Anyone who writes about the rights of the child and says that it is tought to look after a disabled child but that's life should keep their mouth shut unless a) they have a disabled child, or b) work 10 or more hours a week volunteering to help look after a disabled child and makes a significant monetary contribution to the family.

I have a great deal of difficulty with the decision that was made by the parents, but as a father of a child with Cerebral Palsy I am not about to stand on high and make great moral pronouncements about their decision.

I can imagine the same sort of decision being made for a male child in the same condition, although I'll bet my brass buttons there'd be even more controversy over it. However, in his case you wouldn't be worrying about some ghastly pregnancy/rape situation. Still, the decision would probably have been the same. A grown man would likely be even more difficult to diaper than a grown woman.

As for the term of endearment, I have heard far ickier and more inappropriate handles than "pillow angel." Lay off these parents. They are the ones who will be caring for her. Unless we accept responsibility to spend time with them, helping out, none of us has the "right" to prevent what will make this care possible and endurable.

If there is an argument here that has no merit whatsoever, it's that this girl's parents are trying to save themselves the trouble. They are caring for their daughter in a way that not many parents will EVER have to even consider doing for their children, and they're committed to doing it as long as they can, FOR HER BENEFIT. I don't agree with their choices, I wouldn't do it for my own severely physically disabled child, but my kid doesn't have the same issues and I have no idea what this family is facing. But dammit, they are most certainly NOT trying to save themselves some trouble.

WE ALL have failed this family. Our system of health care has made it so that it is damn near impossible to pay for full-time home health aides, if indeed one can find them. And aren't we almost all one accident way from bankruptcy, one illness away from destitution?

What does this say about us? What does it say about America that a family chooses to stunt their child's growth by surgery so they can do it their own damn selves rather than try to navigate the impossible labyrinth of muddled services, rather than try to weed out the worst of paid, "screened" caregivers (at the possible expense of their daughter being abused)? What does it say about us that this family considered this treatment to be better than trusting in our compassion, our solidarity, and our determinedness to make life better for people in need?

If you've never been in a situation of being utterly dependent on someone else, if you've never cared for someone who is completely dependent on YOU for his life, then please, don't judge. Vote. Get involved. Change this ridiculous system. Help a caregiver you know. 1 in 5 Americans call themselves disabled, so you shouldn't have too hard a time finding someone.

This article is welcome and relevant, as evidenced by the number of thoughtful and compassionate letters posted here.

Ashley and her family frighten and challenge us because they don't fit into any convenient one-size-fits-all notion of right and wrong. And they teach us, by implication, that there are few ethical universal principles that apply regardless of context.

In the face of such a dilemma, the demand of our humanity is that we must stop to think it through, to feel it through, and to learn what our ability to love and empathize is trying to convey.

We have to consider facts: anyone who has caught children "playing doctor" knows that sexual feelings are present before puberty. How do we feel about this, and the merits of sexual pleasure?

Menstruation connects mature women to many other phases, rhythms and cycles of our natural world, and is significant beyond reproduction and inconvenience. Perhaps this connection is not important to Ashley, but her situation makes us pause to consider the question.

I care professionally for mentally disabled adults whose sexuality comes in more permutations than most people think about. I consider myself an advocate for their rights. Yet if I am honest, and I daresay other professionals would admit the same, I confess to having fervently wished they, society, and caregivers could be spared the confusion and the often disastrous consequences of their sexual urges. And I am ethically troubled by having that wish.

These, and a myriad of other questions will cross through our minds as we consider Ashley and her family. The process may be more important, in the long run, than the conclusions. Through their brave anguish, Ashley, her family and her doctors jar us out of comfortable assumptions which would never have sufficed in this very real world.

Rights of an individual. Some would think that rights only apply to those who are intellectually cognizant. This is so very wrong. Rights are most important in protecting those who do not have power, and control over their own destiny.

I see a lot of prognosticating the future. "She will never walk"..."She will have the brain of a 3 year old forever"..."she will mature and be molested." I didn't realize the medicine was so definate, and the future so well placed.

I could have sworn that we are dealing with a medical profession that is constantly evolving, reinventing, and dropping off bad practices. Electric shock treatment was the norm in the past, practiced on helpless (in many but not all cases) individuals by well meaning guardians and doctors. The question of future care and of the potential for future molestation should have never entered the equation. You wouldn't allow a parent to neuter a normal child for fear of future molestation.

These parents were saddled with a hard responsibility. They have failed in that responsibility. Shame on the medical profession for not standing hard against this. This goes beyond a medical ethics issue, this is criminal behavior.