Article March 30, 1899 Issue

The position of Law Notes upon the standing of Christian Scientists...

The position of Law Notes upon the standing of Christian Scientists before the law should not be misunderstood. Our observations heretofore made, upon the rights and responsibilities of these people, may be condensed into two propositions: First, even if the doctrine of Christian Science is pronounced a groundless superstition, its believers have a constitutional right to hold and follow what seems to them a system of truth, for no one has a right to judge another's belief; but second, so far as Christian Science is a system for the cure of diseases, its votaries cannot invoke the protection of religious belief to shield them from responsibility for acts which would otherwise be criminal. One who is in the possession of all his faculties and who applies for Christian Science treatment runs no risk of being imposed upon. He knows what he is going to receive, and it is his absolute right to believe, and to act upon the belief, that the treatment by that system will be of more benefit to him than drugs or a surgical operation. In the case of children or persons whose minds are so enfeebled that they cannot exercise rational judgment the law seems to be already plain, and acts no more harshly towards Christian Scientists than towards those out of sympathy with that belief. Criminal negligence and indirect homicide are and have long been well-defined branches of the law, and in the general theory of criminal liability, as observed by Judge O. W. Holmes, "all acts are indifferent per se."

Northport, N. Y. Law Notes, January, 1899.

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