I think there is more than one person in this story who lacks medication.

[theweaselking]

Loonies on the witness stand:

The church pastor of a woman accused of cutting off the arms of her 10-month-old daughter told jurors Wednesday that mental illness is actually demon possession and cannot be cured with medication.

Dena Schlosser, 37, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in the November 2004 death of her baby, Margaret. She was not taking her anti-psychotic medication at the time of the slaying.

"I do not believe that any mental illness exists other than demons, and no medication can straighten it out, other than the power of God," said Doyle Davidson, the 73-year-old minister of the Water of Life Church, which the Schlosser family attended several times a week.

Davidson, who has a cable TV show in the Dallas area and in several states, also testified that he has cast demons out of parishioners and seen evil spirits.

Comments

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

What amazes me more is that the defense called him to back their claim that she's mentally ill. That is, that had she not been influenced away from seeking psychological help by people such as Davidson, she wouldn't have done it.

They're calling a man who says there's no such thing as mental illness to support her "not guilty by reason of mental illness" defense.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

More pointedly, they're calling an *obviously deranged* man who had an unhealthy influence over her to the stand, and saying "Look, she's crazy, he's crazy, he controlled her, he insists that her medication is useless."

The bad news is that his kind of idiocy leads to children dying because their parents would rather treat diabetes with prayer than insulin.

The good news is that, really, we're only one good bout of influenza or smallpox away from being rid of "Christian Scientists" for good.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

I don't know about you, but I never got my small pox vaccination, so I'd be gone too.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

But you'd seek TREATMENT.

And treatment makes you much more likely to survive, and knowing stuff about disease makes you less likely to be infected.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

According to Kerry, there isn't too much that can be done for treatment (besides the standard stuff like plenty of fluids and bedrest and all that), and avoiding the disease is pretty much just avoiding people with it.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

So smallpox is a bad example. Big whoop. Rampant Staphylococcus, then.

[culfinriel.livejournal.com]

This woman IS guilty AND she needs hospitalization.

[johan-g.livejournal.com]

Davidson, who has a cable TV show in the Dallas area and in several states, also testified that he has cast demons out of parishioners and seen evil spirits.

Well, some of the parishioners have a different perspective. Apparently Davidson likes to throttle his "patients" while drunk as a skunk. Now that's a guy I'd want on the stand.