Oof. I didn’t want to put this in the pit because I don’t know at this point how I’d go about pitting such a thing. I’m thinking I’ll let the great minds of the Dope hash this out.
I searched but didn’t find another thread about this…if my search-fu is way off, feel free to close my thread, Mods.
Essentially, the girl was born with brain damage from static encephalopathy. The article says she will never be able to walk, talk, eat or sit up on her own and her mental abilities are apparently that of an infant. She won’t ever be able to care for herself.
So, she is completely dependent upon her parents for care. Since she’s young and small right now, it’s easy for her parents to care for her - the feeding, carrying, bathing, diaper changes, traveling and whatnot. The parents had a lot of concerns about what would happen when she grows up, as far as being able to lift her, when she hits puberty (read: menstruation) and develops a woman’s body.
That won’t happen now.
They got her some medical treatments that stopped her growth so she’ll grow no bigger. They also had a hysterectomy done and had her breast buds removed. They reasoned that the family had a history of breast cancer and were concerned about her beginning to menstruate when she’s older.
I felt queasy after reading the article. Maybe I’m just not getting it?
For some reason your link causes my web browser to crash…
This is an unfortunate situation, but as long as what the parents are doing is likely to cause the daughter less physical pain in the long run, I don’t see that it’s necessarily wrong. If the child will truly have the mind of an infant her entire life, she’ll not know the difference. I assume that the family’s doctor approved the treatment.
I don’t even know what to say. I am speechless. I see both sides equally sharp and prominent. Sometimes I wish I could only see things in black and white, actually. Ugh.
This is as strong a case for active euthanasia as I’ve ever seen, even more so than an elderly person who’s sunk into helplessness because one can expect them to die naturally in a relatively short time.
This is going to make her life and the lives of her parents easier and less painful by orders of magnitude. As long as everyone is 100% sure that her brain will never develop beyond that of an infant, I don’t see any great arguments against what they did.
I recommend you all visit the website - I’ll even link to it - and read for yourselevs abotu the procedure. Reading the information and finding Ashleys’ parents to be seemingly well-educated articulate thoughtful parents who really thought deeply about this has gone a long way to easing my mind about the whole thing.
Well if they’d done it at birth, I’d be PISSED. Nobody knows how well special needs kids can develop. It is VERY hard to accuratly predict how severely affected a baby can be.
I mean it does sound like Ashley IS very profoundly affected…like about as affected as you can get without being persisant vegetative state.
They aren’t doing this for conveniance…I mean SHEESH…It is hard taking care of these kids. Besdies, a lot of those kids end up looking like little kids any way, due to failure to thrive or whatever.
Oh and here’s a quote from one of the links…profoundly MR/PVS folks are very prone to sexual abuse. (I have no idea…and that’s got to be the SICKEST thing I ever heard) Maybe if Ashley ever has to go into a home, she’ll avoid something like that. Hey…I know mild MR /LD people who might benifit from having their tubes tied.
That makes me sick. I know it sounds a little extreme but if I was in her parents’ situation I would be tempted to keep a camera on her AT ALL TIMES when one of us couldn’t be available for any reason.
At first, I thought I’d be horrified at the idea of deliberately doing that to someone-but after reading the whole article, my heart is just breaking. I can’t really decide one way or another.
Considering that since Ashley is basically, for all intents and purposes, a permanent six month old, I suppose it does make sense-and it will be better for her-and much healthier. I can’t imagine what her parents go through on a daily basis.
It seems obvious to me that what they did was the right choice. The arguments are all there on their website–Ashley’s quality of life was improved, the surgeries were relatively minor, and the growth attenuation treatment has been used for solely cosmetic purposes in other people. I just don’t see what the problem is.
Well, it has certainly made their lives easier…and the child won’t really be affected one way or another. That being said, I think the cancer excuses were reallystretching it. At what point would they decide to stop removing organs/body parts to prevent various medical problems that don’t exist yet?
I know…tell me about it…and yet there are beyond sick fucks who would get off on that. Gotta say…I don’t see what the attraction is at all…turns your stomach just to think about that!
But then I thought of my second-cousin with the bone-development problems and brain damage… and of this woman who became paralyzed and blind as a result of polio that she had at age 7 and who spent most of her life in bed…
I think it was about the most humane thing they could do.
Think on how uncomfortable a baby with colic is - now imagine having a baby’s mind yet having menstrual cramps as badly as I and many other women do. Every month for 40 FUCKING YEARS, and not understanding why it hurts.
She had her breast buds removed, to hopefully prevent cancer. I know rational adult women who opt for that.
She had her appendix removed. Yippee, pretty much bandaid surgery nowdays if you do it before it gets hugely inflamed. Now she will never get appendicitis.
Estrogen growth stunting. Good, it makes it easier to handle her so she can be moved, bathed and phiseo’d. She has much less chance of bedsores, and can be easily moved around to be with the rest of the family. I have had to help lift and move a friend who is a quad. Damn, that gets tough after the first few times and he only weighs about 110 lbs [it is the size more than the weight. Think about it - it is easier to carry a 50 lb lead brick that a 50 lb sack of grain.]