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No. It is hypocritical FOR THEM to go to hospital. A kid (younger than a certain age) does not have beliefs. A kid does not have the capacity to make a choice.
Parents have no more (moral) right to deny their child life-saving medical care than they have a right to stap me down and prevent me from going to hospital if I am ill or injured.
In this case, the kid was 16. If a 16 year old was fine with dying, he was fine with dying. He is old enough to make that choice. If he was begging to see a doctor? No. If begging to see a doctor, obviously he rejects their beliefs.
I'm not talking about the merits of punishment at this point, just to make things clear- merely about whether their actions are or are not self-consistent.
Try to imagine a RAR in which the world fits the parent's beliefs (yes it is slightly self-inconsistent at least, but I'm trying to make a point here). In this RAR, God has set down rules of morality about what is right and wrong. It is comparable for the parents to break God's word by buying the child drugs for them to break God's word by sending the kid to the hospital. As you don't seem to grasp,
in this RAR it makes perfect sense. Assuming their God, as he probably does, has something against drugs, both actions are hypocritical.
A child DOES have beliefs in the sense of believing things about the world, and in terms of believing certain things on faith. It is a
moral statement that their beliefs have less right to be respected (I won't start tearing down your moral system as I don't think it necessary to win this one) than anybody else's.
In this case, I'm not sure about the theology of it but extrapolating from the closest thing I do know (Catholic, meaning this is a probalistic guess overriden by what others know of this particular church's theology)- they could morally open the door for him to leave, but calling a doctor or driving him to the hospital is actively aiding and abetting a sin (to use a term not in theology) and therefore morally wrong and hypocritical.
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Arguments regarding the veracity or even theological underpinning of their beliefs notwithstanding, parents have a duty of care that overrides any and all beliefs they may have. It is the same as any professional obligation. A trauma surgeon in a civilized country who happens to be an orthodox jew may not refuse to treat a menstruating woman who comes in on an ambulance.
When they choose to have children, they assume the theological risk of having to hold the future of those children in trust until such a time as said children can determine for themselves whether or not receiving medical attention is wrong.
Besides, the theological underpinning of their beliefs does not include the rejection of modern medicine due to inefficacy (no one can reasonably think that after the eradication of small pox), but rather, is due to a positive belief in the efficacy of prayer and a positive belief in bodily purity.
Whether you believe in this moral duty of care or not, it does not change the fact that for these individuals it IS hypocritical- this is simple to determine, as all you have to do is apply the theological rules they themselves subscribe to.
In addition, your claims about having children are non-obvious- if religious people thought they were part of the contract of society, they would be in uproar. As a matter of fact, your proposition is contested at best. People can't be said to sign any implicit contract or voluntarily assume any implicit risk they are in fact unaware of.
Finally, it doesn't matter WHY their God rejects modern medicine, only that he does.
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There is a difference between acting on a religious belief when the consequences only affect them, and forcing someone else to abide by their religious edicts.
If a JW (or whatever) wants to convince someone to not get a medically necessary blood transfusion that is one thing. If they force someone to not get one, that is murder.
Hypothetically speaking, although not the case in this case it might indeed be hypocritical in some cases for them NOT to force others not to get treatment. This is a matter not of morality but of the hypocrisy or otherwise of their actions.
Also there is a difference in Catholic theology, and possibly in theirs, between positively aiding and abetting an action (such as calling the doctor or driving him to the hospital) or sitting back and letting it happen (opening the door allowing him to leave, letting him grab the phone and call a doctor himself).
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By this logic, it is odd that we chose to punish the members of the Manson Family; after all, those actions were based on religious belief. Who are you to say that "Helter Skelter" is any less legitimate a belief than Christian dogma?
Probably right, although I don't know the full facts. If, as I understand to be the case, this was a case of a sudden change in beliefs thanks to Manson, it couldn't have been stopped so easily anyway. To use a hypothetical RAR I know is inconsistent with the actual facts:
If Manson had in fact been preaching beliefs involving the use of murders to start the race war from the start, it would indeed have been odd if this has been allowed to continue but the government had prosecuted people for actual murders commited. In the United States this is odd but justifiable because the Constitution- if this had been true and the Manson family had been elsewhere, it would have been very odd.
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