Ethical treatment, what's your opinion?

[Bithron]

I would also like to point out that if I found out that I was going to suddenly become a human with the intellect and understanding of a three-month old baby, get my reproductive organs removed and have various other surgical procedures done, I think I'd rather take a dignified death...

[Timber Loftis]

Euthenasia. Would have been best, imo.

But outside of that, I'm not one to second-guess the doctors or the parents when faced with a tough choice.

Think about how these two professionals have altered their entire lives for this child, for the totality of its life. I think they're in the running for sainthood just for shouldering this burden. I know that if my wife were to get pregnant with a child that had this many birth defects, the little fvker's as good as dead. I ain't ruining my life for some Dee Dee Dee.

[ 01-16-2007, 03:31 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[robertthebard]

I think it's been stated pretty clearly, but as all humans do have a right to life, so to do they have a right to death. For me to say "if I end up that way" is really not relevant to the issue, since I have known a "better" way of life. This girl hasn't, and won't. Personally, I'm with TL, put her out of her misery, because if she has any conciousness at all, she's miserable. Dignity is a funny thing, as a learned behavior. A child raised by wolves wouldn't think it was undignified to crap on your living room carpet. It had to go, it went. I see this girl's situation as being much the same. She may not know what she's missing, but she knows she's missing something.

Side note: Homes to take care of patients such as these are no safer than a public hospital. If someone there took it upon themselves to take what they want, it would happen. If it happens in nursing homes, which it does, then what would make any other facility any different?

[Garnet FalconDance]

The procedures were performed to make the parent's lives easier. A three month old baby is not inconvenienced by a menstrual cycle since they have no reference with which to be inconvenieced. Only the person who would have to clean her during that time would have any difficulty. And while a menstrual cycle would definitely be a "waste" (as in reproductivity since she will not be reproducing, obviously), there is no reason to completely remove the uterus. Simply the lining would have sufficed to avoid mentruation without throwing the entire system into chaos.

Breasts making her susceptible to sexual mistreatment? If this girl stays at home or constant supervision, as she would have to be given her mental incapacity, then unless by the freakest of accidents, she would never be put in a situation where sexual mistreatment would be possible. "Expected to have large breasts"? What a crock. My mother is very small chested as was her mother, etc, as well as my father's mother (she was slightly larger but not 'generously' endowed by any means). We were all "expected" to be likewise. All three of us girls turned out to be endowed well - and two of us a little too endowed!

Considering that estrogen treatments have been recently proven to substantially contribute to an increased risk for certain types of cancer -- oh, wait a minute, they fixed that problem already by yanking everything that makes her female out. Never mind.

Most, if not all, of the arguments given for the inhuman medical procedures were nothing more than rationalizations after the fact. Period.

[PurpleXVI]

Actually, having her machinery yanked may lead to her getting osteoperosis, the lack of estrogen leads to it, it's a risk that comes with menopause of any kind(Surgically induced, premature or ordinary.).

[robertthebard]

Hence the ultimate kindness of allowing her to simply die. Is she a poster child for the parents to say "Look at the Burden we so Silently bear"?

[PurpleXVI]

Could be, whatsit called, Munchhausen's by Proxy. That thing where parents, in a truly sickening display of attention-whoring, hurt their kids and otherwise make them suffer just so people will notice them. So they can go: "Oh boo hoo, look how terrible it is for my little darling, but more importantly, look at me! Look how sacrificing I am! Look how much it hurts me!"

It's a very real mental illness.