I have a serious question for those of you who support this. Would you feel the same way if parents applied for this treatment for a quadraplegic child of normal intelligence? The reasoning for such a step would be exactly the same that the child is completely reliant on the parents and the parents would find it increasingly more difficult to care for the child as he grew bigger and might have to bring in outside caretakers to help.
It seems to be perfectly acceptable with everyone mainly because the child is mentally retarded.
This is a lot closer to reality than one might expect. In the case of our own son, while temporarily in a well known facility, something like that could have happened. Doctors proposed to us a spinal implantation which would correct the scoliosis naturally occurring in such handicaps. It would amount to a rigid rod attached to the spine. They assured us it would make our son look more normal, but warned only 50% survived. We told them to stuff their operation. Our son's room mate who was in similar straits was a happy, smiling kid, a joy to be around. But his parents acquiesced and he got the operation. He never smiled again, died a few months later in pain.