Peaceful Valley Cemetery

As of January, 2019, there are 235 graves of minor children and stillborn children plus some unmarked child-sized graves in Peaceful Valley Cemetery, one of several cemeteries used by the Followers of Christ, which opposes medical care. Below are photos of 100 of their graves.

(See a spreadsheet on the Followers of Christ child deaths we have information about.)

We focus attention on deaths after 1971 because religious exemption laws were first enacted that year. We believe that many of these deaths and much of the suffering would not have occurred had parents had a legal duty to seek medical care. Or in the case of stillborns, if mothers had received pre-natal care.

As the U.S. Supreme Court as ruled: “Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children…”  The grave markers pictured below bear silent witness, however, that many children have become just that – martyrs.

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