Posted by
Mark McConnell on Friday, January 05, 2007 12:07:03 PM
Mike Gallagher complains on his blog this morning, in a brief post called
The "Pillow Angel"? , about the parents of
Ashley, the Seattle girl, who ordered surgery to stunt her growth. Mike says this is "yet another attack on the culture of life in America."
I don't think so, Mike. I admit that it's distasteful to think about, and provokes some Frankensteinish feelings about how "unnatural" it is. But, the design of every one of the things the surgeons did was to assert life.
The fact is that Ashley will be carted around, her whole life - her disease makes this the case, not the surgeries. The surgeons have approached her family as though
they were her body - because her own body cannot sustain her. They've treated her physical frame as though it were merely a member of the collective body of her family - if this member grows as large as it normally would, it will hurt the body as a whole, also hurting her health.
Respect for life does not always lead you to pretty choices. This case is not pretty. But it is full of life.