Essay 2-Draft 1

Why should parents have the right to make a completely life altering decision for their child? The topic of growth attenuation is being argued ethically between parents and doctors. Disabled people have been struggling to have the same rights as other people for a long time, and a new procedure is threatening to take away their rights. Growth attenuation is a procedure used to stop the growth of a child and there are more negative outcomes than benefits.

Disabled people often get treated unfairly for no reason. The rights of these people have come a long ways in the last few decades. In the early times, disabled people were not counted as real people. They were treated like they did not matter, because they were different from the normal. The use of the new procedure, Growth Attenuation, is taking away a simple right everyone should have. This right is the right to grow and develop how a person was meant to. Perfectly healthy people get to develop as they were meant to. Healthy disabled people should also have this right.

Growth attenuation is a new procedure used on disabled children. In this procedure, the growth of a child is stopped around the age of 9. The child would then be that age for the rest of his or her life. Also, hormones are injected into the child, so he or she doesn’t fully develop into a man or woman. This procedure has only been used once so far. It was used on a severely disabled young girl named Ashley. Now Ashley’s parents are facing a whirl wind of ethical questions. They are wondering if they made the right decision for their daughter.

Ashley’s parents say the reason that they used growth attenuation on their precious daughter was, because it will make caring for her easier in the years to come. They argue that they will be able to provide Ashley with the best care if she remains small and fragile. This is true to an extent. Doing some things such as transporting her will be easier, because she will be light and easy to lift. There are many things that were not taken into consideration about Ashley’s life when she is older.

Ashley will have many struggles in life that could have possibly been easier if she was able to grow and develop properly. When Ashley becomes older, she is going to be hard to handle, because she will be frail. It will become hard to lift her without hurting her frail body. Other things such as having her sit up, bathe, or even eat at a table will be harder with Ashley being so small. If could have been easier for Ashley to do some little things such as just sit up if she could have developed normally. Her developed bones and muscles could have helped her be able to sit up and do other things with little assistance. Ashley will also have to deal with the emotional hardships that come with being a child sized adult. She will never be treated her own age. This could be very hard to deal with emotionally.