Turns out my column in China Daily ran last Thursday.  They informed me today.  Here is a link.  It is about "Ashley’s Treatment."  For regular readers of The Useless Tree, you will notice that I have blogged on this topic; so, the newspaper piece is an example of the interaction (I tend to avoid using the word "synergy") of old media and new.  Cool.

   It looks like this will be a regular gig.  Every two weeks or so, I will do a column for the main paper.  So far so good – not a word was changed from what I submitted.  It could be an interesting ride…

Chinese wisdom on choices for little Ashley
By Sam Crane
Updated: 2007-01-25 06:59 

A
recent news story described a difficult choice taken by the parents of
a disabled girl in Seattle, Washington. It also resonated with both
Taoist and Confucian philosophies.

Ashley the girl’s last name
and the names of her family members have not been disclosed to protect
their privacy is profoundly disabled. Her brain did not develop
typically and, as a result, she cannot sit up, stand, walk or talk.

Although nine years old, she is, essentially, an infant, and she will likely remain that way for life.

Her
parents love and care for her, but that care was becoming more
difficult as she grew taller and heavier. It was getting harder to lift
her, to bathe her, to keep her integrated into family and community
activities. Her mother and father realized that Ashley’s life would
become increasingly limited as she grew.

Unusual solution

So, they, together with their doctors, decided to try to keep her from growing.

They reasoned that, if they could stop her physical development, they
could do a better job keeping her comfortable and mobile and happy.

The
doctors came up with an unusual solution: removing her uterus and
breast tissue and injecting her with large doses of hormones. It seems
to have worked.

After about two years of treatment, they now
believe that Ashley will remain four feet, five inches tall, well short
of the five feet, six inches they estimate she would have reached
without the procedures.

When the story hit the US press, some of
the headlines were startling: "Parents Stunt Disabled Girl’s Growth",
"Frozen in Time", "Lap Daughter". One medical ethicist, Arthur Caplan,
stated bluntly that the treatment is "morally wrong".

Taoist approach

Did the parents go too far?

A
modern day philosophical Taoist, while eschewing the language of
morality, would likely agree that the parents efforts were extreme.

Although
religious Taoism is famous for its medical interventions to extend and
improve life, philosophical Taoists, especially those elaborating the
thought of Zhuang Zi, would take a hands-off approach to disability.

Consider this passage, in which one character reflects upon his physical decline:

"Why
should I resent it?" replied Zi Yu. "If my left arm is transformed into
a rooster, I’ll just go looking for night’s end. If my right arm is
transformed into a crossbow, I’ll just go looking for owls to roast.
And if my butt’s transformed into a pair of wheels and my spirit’s
transformed into a horse, I’ll just ride away! I’d never need a cart
again!"

Zhuang Zi is spoofing our fears of death, conjuring up
fantastic images of bodily transformation to say that we should just
give up trying to control our worldly fate. If our health changes, we
should simply accept it and find the best, most creative expression of
that moment’s circumstances.

With this sort of attitude, it is
hard to see how a contemporary Zhuang Zi would advocate what Ashley’s
parents have done. His skepticism would not be based on liberal notions
of individual autonomy, as I suspect Caplan and other medical ethicists
are presuming.

Rather, the Taoist view, while agreeing that
such intervention is wrong, would be based on acceptance of natural
outcomes. Disability, from this vantage, is neither a burden nor a
tragedy. It is an inevitable and timeless human quality that allows for
as much happiness and love and sorrow and pain as any other human
condition.

Confucius says

A present day Confucian would see things differently.

The
parents are acting out of their love and commitment to their daughter.
The treatment, though unusual, would allow them to better care for her,
and it is precisely in that care that the integrity of each member of
the family is created and reproduced.

One of the cardinal
Confucian virtues is humanity ren. The Chinese character depicts the
figure of a person next to the number two.

Sinologists suggest
that the structure of the character itself is a reminder of the
essential social nature of human identity and significance. We are, in
a sense, no one outside of the social relationships through which we
express our love and concern for others. Contrary, once again, to
liberal individualism, Confucianism holds that we find our humanity in
our associations with others. The parents are thus enacting Ashley’s
humanity when they do the daily work of keeping her connected to the
household and the community at large.

They are also making
themselves better people by performing one of Confucius’ obligations:
"Cherish the young." And, furthermore, they are adding to the totality
of humanity in the world as their example of loving care and the
comfort and happiness of their daughter radiate out across the country
and the globe. Ashley’s humanity adds to everyone’s humanity.

There
may be no final resolution to the opposition of Taoist and Confucian
perspectives on Ashley’s case, but the ancient thinkers reach out to us
from the past to add to our understanding of a family’s struggle to do
the right thing.