometimes stood on religious principle during a pediatric health crisis.

There are however, always a grey areas when a weak diagnosis meets a strong religious scruple.

And if home-schooling parents choose to keep their children out of sight of the Authorities  -- as is their right -- from time to time it will be the State Coroner who will have to determine 'what went wrong.'

children to suffer terribly and die horribly, without comfort and care is cruel, ignorant and criminal. Period. No matter if you're a christian, satanist or just an unaffiliated child abuser. Abuse is abuse. Children trapped in so-called Christian homes that allow this abuse to happen should have their children removed from their custody. If Britney Spears can't keep hers for far less serious transgressions these folks certainly shouldn't be trusted to take care of theirs.  

OK ... maybe there's a misunderstanding here based on different groups of people using the same words to mean very different things.  "Sadist" and "Satanist" both begin with an "S" and policemen use the words almost interchangeably when they find a dismembered or partially eaten corpse.  Onliest problem being: wasn't no 'satanists' or 'sadists' involved -- just dangerous crazy people who may have picked up a bit of pseudo occult iconography on which to hang their obsessions.

The fact is, there haven't been a lot of 'satanist' Witches  (outside the fevered imaginations of Christian witch hunters) since the mid 1600s ...  and whether or not they ever practiced ritual sacrifice of children, much less torture and sacrifice might be best evaluated by considering how often Jews used the blood of unbaptized Christian babies to bake Passover matzot.   Not saying it never never ever happened anywhere ... only that Jews and Witches never found those practices anywhere in their oral or written traditions -- although "ain't it charming what people will confess to under torture ?"

But it's not the least unfair to generalize that Religious Right parents and educators tend to handle their little ones a good deal more roughly than Mainstream Christian  and seculars find quite decent. See link to Jordan Riak's "PTAV" -- an organization primarily of moderate Christian parents and teachers opposed to battering children in the name of 'discipline.'

Granted, taxing the religious right as a whole  specific with the specific practices of withholding medical care, -- much less the whole 'drinking poison and handling serpents' ritual -- is probably a step too far.

But, if one takes the trouble to read Dr. Dobson's books on Christian Child Rearing, it doesn't take a particularly unfriendly or overly analytical mindset to find an ongoing theme of physical and psycho sexual child abuse wrapped in the rubric of "spare the rod".  

because they are not paying attention to a very real and threatening issue that may soon overtake us.

It is certainly neglectful to not prepare for something that is a very real threat simply because they do not want to consider the evidence that has been laid out for them.

I am not sure if anyone here knows who Michael Osterholm is. He is the "director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, editor of the CIDRAP Business Source, director of the NIH-supported Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance within CIDRAP, a professor in the School of Public Health, and an adjunct professor in the Medical School, University of Minnesota. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences. In June 2005 Dr. Osterholm was appointed by Michael Leavitt, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to the newly established National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity.

Here are some of his quotes...

In 1918, even among the very young and the very old, there was a ten-fold increase in deaths, ... There was a 1,000-fold increase in young adults. M. Osterholm

"We can predict now 12 to 18 months of stress of watching loved ones die, of wondering if you are going to have food on the table the next day. Those are all things that are going to mean that we are going to have to plan — unlike any other crisis that we have had in literally the last 80-some years in this country."

"Recent clinical, epidemiological and laboratory evidence suggests that the impact of a pandemic caused by the current H5N1 strain would be similar to that of the 1918-19 pandemic,"

"What this research does is it provides us with the evidence that we have to look into the eyes of H5 and realize it . . . has the potential to be a cousin of H1N1. Then that tells us we’re potentially going to be experiencing an F5 and not an F1."

"Pandemics of influenza are a lot like hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes, ... We’ve learned that the virus actually causes massive infection in humans...[and] turns on one’s immune system in such a way that it alternately attacks the organs in the body."

Perhaps I should charge each and every parent who does not prepare for their family with neglect or even abuse. Certainly, a lot more than 150 children over 10 years will die from what is ahead.