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Thursday, May 17, 2007

Parents of children with disabilities 

Please read the report of a legal ruling about a family that chose to have a fairly drastic surgery performed on their child. The surgery prevents their daughter from experiencing puberty and therefore stunts her physical growth.

It is a sad situation. In the future, I hope to write less about drastic situations and more about daily life.

But the situation this family is in angers me. That their decision was subject to legal review is absurd. Please read the report before you go further in this post.

Their daughter is permanently a toddler or possibly an infant. That is a medical fact. The legal issue being questioned is the administrative protocol for making that decision. But if you step back from the actual pieces, you begin to sense an agenda to prohibit this decision from being made again. The advocates for stopping the procedure from being performed are trying to send a chilling message. Any physician that would attempt this will have enormous administrative hurdles to overcome and then the possibility of being labeled.

It is analogous to the abortion issue. Physicians that are willing to perform a legal (though highly controversial) medical procedure are being threatened and shamed.

In the family at the heart of the issue, I trust that a very practical and honest decision was made. They have a daughter who should not be allowed to experience puberty. They presented their case to a competent physician. The physician provided a legal medical service.

Ask yourself why lawyers were ever brought into the situation?

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