What do you people think about this?

[Azarkon]

Perhaps, but a person born without a heart is still not a freak.

 

Nature must at times be subverted, but it (as in nature) is in no way ethical. There is no "little world" mentality about this, only the watery grave of Ahab.

 

I would also be wary of making universalizing comments towards the truth. My "mis-"definition of freak is deliberate, as a way of anticipating the argument of "disabledness" versus "freakishness." One thing does not imply the other, given the connocations of freak. However, human intervention can be interpreted as being freakish, as it takes upon an ethical dimension, which nature does not possess.

[metadigital]

You are attempting to reclassify all human intervention as "unnatural" and, further, as "freakish" and "unethical".

 

If a person is born with two hearts, then, I assume, it is perfectly acceptable (in your hypothetical worldview) to remove one.

 

If twins are congenitally conjoined, and the only way to save one of them is to separate them and save one, then I am lost as to your definition.

 

In any case, I reject your definition, as it is completely unworkable and pointless.

[Tale]

Where are you getting a connection between "freak" and "ethics?" They are two independently existing ideas. Nature is morally neutral, but there's nothing about that neutrality that removes its ability to produce freaks. A freak is something uncommon, nothing else. It's not wrong, it's not something evil, or otherwise percievable as the result of unethical creation. It is merely an, often incidental, uncommon and maybe difficult to reproduce result.

Edited January 22, 2007 by Tale

[LostStraw]

Azarkon, perhaps you don't understand the procedure. Do normally short people recieve "disgusted stares?" This procedure wont make her look like a freak.

 

Also, it would be helpful if you gave your definition of the word "freak" because you arn't going by the definition found in the dictionary.

 

However, despite being against your argument I am against the procedure. Yes, it may have benefits.. but it's not a well tested procedure and may lead to a worse outcome or provide no real benefits at all.

 

some interesting reads on the topic of growth attenuation therapy:

http://www.aamr.org/Policies/board_positions/growth.shtml

http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/160/10/1077

[Azarkon]

You are attempting to reclassify all human intervention as "unnatural" and, further, as "freakish" and "unethical".

 

If a person is born with two hearts, then, I assume, it is perfectly acceptable (in your hypothetical worldview) to remove one.

 

If twins are congenitally conjoined, and the only way to save one of them is to separate them and save one, then I am lost as to your definition.

 

In any case, I reject your definition, as it is completely unworkable and pointless.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It might help to ask for my definition if you do not think I expressed it clearly. Nowhere did I say that all human intervention is unnatural, freakish, and/or unethical. I did, however, state that human intervention is subject to ethical examination whereas nature is not. That's why freak of nature is an oxymoron, as I define it - such negative connotations associated with what is natural implies imposing a human value judgment upon something that is inherently amoral. That is not to imply that human beings should not intervene in nature, but that we should not use words such as "freak" to denote what is natural.

 

Also, it would be helpful if you gave your definition of the word "freak" because you arn't going by the definition found in the dictionary.

 

I'm not redefining the word, merely suggesting that it is inapproriate to use with respect to disabled people, whose only fault was to be born the way they are. I'm perfectly fine with calling a human practice or the result thereof freakish because assigning human values to human activities is perfectly logical.

 

If "freak" did not have the negative connotations that it did (and I do believe that it's latent with negative connotations - it's not simply a neutrally descriptive word like, say, disabled), I would not strive to adopt this usage, but as it is I feel offended when someone mentally retarded is suggested to be a "freak," as if they were on the same level as those engineered by humans to look freakish.

Edited January 22, 2007 by Azarkon

[Azarkon]

Azarkon, perhaps you don't understand the procedure. Do normally short people recieve "disgusted stares?" This procedure wont make her look like a freak.

 

It's not just making her short, though. It's also making her sex hormones not develop, which presumably would make her look like a child... Until age begins showing, in which case I'm not sure what the heck she'll look like.

 

But you're right that I can't predict the result. That's why I posed my initial observations as a question, in the hope that someone will post some pictures as to results of the procedure on past subjects to either prove or disprove my implication. Instead, what I got was a question regarding whether mentally retarded adults are freaks. Obviously not, since the term freak is negatively connotated and the reason I phrased my question with the term was to suggest my potential distaste for the procedure.

 

Imagine if I had asked "isn't this like creating a disabled person" instead. Would that have made any sense?

Edited January 22, 2007 by Azarkon

[metadigital]

the reason I phrased my question with the term was to suggest my potential distaste for the procedure.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Perhaps you should have just asked this question, then.

[Azarkon]

Perhaps, but then I wouldn't have made Nartwak put me on his ignore list and sparked a discussion on my sexual deviancy. Now what would be the fun in that?

[steelfiredragon]

its sick either way but who am i to judge, so no comment

[Walsingham]

This made me very uncomfortable, and I just worked out why. If we can tinker with how she looks in order to make her seem better, why keep her as a person at all? Why not put her brain into the body of a bloody ocelot? Dumb human = world's smartest ocelot. She'd be famous, and happy.

[Tale]

This made me very uncomfortable, and I just worked out why. If we can tinker with how she looks in order to make her seem better, why keep her as a person at all? Why not put her brain into the body of a bloody ocelot? Dumb human = world's smartest ocelot. She'd be famous, and happy.  >_

I sincerely have no qualm with this idea.

