thoughtful sadness

[jrtom]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6229799.stm

I really don't know what to think about this.

I'm generally against surgery that doesn't provide some necessary medical function...but "necessary" can be slippery.

The parents have acknowledged that their child is never going to be mentally more than three months old, and I find myself wondering what I would do if I knew that I was going to have a child with that condition--or if I found out that I already had one (i.e., it wasn't apparent before birth). Especially considering that we all went through that period (of being three months old) at one point.

I don't think that there's anything that could be done with this situation that I'd be satisfied by.

Update: Here is the website that the parents have put up: http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/

Something that occurred to me after the initial flurry of comments (that's come to mind in analogous circumstances before): since Ashley (the child) is expected to have a normal lifespan, her parents are implicitly committing someone else--her siblings, other relatives, the state--to taking care of her once they're gone. This complicates the moral issue still further.

Comments

[tildequinn.livejournal.com]

one of the things i keep thinking is i remember my 3 month old, how she liked to be held, how nothing would console her more than an all encompasing cuddle. if they can keep her small enough that she can still have that, that thing that 3 month olds want most, go for it.

[jrtom.livejournal.com]

That's part of it, yeah. I know what it's like to have a 3 month old, and something of what they seem to want.

If we were talking about parents who had deliberately engineered a child with this condition, I'd know what to think about that. (Probably.) This is just...hard.