RITUAL ABUSE LAWS

The state of Idaho passed an anti-ritual abuse law in 1990. The intent of Section 18-1506A is "To provide a felony offense for specified abuse of a child as part of a ritual."

"A person is guilty of a felony when he commits any of the following acts with, upon, or in the presence of a child as part of a ceremony, rite, or any similar observance:

(a) Actually or in simulation, tortures, mutilates or sacrifices any warm blooded animal or human being;
(b) Forces ingestion, injection or other application of any narcotic, drug, hallucinogen or anesthetic for the purpose of dulling sensitivity, cognition, recollection of, or resistance to any criminal activity;
(c) Forces ingestion, or external application, of human or animal urine, feces, flesh, blood, bones, body secretions, non-prescribed drugs or chemical compounds;
(d) Involves the child in a mock unauthorized or unlawful marriage ceremony with another person or representation of any force or deity, followed by sexual contact with the child;
(e) Places a living child into a coffin or open grave containing a human corpse or remains;
(f) Threatens death or serious harm to a child, his parents, family, pets or friends which instills a well-founded fear in the child that the threat will be carried out; or
(g) Unlawfully dissects, mutilates, or incinerates a human corpse."

Illinois Public Act #87-1167 was enacted on 1993-JAN-1, and is almost identical to the Idaho act. We have been able to find similar laws in 2 other states: Louisiana and Texas. (Please mail us if you know of any others passed or under development). These laws represent a great victory for individuals and groups who are attempting to raise public consciousness about ritual abuse and ritual sacrifice. As Lauren Stratford (1) wrote:

"...if there is no evidence of ritual abuse and/or sacrifices - then why in the world would intelligent, successful and clear thinking politicians... work so tirelessly to get bills passed through the legislature making the ritualized abuse of a child a felony?"

But ultimately, their efforts may backfire. To our knowledge, there has never been a conviction under any of these laws. After sufficient time has past, people will realize that the absence of convictions add weight to the belief that Satanic Ritual Abuse either does not exist or is phenomenally rare.

The Idaho law seems to have been carelessly written, and fear driven. It has some major deficiencies:

Clause (a) is clearly unconstitutional, because it would prohibit animal sacrifices of the type practiced by ancient Israelites in Biblical times, and by Santerians today. The US Supreme Court ruled that a local ordinance in Florida which prohibited the killing of animals during religious rituals was unconstitutional.
Clause (a) contains a "mutilation" phrase which could be used to criminalize the ritual circumcision of a Jewish male baby. It also contains a "torture" clause which could be used to criminalize a Native America vision quest where a youth, perhaps under 18, goes into a remote area and seeks visions through the use of sleep deprivation and/or fasting. Most of these laws contain an attached "notwithstanding" clause that specifically excludes specific established religious practices. Depending upon their wording, some religious practices - particularly of minority faith groups - could still be at risk of being declared a felony.
Clause (c) makes it a felony to require a child to eat meat. This could mean that a parent could be charged for urging their child to eat their thanksgiving turkey supper if it followed the saying of grace
Clause (c) criminalizes a parent requiring their children to take non-prescription drugs; presumably this would include Vitamin C if it were done at prayer time
Clause (c) criminalizes the forcing of a child to drink urine. Some people (particularly from the Far East), believe in the curative powers of urine and might urge or otherwise require their child to drink some. They might be prosecuted if some sort of ceremonial link were established.
Clause (e) criminalizes the external application of chemical compounds on a child's body. If strictly interpreted, this would make it illegal for a Neo-Pagan, New Age or Native American to conduct many religious healing ceremonies. If hydrogen hydroxide (water) is considered a chemical compound, then a Christian baptism or christening ceremony would be criminalized.
In many (perhaps most) children's disclosures of graveside memories of ritual abuse include them being placed in an empty box or coffin and lowered into the ground. Such abuse would not be covered under clause (e) because of the absence of a corpse.
The language strangely exempts adult victims from protection under this law.

The list of abusive details in this law is obviously derived from children's disclosures in MVMO (Multi-Victim, Multi-Offender) day care and baby-sitting cases like McMartin, Little Rascals, Fells Acre , etc). These memories are believed to have been implanted in the children's minds by poorly trained investigators, and do not relate to any actual events. One is struck with how obviously these disclosures are tied to children's fears, preoccupations and fantasies. They seem unrelated to actual sexual fantasies of pedophiles who might wish to abuse children. [To this observer, the Idaho law was carelessly written and intended more to raise people's fears about Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) and to lend legitimacy to the promoters of the SRA myth than to actually catch criminals.]

One positive (although probably unintended) aspect of this law is that it could be used to charge perpetrators of Christian Ritual Abuse which has been proven to exist in North America. This abuse normally takes the form of extreme emotional, psychological and physical abuse during exorcisms in order to drive out evil demons from the victim's body. The rationale is that if you abuse the victim sufficiently, then the demon will leave. Such treatment could be considered torture, and is used on both adults and children. It led to the death of a young woman in California in 1995 and the torture death of a young child in Ontario Canada, also in 1995. We believe that regular murder and manslaughter legislation has always been used to prosecute these cases, so a special ritual abuse law is not needed.

Return to the OCRT home page; return to the "Not so Spiritual" page