Peter Pan treatment

Is 'Peter Pan' treatment right?

Jan. 5: A severely disabled girl in Seattle suffering from a rare brain condition known as static encephalopathy can't walk, talk or eat. So the parents of the 9-year-old have decided to keep her small.

Following a request from her parents, doctors there surgically removed her uterus and newly-forming breasts and began treating her with high doses of estrogen to ensure that Ashley would forever remain a child. Why would Ashley’s parents and doctors decide to have their daughter, like Peter Pan, never grow up? And why would doctors agree to use their surgical skills and drugs to stunt a child’s normal development?


The doctors said:
If she remains small then her parents can move her easily from place to place. By remaining small she can interact more with the rest of the family who can take her around the home and to outside events. She won’t have to deal with monthly periods. She may have a lower risk of getting raped and pregnant. She will not have breasts that might make it uncomfortable for her to lie in one place for long periods of time.


Ashley's parents said:
By keeping Ashley small, they can bathe her, move her about in a stroller and help her avoid developing bed sores. With no breasts she may be a less tempting target for any future male caregivers. And she obviously will not face the risk of breast cancer. The key point the parents make is that they decided to keep their child permanently as a child for her own good.


Bioethicist, Arthur Caplan said:
I believe it is true that it is easier to move Ashley about if she is the size of a 6-year-old. But I also believe that a decent society should be able to provide appropriately sized wheelchairs and bathtubs and home-health assistance to families like this one. Keeping Ashley small is a pharmacological solution for a social failure — the fact that American society does not do what it should to help severely disabled children and their families.

The problems Ashley and her parents face are terribly real. But permanently freezing a person into childhood is not the solution. Families like Ashley’s need more help, more resources, more breaks from the relentless pressure of providing care and some hope that their daughter can be somewhere safe and caring after they are gone.

America has not yet made that promise to Ashley or her parents or the many other parents and kids that face severely disabling mental illness and impairment. We should.



Who is right? Who is wrong? Everyone has their own say, their own points. It is always difficult to judge on ethical issues and especially when it is concerning one's health; one's life. Ethics to me is always an endless debate. "Peter Pan treatment", it is the first time I am hearing this. The more advanced we are, the more alternatives and discoveries we make. How are people accepting the "new"? It depends. It is all subjective and debatable. How far am I accepting this? It is new to me and I'm neither accepting nor rejecting. I've just saw another part of the 'world' and still digesting.