Ann's Blog on Ashley:

Anns second quarter blog #8:

"Disability community decries 'Ashley treatment'" (cnn.com, January 18, 2007)

There is a girl named Ashley who has an unchanging brain injury of an unknown origin so she will remain in an infant state for the rest of her life. She will never be able to walk, talk, roll over by herself, etc. This condition is called static encephalopathy. In an effort by her parents to make it easier to care for her, they made the decision to remove her uterous and breast buds. This will ensure that she never goes through puberty and she will remain about 75 pounds the rest of her life. There is a lot of contraversy in this decision. There have been many debates over whether this action was moral or immoral. Many object saying even though she is disabled, she should still be treated like a human. Most of this debating has occured over the internet by blogs!!! Even the parents of Ashley have not spoken publicly, but have made their reasoning known by blogging.

As a parent, this would be such a hard decision. First of all, I'm sure it is probably really hard to deal with the struggles that come along with any sort of disabled child, but then to make a decision that you thought of as in your childs best interests and then getting ridiculed because of it. That would be a lot to deal with. I don't have the strongest of opinions on this one, but i think taht alot of it rests with the parents. The parents are the caregivers of this child and they are the ones who are going to have to make the sacrifices in order to take care of their child. I guess, in my eyes I don't see it as being immoral to remove her uterous and breast buds. My main reasoning behind that being that it is not necessary for her to go through puberty because there is no need for her to. There is no chance that she will ever become pregnant and, furthermore, her mind is in an infant state, why should her body be able to keep progressing as if she were normal. It all seems like a waste to me. I feel really bad for her parents, they are getting such a hard time after making their decision, and, in my opinion, it is theirs to make--nobody elses. I look up to them for what they do and I hope that they are able to get through this easily.

Artricle From:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/01/11/ashley.outcry/index.html
Picture From:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/images/273175.jpg