Welcome to Nowhere

Last week I made vague mention to a girl who’s been pretty much made to stay child-sized for both her own benefit, and the benefit of her parents. And today (yesterday, I guess?) a rights activist group has apparently decided to focus on the for her parents benefit part of that statement, saying they’ve pretty much violated her rights and all that crapola. Okay, so everyone’s entitled to their own opinions on the matter. But let’s look at the facts for a minute. The kid’s 9 years old, in the physical sense only. There is no *real* higher brain function there. She can breathe, and generally do all manner of flaling. That’s as close to independant as she’s gonna get, so says every single medical professional who was involved in her case. Now, I’m not about to go on a disability rights kick, here. I’m the first person who flat out says disabled people in general receive too much pity, sympathy and whatnot already, none of it all that helpful–try patronizing. But Christ almighty, do these people not read the stories they go ape shit all over? I mean, beyond the headlines?

Critics want an official condemnation from the American Medical Association, which owns a medical journal that first published the Washington state case. They also want state and federal officials to investigate whether doctors violated the girl’s rights.

Um. State and federal officials had plenty of opportunity to raise a red flag or 6 while it was going on. Or does an ethics panel of that magnitude somehow escape their attention? So not everyone will agree it was such a good idea. Not everyone has to take care of a 9-year-old infant, either. I, personally, am not sure if I agree with *all* of the treatments they’ve done or not, a fairly complete account of which can be found here. But ya know what? I’m not in that position, and not to sound like more of an asshole than usual, but I hope I never am. Not all of their reasons entirely make sense to me, but hey, disabled or not, an infant mentally or not, completely incapable of taking care of herself or not, she’s still their daughter, and if she can’t communicate what she needs, then like any other infant who’s actually an infant, it’s up to the parents to do the communicating *for* them.
Okay, so maybe she doesn’t *have* to be 4 foot 5–clearly being taller won’t kill her. But I’ll say this much. My x-girlfriend weighed about 130 pounds, and I had some fun throwing her over my shoulder. And, for the record, I’m not what most people would consider weak–I’m no body builder, but I can hold my own. It’d be hard on Ashley, *and* whoever ends up taking care of her, lifting that much dead weight. And it’s not like she can help, either. Not exactly a fair comparison, but even someone in a wheelchair, most of the time, can at least put some of their weight on their arms with the help of support bars and such while they’re being helped to the bathroom. She ain’t that coordinated, sorry. She ain’t gonna be that coordinated, sorry. So like I said in my last entry, if it helps her parents to be able to take care of her, *and* there’s no objections from the people who’d actually be performing the operations, never mind the people who actually enforce their regulations, then… more power to them, plain and simple. And you people who wanna cry it’s not what God would have wanted, or bring up some crap about how they’re not doing a damn thing in her best interest, you can just pull your heads out of your asses. She has a right to a healthy, long and complication free life. A whole shitload of people obviously agree what they’re doing to her will give her that, so this isn’t just her whackjob parents using her as the experimental girl.
Besides, let’s just go out on a limb here and say some clueless idiot decides to overturn the decision that was already reached regarding her treatments. What in the 7 levels of hell are they gonna do about it? Reverse them? News flash, folks. People had their chance to scream unfair when it was going on. Now, what you think, what I think, hell, what good old president fucktard thinks really doesn’t matter. It’s done, it’s over with, she’s a kid for life. Which suits her just fine. Hell, so long as she can be comfortable, fed and played with, anything suits her just fine. You people who’re still up in arms over it need a hobby. Preferably one that involves an education in minding your own bloody business.