Parents defend decision to keep girl a child
`Her name is Ashley X, and she is the little girl who will never grow up.
Until New Year’s Day, not even her first name was known. Ashley was a faceless case study, cited in a paper by two doctors at Seattle Children’s Hospital as they outlined a treatment so radical that it brought with it allegations of “eugenics”, of creating a 21st-century Frankenstein’s monster, of maiming a child for the sake of convenience.
The reason for the controversy is this: three years ago, when Ashley began to display early signs of puberty, her parents instructed doctors to remove her uterus, appendix and still-forming breasts, then treat her with high doses of oestrogen to stunt her growth.
In other words, Ashley was sterilised and frozen in time, for ever to remain a child. She was only 6.’
Followup to: Young disabled girl ‘kept small’
