Washington Protection & Advocacy has issued the following statement as a result of an investigation into the matter. Based on the findings of their report, a five year agreement has been reached:
"Seattle Children's Hospital acknowledged the following in our five (5) year, enforceable agreement:
"Children’s has received and reviewed the WPAS report on Ashley and the treatment she received. In general, Children’s accepts the WPAS report. Specifically, Children’s agrees with the finding in the report that Ashley’s sterilization proceeded without a court order in violation of Washington State law, resulting in violation of Ashley’s constitutional and common law rights. Children’s deeply regrets its failure to assure court review and a court order prior to allowing performance of the sterilization and is dedicated to assuring full compliance with the law in any future case."
This is a significant step toward protecting children with disabilties in the future against treatments without approval in violation of their constitutional and common law rights.
For further information including the complete report, newspaper articles and a list of blog posts on the Ashley X case , click above.
2 comments:
Significant news. Thanks for posting this.
I hear you. This is nothing short of child abuse in my mind. Why, the nerve of those imposing little lawmakers to step in and advocate for a child, when all her parents wanted to do was to sterilize their daughter, stunt her growth, and remove her womanhood! It’s for the child’s own good, right? Right??
Let us hope that this case of "growth attenuation therapy" doesn't set an unhealthy precedent for other severely disabled children!
See my blog post on this at:
http://angrylabrat.blogspot.com/2007/05/ashley-treatment-was-illegal.html.
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