Please read the linked article

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You may remember the case of that disabled child in Canada for whom the parents obtained permission from a court to stop her growth by chemical and surgical means. I was very unhappy with the story when it came out, but I did not know enough, and I thought it better not to criticize the parents when I did not know what they had been through or what the medical prospects really were.

This woman, on the other hand, has every right to speak out on the subject; and I am glad to see that my inchoate sense of disapproval has sound reasons to exist. http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/escaping_from_peter_pans_prison/

Moral of the story: never, ever, EVER pretend that you can judge when a human life is not worth living.

Comments

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The only thing one can do to deal with that is take such a powerful intellectual stance in the first place, that nobody except a fool would try and deny our right to an opinion. After all, the greatest philosopher who ever lived - Thomas Aquinas - is one of ours, not theirs. At that point they can only take the position that you are abusing your cleverness - which is an innately defeated, not to mention anti-intellectual position.