Ashley

The Ashley Treatment is back in the news. A judge recently found that Seattle's Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center should have sought a court order before approving the hysterectomy that Ashley received as part of her palliative treatments. (The hysterectomy was only one part of the Ashley Treatment that made news in January. For the complete story, visit this article.) The Seattle P-I published today a good editorial about this. What caught me is the sensible statement:

We don't have reason to believe the hospital made the wrong decision in approving the treatments for Ashley. Every indication is that her parents wanted what would be best for their child and what would enable them to continue providing loving care.

One unique element of this story is that the family keeps a blog about their decision. It isn't like they want personal publicity - they have stayed anonymous through the whole process. I personally think this is a good way to educate the public in a way that encourages conversation. Sure the major media outlets picked it up as a sensational story, but it seemed to me like there was more discussion about this because Joe Public could go look up all of the information himself - outside the context of 30 second stories and 500 word articles.