Whose life is it anyway?

It may be only January, but I would be surprised if there were a more bizarre or disturbing medical story this year than the controversial 'treatment' given to a nine-year-old brain-damaged American girl called Ashley, which has provoked outrage among disabled activists.

Today's Guardian relates how doctors in Seattle devised a radical course of surgery and hormone treatments at the request of Ashley's parents to keep the disabled girl small, making her easier to care for and carry. This included a hysterectomy, "excision of the early buds of her breasts, and medication with high doses of oestrogen to limit her growth by prematurely fusing the growth plates of her bones".

Her parents, who have set up a website defending what has become known as the Ashley Treatment, claim that she will have fewer bedsores and can lie more comfortably as a result of having a lighter body and no breasts.

They write: "Ashley's smaller and lighter size makes it more possible to include her in the typical family life and activities that provide her with needed comfort, closeness, security and love: mealtime, car trips, touch, snuggles, etc. Furthermore, given Ashley's mental age, a nine and a half-year-old body is more appropriate and more dignified than a fully grown female body."