Ashley X "treatment" starts to catch on, complete with "pillow angels quality of life support group"
No. Not the Onion. If only...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/mar/15/ashley-treatment-rise-amid-concerns
Five years ago details first emerged of Ashley, a nine-year-old girl living near Seattle. She was born with developmental disabilities that meant she was unable to talk or walk, and continues to have the cognitive ability of an infant.
Ashley's parents, together with doctors at Seattle children's hospital, devised a cocktail of medical interventions to keep her from growing any further. Dubbed the "Ashley treatment", the procedure was born out of the conviction that Ashley's quality of life would improve as it would spare her physical discomfort and pain.
The core of the treatment was hormone therapy: high estrogen doses to bring forward the closure of the growth plates in her bones, which would in turn stop her growing. In addition, surgical interventions included removal of her nascent breast buds to avoid the discomfort of fully-formed breasts later in life, and a hysterectomy to avoid menstruation....
"This is a violation of the civil rights of individuals, and it should be prohibited," Decker said. "Parents have rationalised that this is an OK thing to do, but it treats people as though they have no worth and that's a slippery slope that could end with the idea that people with disabilities don't have to be kept alive or integrated in society."
Surprisingly, the Guardian failed to mention that one of the parents' rationalizations for this was to keep Ashley from being raped by a caregiver in the future (this happens more often than you think)! O rly? We mutilate people to keep other people* from raping them? 
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