It may be only January, but I would be surprised if there were a more bizarre or disturbing medical story this year than the controversial 'treatment' given to a nine-year-old brain-damaged American girl called Ashley, which has provoked outrage among disabled activists.
Today's Guardian relates how doctors in Seattle devised a radical course of surgery and hormone treatments at the request of Ashley's parents to keep the disabled girl small, making her easier to care for and carry. This included a hysterectomy, "excision of the early buds of her breasts, and medication with high doses of oestrogen to limit her growth by prematurely fusing the growth plates of her bones".
Her parents, who have set up a website defending what has become known as the Ashley Treatment, claim that she will have fewer bedsores and can lie more comfortably as a result of having a lighter body and no breasts.
They write: "Ashley's smaller and lighter size makes it more possible to include her in the typical family life and activities that provide her with needed comfort, closeness, security and love: mealtime, car trips, touch, snuggles, etc. Furthermore, given Ashley's mental age, a nine and a half-year-old body is more appropriate and more dignified than a fully grown female body."
Comments left on their website are generally supportive but most posters on a linked MSN talkboard are at least disturbed and often repulsed. "This smacks of eugenics," says one, while another complains: "I find this offensive if not perverse. Truly a milestone in our convenience-minded society."
Nineveh, a religious blogger, expresses similar unease, comparing Ashley's case to thalidomide babies. She says: "I'm surprised these people view their daughter as fit for life."
The Imperfect Parent is more sympathetic to the parents' decision. She writes: "How many parents love as much as these parents love? Perhaps we should all be so lucky to have parents that are realistic in their expectations and choose a highly controversial and emotional road instead of an easy one."
But Wheelchair Dancer is unconvinced that the parents have their daughter's best interests at heart and fears their actions severely compromise the rights of disabled people. She observes that their moniker for Ashley - Pillow Angel - suggests that they view her as a doll and have curtailed the onset of her womanhood in order to keep her childlike.
In an impassioned post, she writes: "These medical interventions stretch the definition of "treatment" beyond acceptable bounds. This is not "treatment". This is medical experimentation. Involuntary interventions. And the idea that brutal mutilation of a disabled person can gain medical approval should rally us all."
What do you think? Have your say in the comments below.
