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Gloucester Old Spot
Becky, I haven’t taken sides on this – simply expressed my personal opinion. I am most certainly NOT suggesting that someone that doesn’t share my view is a bigot nor am I attempting to impose my view on others – as you seem to imply.
I AM suggesting however, that those who seek to IMPOSE their views on others because of their strongly held beliefs are bigots.
A fine point maybe, but nevertheless an important distinction. I apologise if this point was too subtle for you.
This ‘lil fek’ is the question that has concerned public moralists since time immemorial. It would appear that there seems to be no ”right” or ”wrong” answer to it. One person’s ”right” is another’s ”wrong”.
I always find myself bothered by or in conflict with people (or groups) that seek to lay down moral imperitives for others, based on their own strongly held beliefs. I tend to refer to them as single issue bigots – but you get the general idea.The list is endless from smoking through abortions to discrimination.
It seems to me that the position of the mother with her grossly disabled child fits into this category. The howls of outrage screamed at her from the armchair moralists are deafening. They seem to ”know” that it is morally ”wrong” for her to make this choice for her young pre-pubescent daughter.
I think that each matter should be judged on its individual merits. What may be a good decision with positive outcomes for one family might well be the opposite for another. Generalisations in these sorts of cases are not and cannot be helpful to the individuals involved.
@ugo wrote:
& If theres any Lovely Lady (s ) who wanna check out my cab @ the end of the night , Im sure I could be talked into showing them :P :P :P :lol: :wink:
Also anyone wanting a Lift back up North on the sunday can have one :) :) :)
Christ ugo, that’s done it!!! They’ll all be queueing up to share your bunk for a bunk up now. It’d be the highlight of their weekend eh???
@becky wrote:
Most mothers REALLY care for their children I DO i would die for mine without even thinking about it i would do anything. Caring for a child ANY child is 24/7 and tiring but yes it takes a hell of a lot more to look after a child with special needs. I do see how it makes it easier to do this but cant help but think its worng at the same time.
The whole point of this mother’s actions (which I suspect you might have missed) was that is was nothing to do with HER and making it somehow ”easier” for her to care for her terribly disabled child. It was entirely to do with trying to somehow make the quality of life a bit better for the child.
The mother’s purpose in proposing the course of treatment for the daughter, as she explained most eloquently, was to prevent her daughter entering puberty. She felt that (as I have said above) all the additional burdens that puberty brings for a so-called ‘normal’ child would be many times more difficult for this disabled child to go through.
I really cannot see how this is somehow morally ”wrong” as some ethical critics have said. This poor child has apparently little if any concept of what she is going through right now due to her almost total disablement. Allowing her to go through puberty on top of all that seems to me to be grossly cruel and has little to do with genuinely caring for the child and perhaps more to do with imposing a set of beliefs on the parent.
So many people suffer for those who parade the vanity of their high minded ethics / morals and seek to impose their beliefs on the individual from a distance.
This is an interesting case and yes I read about it last week as well. I must confess that I was pretty uneasy with the typical tabloid journalistic approach – the ”pillow angel” stuff – and it left me wondering whether the mother was doing this for her child or for herself. This certainly came across to me that way in the media coverage.
Apparently in the UK there is a little girl of similar age and in a similar condition and her mother was interviewed on Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday. It was absolutely rivetting. The mother was calm and collected throughout and explained in great detail why she supported this same treatment for her daughter.
She was calm and rational and explained her position with incredible clarity – for a parent who has to live with this stuff 24/7 I thought that she was immensly brave and in the few minutes she was speaking she earned my respect. I can tell you I will yield to no-one in my admiration for her courage and sheer human decency.
Her main point was that her daughter was double incontinent and was paralysed such that she was totally unable to do anything at all for herself and had to be looked after literally 24 hours a day. Under these circumstances her mother felt that allowing her to achieve puberty with all the additional problems that this entails – menstruation, physical body changes, hormonal issues etc etc – it was just too much for her child to additionally cope with.
It was an utterly compelling interview. Everything was about her child and nothing about herself and the tremendous strain that she must have had to suffer every day. What an incredibly brave and remarkable woman she was. No histrionics, no tugging of emotional heartstrings. Just pure mother’s utterly unselfish love for her terribly damaged child and wanting to do absolutely everything in her power to make her poor child’s life just that little bit easier.
I thank God every day that my little girl is fit and healthy and that I don’t have to even contemplate how awful it must be to have to make these sorts of choice for your child. But I’ll tell you this, having listened to this mother and heard what she said I wholeheartedly support her choice and if I ever had to go down that route myself, I would make that same choice.
Yes it’s easy for the pro this and anti that lobbyists to take their respective views and try to persuade the rest of us that they are right and they know what’s best and so on. Sure they can howl their protests and scream in outraged indignation …. but I say to all of them, listen to that mother who REALLY cares about her child… and be humbled.
The wind blows strongest over the empty plain.
Coeur de Lion – en frappe
Scurreggione Bruto
Sinfonia piccante
