... which included hysterectomy ...The so-called right-to-death partisans have finally developed an argument that can sway me. Were I this child I would rather die, and die cruelly, than be medically altered for the convenience of my parents.
I can understand the arguments about the difficulty of caring for a large sized infant (essentially). However, the treatment was such a drastic step to take... I just don't feel comfortable about that.
I do support the parents in getting the girl a hysterectomy. This child may be disabled enough that she may only have brief contact with outsiders, but there are people who prey on the disabled. In addition, they have quite enough to deal with without having to add menstruation to the list.
what about if you were a deaf child and your parents got you a cochlear implant? That is medically altering the child for, it's true in a sense, the convenience of the parents and family.
i disagree. i have worked with severely disabled 12-15 yr
old students. the majority were girls. these teens were
functioning on a preschool level both cognitively and
behaviorally. it was the most physically and emotionally
draining job i have ever had. as their teacher, i was only
responsible for them for the school day. i can appreciate
their parents struggles for the rest of the day, and night.
basic care like toileting, feeding, dressing, mobility and
bathing are incredible challenges for a severely disabled
person and their families.
from the article, it seems like these parents truly want to
care for their daughter and do all they can to keep her at
home with her family instead of in the care of "strangers".
This isn't the "convenience" of parents like say... a circumcision.
If your mind was permanently stuck at an infant's cognitive level, you wouldn't care what size you were or why. However, this child sounds likely to be able to perceive the difference between being cared for by loving parents and being put in an institution to be cared for by a revolving cast of shift-workers. That was going to be the choice if she grew to adult size. Aging parents aren't necessarily able to lift a 150 pound person in and out of a super-crib, in and out of the bath, in and out of a car, etc.
Keeping severely mentally impaired children from reaching full size isn't necessarily just a matter of "convenience", it can be a matter of safety. When children who are prone to physical aggression or uncontrolled movements reach adult or near-adult size, they can often pose a serious danger to their parents, siblings, and non-family caregivers.
One woman who used to post on FR, and has a mildly autistic child of her own, told of a friend of hers who was determined not to put her severely mentally disabled (autistic) son in an institution. Among other things, this involved locking him in a padded room in the attic every night, both for his own safety and that of other family members. Still, when he reached his teens, the extreme measures which had defined the household for years weren't enough anymore. Eventually they institutionalized him, but it was only after one of his unpredictable bouts of violence had inflicted permanent vision damage on a younger sibling.
"Were I this child I would rather die, and die cruelly, than be medically altered for the convenience of my parents."
Relevant questions. What use does one have for a uterus if you are not going to reproduce? If normal size makes you less likely to receive quality care is it something you need? Is is more to the child's benefit to be bathed 3 times a week rather than once? Or to be moved to the bathroom to evacuate or be left for longer periods in a soiled diaper.
I see this also as being a quality of life issue for the child. Christ said that it was better to lose ones eye or hand and to enter the kingdom of heaven than to be whole. (paraphrase) It's not the same thing, but there are similarities.
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.
From the sound of this, the child will not know that she is physically altered in any way. My neighbors have a boy who is profoundly mentally disabled and the kid is getting too big for the sling type stroller that they use to get him around. Both parents are at least six feet tall and I don't know how big ( I say big instead of tall because the boy does not stand)the boy will grow, he's only eleven years old.
Were you that child, you would not know the difference between weighing 50 pounds or 200 pounds, but her loving parents who have committed their life to caring for her sure do. Think about having to lift your 20 year old 200 pound kid into and out of the car, or a chair or the bathtub. Could you do it? Few can and when it reaches that point, parents have to turn it over to the "professionals."
Unless you have walked in the shoes of parents who have taken care of severely damaged children, don't be so quick to judge. I have a 13 year old niece who has more physical problems than we could list here and the mental ability of a 6 month old. But God has blessed her with the world's greatest parents who will love and keep her as long as possible. If something like this could extend the time they keep her vs an institutional life, I am for it. Sadly, this particular child will probably not live much longer --- at birth they gave her 20 years on the max, but lately her problems have been multiplying. But her parents, both of them, and her perfectly healthy siblings as well, are true saints. I have never seen love as strong as they have.
The hysterectomy makes sense; if one accepts the idea of using estrogen to turn her into a Hobbit.
If she's small, yet fertile, a pregnancy could kill her. How could she get pregnant you ask? Let's say that the ultimate goal of the growth stunting doesn't work and she still becomes too much for her parents to care for. If that happens, then she would likely be institutionalized. Young women in such conditions have been sexually assaulted before. Some of them have become pregnant as a result. If this were to happen to her, the results could be disastrous.
Since they are keeping her too small to safely bear children, sterilizing her makes sense.