[Walsingham]

This made me very uncomfortable, and I just worked out why. If we can tinker with how she looks in order to make her seem better, why keep her as a person at all? Why not put her brain into the body of a bloody ocelot? Dumb human = world's smartest ocelot. She'd be famous, and happy. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I sincerely have no qualm with this idea.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

See, this is what I mean. I would hope she can be happy whatever happens, but changing her entire body? I'm feeling like we're in a Philip K.**** novel.

 

Ultimately I'd be in favour of people learning to cope with who she is anyway. I mean, it's not like mentally disadvantaged people are going to stop being around. Surely the one stop shop is for the rest of us to be less judgemental.

[Arkan]

I just found out what an ocelot is:

 

ocelot kitten

 

How adorable.

[Gorgon]

*Edited by Walsingham for gratuitous callousness*

[Sand]

I will not judge these people because I cannot fathom what they have gone through to see this as a viable option nor know what they will go through in the future. May it be for the best for them or for the best of the child it doesn't matter, in either case the child is going through a living hell not being able to progress mentally farther than three months. I think it would be a greater mercy to euthanize someone with that level of mental degradation. I know I would rather be dead than live like that.

[astr0creep]

Careful, you're teetering on the brink of hedonistic economics there: where old and infirm people, those who have (through injury, illness or accident) become useless to society, are abandoned by society ... "

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

This is a moral, ethical question just like the subject of this thread.

The situation with the elderly will be questioned sooner or later.

 

Actually it has been questioned countless times with euthanasia.

We just haven't figured out where to draw the line, to avoid abuses and outright murder.

 

A 95 years old man who can't do anything alone anymore, who suffers, should have the right to put an end to his life if he so chooses, for example.

What do we do with people(old or young) who are unable to make that decision due to their condition?

 

That is the problem imho.

[Tale]

Surely the one stop shop is for the rest of us to be less judgemental.

That's like wishing the rest of us turned into ocelots due to magical space beam.

[Walsingham]

Surely the one stop shop is for the rest of us to be less judgemental.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's like wishing the rest of us turned into ocelots due to magical space beam.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

*Gasp*

 

Orbital mind-control lasers!

[Gorgon]

"*Edited by Walsingham for gratuitous callousness*"

 

She can't move, she is severely retarded and is forced to live out her life as some kind of freakish ornament on her parents bed with no real experience of what it means to be human, but human life is ' sacred', so sacred that we would rather have a lifetime of non-life or a lifetime of suffering than end it.

Edited January 22, 2007 by Gorgon

[Walsingham]

"*Edited by Walsingham for gratuitous callousness*"

 

She can't move, she is severely retarded and is forced to live out her life as some kind of freakish ornament on her parents bed with no real experience of what it means to be human, but human life is ' sacred', so sacred that we would rather have a lifetime of non-life or a lifetime of suffering than end it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

A normal three month old is not a freakish ornament, wouldn't you agree?

[Tale]

"*Edited by Walsingham for gratuitous callousness*"

 

She can't move, she is severely retarded and is forced to live out her life as some kind of freakish ornament on her parents bed with no real experience of what it means to be human, but human life is ' sacred', so sacred that we would rather have a lifetime of non-life or a lifetime of suffering than end it.

 

A normal three month old is not a freakish ornament, wouldn't you agree?

Gosh, when you put it that way...

 

I want to start hanging them on my christmas tree.

[Arkan]

"*Edited by Walsingham for gratuitous callousness*"

 

She can't move, she is severely retarded and is forced to live out her life as some kind of freakish ornament on her parents bed with no real experience of what it means to be human, but human life is ' sacred', so sacred that we would rather have a lifetime of non-life or a lifetime of suffering than end it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

A normal three month old is not a freakish ornament, wouldn't you agree?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

This is not a normal three month old. She's not even a three month old.

Edited January 22, 2007 by Arkan

[metadigital]

This made me very uncomfortable, and I just worked out why. If we can tinker with how she looks in order to make her seem better, why keep her as a person at all? Why not put her brain into the body of a bloody ocelot? Dumb human = world's smartest ocelot. She'd be famous, and happy. 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I sincerely have no qualm with this idea.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

See, this is what I mean. I would hope she can be happy whatever happens, but changing her entire body? I'm feeling like we're in a Philip K.Dιck novel.

 

Ultimately I'd be in favour of people learning to cope with who she is anyway. I mean, it's not like mentally disadvantaged people are going to stop being around. Surely the one stop shop is for the rest of us to be less judgemental.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The doctors (at the parents' behest, from whom "informed concent" has been obtained) are not "changing" the girl's body; they are merely inhibiting the body from changing (through puberty).

[Gorgon]

So keeping the body from it's natural growth cycle is not a change ?

 

mkay.

 

 

It's the best available legal choice in a difficult situation, but the main problem here is that all this is being done for the benifit of the parents. Who is considering what kind of life being entombed in a doll's body is going to be. Is she aware enough to suffer from it. If she isen't aware at all, then really whats the point of living.

Edited January 22, 2007 by Gorgon

[Sand]

Well, as aware as a 3 month old can be.