OREGON CITY, Ore. (RNS) After 12 days of testimony from police, doctors and church members, jurors will now weigh whether Carl and Raylene Worthington violated their legal duty to provide medical care that could have saved their 15-month-old daughter’s life.

The charges, second-degree manslaughter and criminal mistreatment, require the jury to decide whether the Oregon City couple withheld necessary medical treatment and, if so, whether their actions caused the death of their daughter, Ava.

The case also touches on larger themes — religious freedom, parental rights and the state’s obligation to protect children.

As members of Oregon City’s Followers of Christ church, the Worthingtons and their relatives have never used doctors or prescription medicine. In times of illness, they rely on faith-healing and prayer.

In closing statements Wednesday (July 15), prosecutors and defense attorneys presented jurors with very different versions of the events leading to Ava’s death March 2, 2008.

Prosecution witnesses said medical care would have saved the girl’s life, even in her final moments. The Worthingtons and their attorneys said it would not have made a difference.

The case is about “accountability, responsibility and judgment,” Greg Horner, chief deputy district attorney, told jurors. When it comes to religious expression and a child’s well-being, “the welfare of a child comes first.”

Horner invited jurors to consider whether the Worthingtons’ actions were reasonable. “Is what happened here reasonable? Is that the standard of our community.”

Seeking medical care is considered a weakness of faith, Horner said, and while the Worthingtons may have gained the admiration of their congregation, “they showed faith at the cost of their daughter.”

In closing statements that ran over two days, defense attorneys challenged nearly every aspect of the prosecution’s case. The couple responded reasonably, they said. The Worthingtons believed Ava had a bad cold or the flu and took appropriate steps to give her fluids and keep her comfortable and rested.

No one could have foreseen the rapid-fire infection that would take root and take her life in hours, said John Neidig, Raylene Worthington’s attorney.

“What Raylene Worthington did was not anything different from what any reasonable person — under these circumstances, in this situation — would have done with their child, sick in less than 30 hours,” Neidig said.

The prosecution is “trying to say that Mr. and Mrs. Worthington were not reasonable and that it’s all their fault,” when, in fact, Ava died from an infection moving at lightning speed, he said.