In rural Idaho, the deaths of children in Families of the Followers of Christ sect have highlighted the state’s broad legal exemptions for faith-healing practices. ProPublica reports that at least 15 avoidable child deaths occurred among these families between 2015 and 2025. The Joyce family, whose parents belong to the sect, lost four children between 2009 and 2021. Despite repeated tragedies, Idaho authorities did not intervene because state law exempts parents who rely on prayer over medicine from the legal duty to provide lifesaving medical care.

The source article leads with the story of three brothers from Owyhee County, Idaho, who died in 2022, 2024, and 2025. Each died before his first birthday. Their graves are located in the same cemetery as Emma Joyce and her siblings. Healthcare professionals who reviewed records found that most of these deaths resulted from ailments such as diabetes complications or respiratory issues that could have been resolved with insulin, antibiotics, or oxygen. The exemptions not only shield parents from criminal prosecution for neglect but also prevent police and social workers from intervening to protect surviving siblings.

What the Right Is Saying

Conservative commentators and religious liberty advocates defend the Idaho exemptions as necessary protections for the free exercise of religion.

They argue that the state should not infringe on the rights of parents to make medical decisions based on their sincere religious beliefs.

The Followers of Christ sect, which views modern medicine as a sinful lapse in faith, maintains that spiritual healing is the appropriate response to illness.

Proponents of the law suggest that criminalizing faith-based decisions disrupts family structures and imposes secular values on religious communities.

Supporters argue that the parents' actions were driven by deep religious conviction rather than negligence, and that the state's role should be limited in such matters of conscience.

What the Left Is Saying

Advocates for child welfare and medical rights argue that religious freedom should not extend to allowing preventable child deaths.

They point to neighboring Oregon, which began rolling back similar exemptions in 1999.

John Foote, a former Oregon district attorney who prosecuted cases involving the Followers of Christ, stated that the goal of such laws is not to punish parents but to prevent further deaths.

Foote emphasized that keeping more children from dying is the whole point of the legislation.

"If you don't do anything, kids are going to die," Foote said, highlighting the necessity of legal leverage to order medical care for surviving children.

What the Numbers Show

According to ProPublica's review of healthcare records, the Followers of Christ sect had at least 15 avoidable child deaths from 2015 through 2025.

The source article leads with three brothers from Owyhee County who died in 2022, 2024, and 2025, each before their first birthday.

In the specific case of the Joyce family, Emma died in 2009, and her sister Ava Joan died in 2010 from a complication of untreated diabetes.

The Joyce family lost a toddler brother less than two years later from the same complication of untreated diabetes, and a 4-year-old brother nine years after that.

A baby named Eloise died in 2018 from meconium aspiration syndrome, a condition that rarely kills babies in modern America.

Experts determined that most of the sibling deaths reviewed could likely have been prevented with standard medical intervention such as insulin, antibiotics, or oxygen.

Idaho's child abuse laws currently contain exemptions that prevent authorities from charging parents with neglect for withholding medical care in these instances.

The Bottom Line

The contrast between Idaho's approach and Oregon's stricter regulations raises ongoing questions about the balance between religious liberty and child protection.

Oregon's rollback of exemptions has been cited by supporters as a successful model for reducing preventable deaths through legal incentives for parents to seek care.

As Idaho continues to allow these exemptions, the case of the Joyce family and others like it remains a focal point for debates on whether state intervention should override religious beliefs in matters of life and death for minors.