A Question Of Convenience

As with the over-medication of children and euthanasia, I find myself asking to what extent convenience is the driving factor behind the request of Alison Thorpe, the mother who has asked doctors to give her 15-year-old daughter Katie a hysterectomy to stop her from starting menstruation — on the basis that Katie suffers from cerebral palsy and "would be confused by periods and they would cause her indignity."

If Mrs Thorpe's doctors are granted legal approval, a dangerous and disturbing precedent will have been set. And if anyone has difficulty understanding why that might be so, perhaps it's time to re-read Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (or to re-watch the 1975 film starring Jack Nicholson)