Parents stunt disabled daughter’s growth ‘to improve her quality of life’

The parents of a severely disabled girl have taken the radical step to stop their daughter growing in an attempt to improve her life. As well as giving their child hormones to limit her size, Jenn and Mark Hooper also had doctors remove Charley’s womb to spare her the pain of having periods. The New Zealand couple are among a small, but increasing number of families around the world resorting to a highly controversial treatment known as growth attenuation, in bid to make the lives of their disabled children better. They had to take 10-year-old Charley to South Korea for treatment which will see her remain 4ft 3in tall and weighing about 4st.

Would you ever want this kind of treatment done to you without your consent or knowledge? And if the answer is no, then why would one want to do that to someone else?

Margaret Nygren, CEO of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

Opponents argue stunting and sterilising the disabled amounts to a violation of human rights. But parents like the Hoopers insist it helps their children retain their quality of life. Charley cannot speak or walk, has no control of her limbs and is virtually blind, unable to detect anything beyond light or dark. She was left irreversibly brain damaged after being deprived of enough oxygen at birth, and was later diagnosed with a severe form of epilepsy. However, Charley has never been able to give her consent leaving the Hoopers only to guess at what their daughter would want.

We don’t expect her to live forever. We don’t want her to live forever. Who wants this life forever? So we give her the best life we can while we’ve got her.

Mother, Jenn Hooper