Severely retarded girl undergoes surgery to keep her in childlike state

In this particular case, the parents aren't exactly doing what's the most convenient for them. If anything, killing her* would be convenient, saving the parents enormous amounts of time and money.

I'm not sure if I would choose to have her undergo this surgery if I had a child like this, but I can certainly see where they are coming from.

I don't think it shouldn't become generally available, because this kind of thing is different with each child. It needs to be assessed with extreme care, and no general rule can cover it.

As for medical advancements, I think by the time they can fix this kind of major problem (which should occur in the next 20 years or so, when we will understand and be able to reconstruct the human brain), it would also be quite easy to reverse this surgery. Of course, she would have to survive for that long, which might be difficult since this kind of defect often coincides will all kinds of other medical issues.

You would also have to reconstruct her body to be three-months old, so she can experience life from that point on. As Brady illustrated, it would be a prerequisite of any remedy for her. However, that should become available around the same time. Overall, it really isn't unthinkable that a cure will appear within her lifetime.

* She will not receive legal euthanasia in the Netherlands (or probably Belgium, though I'm not as familiar with their rules), because she cannot give consent to it herself. If anyone other than the person in question, in full mental health, decides over whether they live or die, and chooses the latter, it is considered murder.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by LeHah

I don't know what cesspool of piss and rust you were brought up in - but murder tends to be illegal in most places.

Haha, so I hear! I might not have made me point of view on this matter clear--I am against murder. =D

Originally Posted by LeHah

Yes you put in a footnote showing you knew this. But if you DID know it in the first place, why bring it up as an option?

When you call it killing a girl, or murder, it doesn't sound quite so benevolent anymore, does it? Anyway, I brought it up as an "option" cause others mentioned it first--I don't know if it would've crossed my mind otherwise.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

(a decision, by the way, which makes the assumtion that she will never be able to understand it in her lifetime as you medical miracle theorists have put forth)

Uh, I'd be very surprised if we were at any point able to cure this girl but not able to reverse the surgery that she underwent. Besides, altering her body to be one of a three-month old would probably be a prerequisite of any cure.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by RacinReaver

Also, any argument for why we shouldn't kill all pets? They're a resource drain on society as well.

They fetch slippers. Okay, kill all the cats.

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Considering that she can still be infected and that she'll have no real idea what's going on, except that's she consistently in pain wouldn't it be better to just euthanize her?

Don't use euthanasia as an euphemism for murder. That's not the intention of the word--what you want to do is kill a girl, so say it like you mean it.

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If she were a pet, she would have been put down by now. But because she happens to be "human" there is this idea that "no we can't do such a thing."

Are you seriously comparing her to a pet? Nice. Even pets don't get put down as soon as they're born--they tend to live a long life (usually longer than they would in nature due to veterinarians) before they are put down. It's a ridiculous comparison.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Devoxycontin

Would you keep a pet alive knowing that every day it suffers pain and has no real cognitive skills to deal with it? No. So why inflict this on a human?

No cognitive skills? Are you sure we're talking about the same person? She has the cognitive skills of a three month old, which is probably still more than most pets have. And I don't remember reading anything about pain in that article (the link is broken now so I can't verify that).

Either way, killing an animal is completely different from killing a human, no matter what kind of vegetate state they are in. You do realize this, don't you? Or would you eat human meat?

EDIT: I just realized that all this discussion is off-topic. This topic isn't about euthanasia, it's about surgery to keep her childlike. I will totally stop now.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Devoxycontin

Is it three years or three months? Your opening post says 3 months yet you keep saying years. I mean there is a wide difference here.

Where do you draw the line? Two years? One year? Six months? Four? Either we're talking about a human being or meat with eyes--there's no line where she suddenly goes from lifeless blob to human and we missed the "opportunity" to throw her in a river. Even at 1 month a baby will exhibit personality traits.

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So it isn't only her parents who take care of her?

Uh, what the fuck are you saying? Are you seriously suggesting that it should be that way, or else we should just kill her? Last I checked there were a lot of kids on public schools, maybe we should kill them too. Also, that classroom is likely privately funded, meaning that there are people paying for it who think it's worth their money. (Although I have to wonder why they send her to a classroom with her supposed lack of development. It would seem a pointless waste of money to me. But, their money!)

And since we're talking about a specific operation which I very much doubt any tax money went into, it is really not the issue here.

Originally Posted by Bradylama

I've mentioned several times before that the girl provides value to her parents and family, my argument is that she has no intrinsic value society, and in the case that she would have to be taken care of by the state, it's unreasonable to demand that the general public keep her alive when she can never offer them anything.

Just to make sure I get it, can I paraphrase your argument and you can tell me if I'm wrong? As far as I can tell you're saying: as long as the parents are footing the bill, it's their choice. But--if she becomes the state's care they shouldn't put money into treating her (with a very tiny likelihood of her becoming cured before she dies) because they could also use it to treat, say, a sick 3 month old girl that will actually develop into a woman if kept alive. If that's your argument then I can certainly agree with that, but correct me if I misunderstood.

If I was one of her parents, I don't know to what extend I would choose to keep her alive just because it's medically possible (there IS a point at which I would rather let someone pass on than keep them alive just to extend their suffering), but nothing I've read about this case suggests that she's in constant pain or that she is especially unhappy.

And hey, they're also raising two healthy kids. That's a contribution to all our pensions, right there!

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Bradylama

Not an important dog, or a war veteran, just some guy down the street owns a dog that he can't take care of and wants taxpayers to help him front the bill for it.

I'm not sure how it is in America but around here, this kind of stuff already happens. If a person treats an animal very badly (this includes willful abuse, but also just inability because of lack of money), the animal can get taken away by the animal rights society (or whatever the fuck they're called). I'm pretty certain that they are entirely or almost entirely funded by the government.

I think it's absolutely ridiculous that this instance exists as long as a single woman or child still gets abused within this country, but then I value human life more than animal life.

Of course, when an animal gets taken away from its owner, the animal rights society tries to pass it on to a new owner. That couldn't happen in this case, I imagine.

FELIPE NO