Prometheus 6

I read some more. I don't know what I'd have done if my daughter had this illness. They didn't find out right away, so they were bonded to the child.

I would hope she died. I would wish the situation never came about. But I would never even have conceived of halting her physical development. And I really don't know what I would do.

The Pillow Angel Case--Three Bioethicists Weigh In
We asked three of the country's most esteemed bioethicists to give their professional opinion--was the "Ashley Treatment" a wise decision?
By Christopher Mims

On January 3 of this year the parents of a girl with static encephalopathy, a disorder that leaves her unable to move and with the cognitive capacity of an infant, announced on a blog that they had been using hormones to stunt the growth of their daughter for medical and quality-of-life reasons. [More details are available via the original news report of the story .] The resulting, and very public, debate--much of it carried out in the comment thread of the original blog --has ranged from support for the parents to accusations of eugenics and worse.

In order to cut through the noise, we asked three bioethicists--doctors not unlike those who, as members of a medical ethics board, authorized the treatment in the first place--to relate their professional opinion of the case.