Of course, child sacrifice should horrify us. But the fact that it still exists, and is making headlines in a number of states, should not really surprise us. After all, the notion of using the life of one's child to prove the depth of one's faith and commitment is present in virtually all of the world's religious and political traditions. The followers of all three Abrahamic faiths flirt with this tradition in numerous ways including the foundational stories of the "binding of Isaac" in Genesis, Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Ishmael in the Qur'an, and the entire story of Jesus which celebrates a "father" who offers "his only begotten son" on the cross.
Similar stories can be found in other religious traditions as well, and writing this on Memorial Day reminds me that politics is just as effective as religion in mobilizing nations to prove their commitment to a cause by sacrificing young men and women to implement the policies of their elders.
Since I believe that some wars do need to be fought, I can accept this. But we should not pretend that the impulse to celebrate the loss of children "who made the ultimate sacrifice" is foreign to any of us. In fact, our distancing ourselves from this question actually empowers and protects those who respond to it in the most grotesque ways. The real question is what do we do with that impulse, the impulse to offer those people we love most for the ideas we love most?
Clearly, the parents of children like Leilani Neumann and Daniel Hauser have decided that murdering their children to honor their faith is the way to go. But they are just the tip of the iceberg. From coast to coast, thousands of kids are in danger because of the fanatical faith of their parents.
In Oregon for example, there is a cemetery filled with the graves of 80 youngsters whose families decided to let them die because their faith forbids modern medicine. It's going on all over the country and there is a word for it, murder.
Parents are murdering their kids and the really disturbing part is not so much that they are doing it, but that they are getting away with it. Why? Because we let them. That's right, us. And our culpability is the real story here.
It's easy to go on about how sick and wicked these parents are, but the real story here is how nice people like you and me tolerate a situation in which, according to the law in as many as 45 states (the statute is debatable in a few) parents who withhold standard-of-care medical treatment for curable illnesses from their kids are not criminally culpable in the deaths of those children. Talk about freedom of religion having run amok!
Freedom of religion does not include parents' rights to make irreversible decisions which contradict the best medical information that we possess, about the lives of their children. I agree that the last thing we need is government regulation of our spiritual lives. But when we are dealing with kids who can not make decisions for themselves, the government does have a role in assuring these children a safe passage into adulthood, when they can do so.
Better laws alone, will not end the phenomenon of parents murdering their kids for God. But assuming our full measure of responsibility for having a legal system which holds such parents fully accountable will help. Most importantly, it will move us from a culture of complaint about "those people" to a culture of activism on behalf of the young victims of fanatical faith. And if this really is about our genuine concern for these children, nothing could be more important.
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Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of 
life begins at conception. This is a fact proven by science.
No, it is not. The two gametes that join are both alive already. Life continues, it does not begin.
Dr. Andrew Bostom, author of The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism, delivered the talk before mine.] Andy’s book is a perfect illustration of the problem we have. His work is a massive work of brilliance. It contains that everything that every Jew needs to know about Islam. Now let me tell you the problem. It’s not Andy and it’s not the book. There’s not a rabbi, there is not a Jewish political leader who know anything about this. The ADL (Anti Defamation League) came to Nashville and gave a talk on Islam and anti-Semitism.
A line from Ali Sina: "Only truth can set us free."
A lie from Ali Sina: "the ‘moderates’ also confess of being hypocites. They will tell you they believe in Islam but they are not good Muslims."
Ali Sina has the right to view Islam any way he wants to. However, supporting his arguments by making stuff up puts him in the same category of lying scumbags as CAIR who claim that there Islam has nothing to do with terrorism.
Guamar, I have given a great deal of thought to this issue. But, what is growning in the woman's womb, is growing in the woman's womb, a part of her body. Not only does it not have EQUAL rights to the woman, it has NO rights.
Once the head emerges from the womb, and it draws breath, it is a person, with full human rights. Before that, it is a POTENTIAL human being.
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