I am tired

Because fear and hatred of disabled people hides in people's hearts in the same way as sexism, transphobia and racism:

Ashley is not a "disabled" person that can enjoy a stroll down the mall for social stimulation. A 3 month old mind cannot do such a thing.

Personally, I'm tired of liberal whiners thinking they are better than everyone else.

The word disabled gets used way too much. If you can make your own decisions and think for youself, then guess what, you're not disabled.

Ashley on the other hand can do not of these things, her I would considered disabled.

Because so many people deny the slippery slope, but during the Schiavo case a common argument to silence the voices of disabled people was that Terri wasn't disabled but brain-dead, and now a common argument to deny the voices of disabled people is to claim Ashley's level of consciousness (higher than Terri's) is comparable to a turnip and also irrelevant to our experiences:

The problem is modern medicine can keep a turnip alive for many years i.e. 100 years ago this child would have died at a very young age as mother nature intended. But since we have to play God and keep the turnip alive then we also get to play God and choose when/how to trim the turnip when it grows in a way we deem unfit. Basically this treatment is ENTIRELY for the parents benefit and as such it does help the parents but please drop the delusion that it helps the vegetable because the vegetable would be best off with as little pain inflicted as possible i.e. let the vegetable die.

Because I know some supposed "turnips" online who slay me with their sharp intelligence:

Please remember that disabled women are women, too. So much of these discussions go back to a description of disabled people as being passive recipients of care from “mostly women”, leaving disabled women totally invisible in the whole thing. I’ve seen really good feminist disability writing (try Jenny Morris), but feminist writing that approaches disability primarily as a caregiving issue isn’t generally it — it casts women as the victims of the existence of disabled people (including disabled women) and usually proposes horrifically oppressive solutions to the problem of our existence.

Because this isn't about just one child:

The action is in response to the AMA’s sanction of the “Ashley Treatment” through its publication of the original case article in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine case. This AMA owned-journal went so far as to call for further “study” of the issue by subjecting more children to the same drastic surgeries and follow them over time.

Because there are other signs that society is becoming more impatient with the existence of disabled folks:

For example, Dr. Goldberg said, a 29-year-old woman and her partner might now choose amniocentesis instead of a blood test. In the past, the more invasive procedure was seldom recommended for younger women because it could sometimes result in miscarriage. Now the risk is considered to be quite low, and in any event, Dr. Goldberg said, for some couples “losing a normal pregnancy secondary to the procedure is not as problematic as the birth of a Down syndrome child, so they’re willing to take that risk.”

Because so many of our supposed allies seem unable to listen or offer real support beyond their own fears and agendas:

If I were this girl’s caregiver, my worst fear would be that there would be a chance one day that I may not be around to care for her. And that she might end up in hospice care, where she could be sexually abused and end up pregnant. And that because she’s white, there would be a lot of antagonism towards aborting said pregnancy to spare her the misery and that a bunch of “pro-lifers” would stake on the hospital, Terri Schiavo-style, enamored of the idea of a pregnant white woman without a real will of her own. In other words, the perfect baby incubator. There’d be moaning and wailing and sentimental rhapsodizing about getting a “miracle” baby out of this poor girl. Doctors, under all this pressure, would cave because it’s not like she can really do anything about it. And then the baby would be born and everyone would be all in raptures and Reader’s Digest would have an article about it and Ashley would be reduced from a human being to a baby incubator. So you better believe I’d want to just circumvent that. This situation has nothing to do with eugenics unless you’re paranoid enough to think that the genetically normal offspring of college-educated white people are a target.

Because of the disrespect:

While I certainly don't envy your situation and feel blessed that I am lucky to not be disabled, I am sickened by your rantings. Who exactly do you think you are? Your disability is NOT an entitlement to place judgement upon others.

95% of the posters that agree with you are only agreeing out of PITY. They are too short-sighted to see that your particular situation, contrasted with Ashley's, is like night and day. Instead, they ignorantly assume that your ridiculous 'I am Ashley' statement is true simply because you both have severe disabilities.

Why don't you reveal your true motivation? It must be nice to have a link to your blog on CNN, right? Enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame but, seriously, quit with this betrayal nonsense. I mean, come on, to refer to her parents as "parents" (I'm referring to the quotation marks)? Are you actually advocating that they did what they did for any reason other than absolute love, caring and adoration of their daughter?

You may be disabled, but you're still a judgemental, self-righteous prick.

Because the weird convergence of attention and disregard is a kind of quiet violence:

Maybe, just maybe, bloggers who are disabled don’t really want to discuss shit like this over and over and over again–especially when people are not just discussing their right to access or something like that (where the presumption of humanity deserving of life is at least present), but are actually challenging disabled peoples very right to live as autonomous respected human beings. Maybe bloggers who are disabled really don’t feel like debating whether or not they are “burdens” worthy of extreme forms of violence just to suit able-bodied people. Maybe they aren’t interested in debating whether or not they have a right to be alive.