Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Artifact 1

“Doctors refuse mother’s request to remove disabled daughter’s womb ‘because of charity backlash’." The Daily Mail.

What is at stake here is a person’s right to choose, but in this case, the person cannot communicate what it is they choose. Like many in the disabled community, Katie Thorpe cannot express herself, and it is up to her caretaker, in this case, her mother Alison, to act on her behalf. However, charitable organizations, designed to represent the disabled, have stepped in and said that they better represent the wishes of the disabled. Personal rights should never be impeached, and an irreversible surgery to remove a woman’s womb would certainly be an impeachment of personal liberty, if, and only if, that person objected to the surgery. Is this a case of one person or one organization going too far? It would be easy to assume that Katie would not want to be subjected to the pain, discomfort, or humiliation of menstruation when her mother already must change Katie’s diapers (Katie is also incontinent). But what if some medical breakthrough is made in the next few years, while Katie is still of childbearing age? At this time, science is making leaps and bounds in progress, and a ‘cure’ for cerebral palsy could happen, even in the next twenty years or so. In that case, if Katie could be cured, the loss of her womb would be a devastating impeachment on her personal rights. However, if Katie is not cured, what then? Like many other disability rights issues, the choice of a patient who cannot communicate for herself cannot be properly understood. Then we must ask ourselves, who makes the final decision? Is it her mother, who raised her and takes care of her every day? Or the disability rights organizations, which know nothing of her personal life, but claim to know everything about her situation?

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