Letters to the Editor
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AKA Smith
ITA. As an educator who has worked with children with Autism, Downs', Cerebral Palsy, and other students with varying degrees of cognitive impairment, I can only say that people who write in such a way simply have no knowledge of the population. The can communicate (using various methods, perhaps not speech) and they can learn. The growth steps are just far smaller than for the typical child.
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Stick your fingers in your ears, AKA,
And say La-la-la all you want, but this is an important issue.
I do not advocate killing kids with Downs, or who are retarded. But kids do come out all fucked up sometimes, and keeping them alive is a mere exercise in futility. THis idea that all kids must be kept alive is a relatively new concept. Kids like this girl, or even more functional than this girl, would have been allowed to die. Still are, in many places.
Ultimately, this should be the parents decision. And in making this decision, they should accept the consequences - ie, they need to take full responsibility, finacial and otherwise, for keeping the kid alive.
THis view gets complicated - What happens to people brain damaged in car accidents, etc. - I don't know. But our science has outstripped our ability to get our collective head around the consequenses of that science, and not just in this area. Life is precious. But not every life.
Also, as others have opined, the term "pillow angel" is really, really creepy. It's like she IS dead to them.
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@bignose
There are many times in one's life that a person might be unable to care for themselves. This is the case with this little girl. Just because someone is ultimately unable to gain the skills of self-care and has very little cognition does not mean their life is not worthwhile. This child obviously has some sensation and response just as a baby does. She has a right to life and good one at that. The day we start determing who should live or die based on our own personal definition of what people have value is the day we take a big step back into time and join the Nazis. They shared your views in case you didn't know.
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Article
Chris.Borthwick, thanks for the link to the very interesting article by a former "pillow angel". I'll repost it because I think more people should read it.
seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/319702_noangel17.html
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Alecs Mom
I can appreciate the emotion surrounding this issue - you and I clearly dissagree.
AS I said before, I think it should be the parents decision, not societies, and although I doubt this makes any difference in your eyes, it certainly differentiates me from the nazis - I resent the implication.
Also, as I pointed out before, euthaniztion was fairly common, until science made it possible to keep these kids alive, and suddenly unless we use this science, we are nazis? No.
How do you feel about laws that allow relatives to pull the plug? What if yau are pulling the plug on a young child that was seriously injured in a car accident? What differentiates killing a kid before birth (Abortion) from killing it after?Perhaps you are against abortion...I'm curious.
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Sick
I confess to being profoundly troubled by this issue.
As a parent of a child that had some issues that seemed pretty severe at the time, I am even more troubled.
As a supporter of Robert Latimer and a parent's right to make hard decisions without being second guessed, I still find myself very troubled.
Would it be ok to castrate a boy with similar issues? Would anybody seriously propose doing so?
Medical interventions can be a real horror shop. At the end of the day I think we are probably best off not to intervene in any way at all. And then I look at my daughter, where the medical intervention basically saved her life and brought her towards something pretty close to "normal".
But I don't know, hesitant to judge a parent as I am, I still find this situation very very troubling. Sickening in fact.
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it's so rare that i find myself in agreement with AKA Smith
that i have to write it down. ALL of you have met people with 80 IQ's - probably yesterday. you can't tell if someone has an 80 IQ. they speak and act normally. only when faced with something slightly abstract can you tell there's something wrong. that said, and unlike AKA and AlecsMom i don't LIKE such people - but that's no reason to kill them! for heavens sake there are people that don't like ME all that much! as for the state's role, if the parent's are not willing or able to take care, i think the state should. we are not on the brink of extinction - and we have plenty of fine people like AKA and AlecsMom who will do such work - we can afford to throw away a few bucks on their care. finally, some of you found "pillow angel" really "creepy" what i find "really creepy" is your lack of empathy. they are WORDS! two words expressing endearment that help the parents hold down the fort. CHILL out on your judgementalism.
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She human. She's just a baby.
First, there's nothing "artificial" about her being a child. No matter her age or physical maturity, she is and always will be a child--where it counts, in her head. Allowing her to physically mature until she can no longer be cared for by the people who love her is a bad idea. This is a lesser of evils situation.
I used to volunteer in an institution. I knew a "woman" with Downs who was raped in one and contracted an STD. I also knew some of the severely retarded individuals who would have been FAR better cared for by the people who loved them, except that these poor "adults" weighed a couple hundred pounds and could only be handled by several attendants.
Second of all, even if this child has the mental capabilities of a 3 month old, no one can parent a three month old baby and deny that 1) the baby is human and 2) there is some function there. The child in question can probably babble, recognize her mother, give and accept love. She may not be able to support her own head, but she's human in the ways we recognize our offspring as human even when they are tiny babies.
I don't see a problem with keeping her a baby physically. She will never be anything else mentally and the best place for her is with the people who love her. Not torn away from them--after a lifetime of loving care--to rot in an institution.
JMO. fie on everyone who'd kill her.