Stunting The growth of severly disabled children

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Should Parents of Children With Severe Disabilities Be Allowed to Stop Their Growth? - New York Times Magazine

Ethically and morally it's an exceedingly difficult question. At one extreme, such as when the child has zero chance of self-consciousness it seems quite practical. At the other extreme however it is done merely for convenience and as the history of last century showed, even fashion (although it is assumed that the girls involved were somewhat aware?). Mixed in is the observation that it also can construe involuntary sterilization. It really treads that dangerous line also walked by the euthanasia of brain dead or severely damaged patients.

Would be useful when the zika virus goes viral.

I can understand why this would happen to people who are profoundly mentally handicapped. They can't do anything like lift their bodies, can't really help you get them dressed or get them in and out of their wheelchair and it gets more and more difficult to take care of when they reach your height and weight more than you. Stunting their growth makes it unlikely they will be neglected because the caregiver lacks support and can't take care of them because they are too heavy and because the caregiver gets tired from all the lifting.

But they also have machines that lift these people up don't they? Now this also leaves to what about people who are in a wheelchair and can't move their bodies the way everyone can but they still have normal intelligence or still have awareness of what goes on around them and understand what goes on around them but they need 24/7 care because they can't do anything themselves so they need to be lifted, changed, dressed, bathed, fed, everything and they aren't able to help the caregiver?

If this is done only to help carrying the disabled person, without agreeing with the procedure I can still understand why it's done.
However, I'm wondering if at least in some cases this isn't done, maybe unconsciously, to make the disabled person look child-like forever. In which case this is a horrible thing to do. The case involving sterilization and breasts removal makes me think about that.

ewww, no....unless they litterally have the intelligence level of an infant/baby and they are unlikely to ever mature past that then I could maybe see it.

But otherwise all I can picture is some skit on a comedy show with 'forever puppies' except 'forever babies' instead.

What? They *are* only doing this in children who will never mature...

We already delay puberty in children who have precocious puberty, to bring physical development into line with mental development. So we've already decided that this is acceptable.

Except that in the case of precocious puberty it's only done for a few years 4-6 typically and then puberty is allowed to continue. There are long term side effects of the drugs used, such as severe osteoporosis (and others). So although at first glance they are similar, in fact they are not even comparable. With the children who will never pass say, a 6 mo. mental age, puberty is completely shut down, forever. As this has only been done perhaps 90 times, all somewhat recently, we haven't yet built up a good record of the long term side effects.

I think outright euthanasia would be more ethical than this, not to mention much more efficient and practical. Not that I'm arguing in favor of either, but still.

Stunt the child's growth, sterilise them, control their mood/behavior with drugs and tell people they have no consciousness

Hitler would be proud...

Pretty much. Like I said, it would actually be more ethical to euthanize them outright. Not that killing them would be ethical, just that it's not as bad as mutilating someone's mind and body to make them more controllable.

I remember seeing this thing on the news about 10 years ago about how a nonverbal autistic girl was taught to type things up on a computer. Turns out she actually had a pretty good grip of the English language, despite being unable to speak. She didn't look "high functioning" either. It just goes to show that looks can be deceiving, and that "lower functioning" doesn't preclude intelligence or self awareness.

Now, imagine that this girl's parents didn't give her this opportunity, and instead had surgery performed on her to stunt her growth and prevent her from reaching puberty. Can you just imagine how horrible it would be for her?

That's because the child has grown up in that time. If it was a 2 year old experiencing precocious puberty, it would be delayed for a decade, not 4 years.

These children will never grow up. Hence, if their puberty was delayed until they are mentally ready, they would never go through it.

Why should the concerns of those who are not severely mentally disabled trump the comfort and quality of life of those who are?