Site of the Day: Wednesday, January 3, 2007
The Ashley Treatment

Do you remember the story that swept the Web this fall about a procedure that was used to keep a severely disabled girl small? Her doctors wrote about it in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, and countless blog entries and message board opinions followed, including a poll here on About Parenting Special Needs.

Since commentary tends to feed commentary, somewhere along the way the details and intent of the procedure became distorted and sensationalized. That's one of the bad things about the Web -- impressions and reactions become fact fast.

One of the good things about the Web is that the people who know better have a good format for response. And that's what "The Ashley Treatment" site is: a response from the parents of the girl in question, giving the specific facts of their daughter's treatment and their reasons for it, in a way that rebuts their critics and encourages those families that might also benefit from it.

The writing is clear and remarkably cool-headed, considering the firestorm that raged around the story, and good reading for those of us who like to editorialize on ethical dilemmas without having to actually live through them.