Posted on 11/01/2006 4:38:55 PM PST by Piefloater
IN a controversial treatment, doctors in the US have given a severely disabled child drugs to keep her small and 'manageable' for her parents.
In a report published in a medical journal this month, the doctors described a six-year-old girl with profound, irreversible developmental disability who was given high doses of estrogen to permanently halt her growth so that her parents could continue to care for her at home.
The controversial growth-attenuation treatment, which included hysterectomy, was requested by the child's parents and initiated after careful consultation and review by an ethics committee.
In their report in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, doctors Daniel F. Gunther and Douglas S. Diekema, both at the University of Washington in Seattle, explained the reasoning behind what they hoped would generate healthy debate.
Dr Gunther is at the Division of Pediatric Endocrinology, and Dr Diekema is at the Centre for Pediatric Bioethics.
Caring for children with profound developmental disabilities could be difficult and demanding, they said.
For children with severe combined neurologic and cognitive impairment who are unable to move without assistance, all the necessities of life – dressing, bathing, transporting – must be provided by caregivers, usually parents, and these tasks become increasing difficult, if not impossible, as the child increases in size.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Those two situations aren't even in the same league. What's wrong with you?
And there are full-grown adults with similar disabilities and their caregivers are able to take care of them.
No. there are people paid to care for them, who do it, sometimes in a slipshod mannner.
That would be better than stunting her. But better still would be for the parents to sacrifice just a bit more, and care for at home even if she grows to adult-size.
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Honey. she was stuntd from the get-go. If you can say something so callous as give a little more, to people who are sacrificing every day...you are out of touch.
Overdosing her on estrogen may very likely give her breast cancer.
So what?
Yes there are full-grown adults with similar disabilities cared for by loved ones. They may get a nurse to assist them, especially for nights. But there are people who do it. As for "slipshod", it happens in the institutions as well.
-A8
Puberty is not pretty thing in girls of any range of mental retardation. On your logic, we should therefore give them all hysterectomies.
-A8
Apparently in your opinion, if a person is already stunted, then it is ethically permissible to stunt them even further.
That's like saying that if a person lost one leg, then it is ethically permissible to remove the other.
-A8
If the parents wanted "convenience", they could simply hand the child over a state institution and be done with it instead trying to keep the child at home as long as they possibly can like they desire to do.
Once a severely mentally disabled person gets too large to be physically controlled by the parents, no choice is left except institutionalization where, instead of loving parents, they will have muscular attendants to look after them.
If a human adult is little more than vegative and infantile, you can take off both armes and legs as far as I am concerned.
A8 -- getting a home-care nurse takes a whole heckuva lot of money. I went through that with family members. Insurance craps out quickly on that. It's unrealistic for many families to say "get a nurse."
God bless you for your choices in your situation, but that can't help but impact your opinion of families that make a different decision about the best way to care for their child. I would ask you to have some compassion for them and their choices as well.
Puberty is not pretty thing in girls of any range of mental retardation. On your logic, we should therefore give them all hysterectomies.
No. Your logic is dramatic, concrete and flawed. There is a huge difference between a functional and aware human and an infantile and profoundly mentally retarded human.
-A8
Why do you think it is wrong to remove the arms and legs of a person of normal intelligence, but ethically permissible to remove the arms and legs of a person with the mind of an infant?
Management.
-A8
"Overdosing her on estrogen may very likely give her breast cancer."
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I don't think her risk would be substantially higher than the average woman given that her estrogen production has likely been drastically reduced by the hysterectomy. Especially if she had an oomphorectomy (ovaries removed) as well. The two things would likely balance each other out.
I'm not positive that it is unethical. Is it more or less ethical than the hysterectomy (which I do support)?
Indeed there is. So how does that making whacking off the limbs of mentally retarded people ethical?????
-A8
Please explain.
-A8
Well, we disagree. I don't think this is a situation of impermissable "bad means" for "good end." I think this is morally equivocal means for a good end.
Kervorkian's means was "to end life" in order "to relieve pain." I don't believe there is any comparison between ending a life to relieve pain and giving someone a "stay short" injection to permit a better life.
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