I post an article (and comments of course) on "Navigating Growth Attenuation in Children with Profound Disabilities" on my forum awhile back and thought it would be a great idea to post it here as well for those who missed it.

So, here we go. The process of growth attenuation involves stunting the growth of an individual (adolescent) with profound disabilities. Here's the article snip:

Our working group sought to engage the underlying ethical and policy considerations of growth attenuation—that is, administration of short-term, high-dose estrogen to close growth plates, thereby permanently limiting height. We hoped to move beyond staking out positions with divisive and polarizing rhetoric about growth attenuation in order to find common ground and better identify and understand the areas of deep disagreement. In this paper, we offer sympathetic accounts of differing views so that those who hold a particular view can better understand others’ concerns. We also reach for a middle ground—a moral compromise based on respect for sustained disagreement rather than on consensus. Most of our group agreed to the compromise that growth attenuation can be morally permissible under specific conditions and after thorough consideration.

http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Publications/HCR/Detail.aspx?id=4961

Article about a 9 year old girl they performed this on.

GROWTH ATTENUATION, PARENTAL CHOICE, AND THE RIGHTS OF DISABLED CHILDREN:
LESSONS FROM THE ASHLEY X CASE.

Most medical cases involving parental choice on behalf of a child proceed with no public oversight. Parental choice is, by design, a private matter. A parent makes medical decisions for a child behind the closed doors of the family doctor or pediatrician’s office after evaluating the risks, benefits, and alternatives of a proposed course of treatment. The choices are generally implemented without note in the media or in law. Only the exceptional parental choice, such as a decision to forgo potentially life-saving treatment for a child, may be deemed so risky to the child’s future well-being that it triggers court intervention. Other parental choices, such as those to use elective cosmetic surgery on children, occasionally generate media attention, but those decisions are not legally regulated. With few exceptions, the general rule is that unless a particular decision can be characterized as medical neglect, parental decisions about children’s health care are subject to virtually no attention or legal limitation.

http://www.law.uh.edu/hjhlp/Issues/Vol_82/Ouellette.pdf

My forum thread: http://www.disabilityhelpsite.com/forum/index.php?topic=160.0"

What do you think of this growth stunting process?