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Forever Small: The Strange Case of Ashley X

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Eva Feder Kittay
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Abstract

I explore the ethics of altering the body of a child with severe cognitive disabilities in such a way that keeps the child “forever small.” The parents of Ashley, a girl of six with severe cognitive and developmental disabilities, in collaboration with her physicians and the Hospital Ethics Committee, chose to administer growth hormones that would inhibit her growth. They also decided to remove her uterus and breast buds, assuring that she would not go through the discomfort of menstruation and would not grow breasts. In this way she would stay “forever small” and be able to be carried and handled by family members. They claimed that doing this would ensure that she would be able to be part of the family and of family activities and to have familial care. But the procedure has raised thorny ethical questions. I wish to explore these questions philosophically by bringing to bear my own experiences as a mother of a grown daughter with severe cognitive impairments.

Type
Confronting Dis-Abling Norms
Information
Hypatia , Volume 26 , Issue 3: Special Issue: Ethics of Embodiment , Summer 2011 , pp. 610 - 631
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by Hypatia, Inc.

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