[kevingadd]

What is your definition of healthy?

Should people born with a cleft palate be forced to leave it alone? What about people with breathing problems due to their anatomy? If a kid has teeth grow in improperly and start causing jaw problems, should they be prohibited from having their wisdom teeth removed or teeth realigned with braces? Should tonsil removal be prohibited? If a woman has severe back pain due to oversized breasts, should it be prohibited to get a reduction surgery even if it improves quality of life? Should vasectomies be prohibited if a person with testes wants to be able to have sex with their partner without the risk of pregnancy?

Should it be prohibited to medically disable "healthy" body parts as well? As an alternative to vasectomies you can use drugs to similarly disable that body part, in many cases effectively forever. Should that be illegal too? What about anti-androgens like Spironolactone - used on-label for multiple different purposes - should we ban those since they are also used for MtF HRT? Birth control also is functionally disabling healthy parts of the body.

Why does a problem "happening in the mind" somehow mean that no treatment can occur outside of the mind? Do you think mood stabilizers and antipsychotics should be banned because we're treating an "in the mind" problem with physical, body-altering interventions?

[xupybd]

As a though experiment I've thought a lot about the black alien project. Specifically the removal of his fingers. I'm not sure I know where to stand. Should he be free to do what he wants? Should doctors be required to avoid removing healthy fingers ( I don't think they were doctors but I've altered the situation for my thought experiment)?

My conclusion is I have no idea how to even approach it.

I'd be interested in others thoughts.

I like this topic as it's less politically charged but explores similar ethics.

[Breefield]

Thank you.

[bruiseralmighty]

There will never be a clear cut definition of health, but most people can innately tell what a well regulated body looks like for their culture.

For instance, most Americans know they're fat or obese and that this is not good for their long term health outlooks and will have detrimental affects on other aspects of their lives. Some may choose to be okay with this, but very few sincerely argue that being fat is 'healthy'. Most will try to lose weight (excess fat) at some point in their lives.

Sometimes we remove body parts that are no longer well functioning within an understood ordering of the body. Inflamed tonsils can be removed, large wisdom teeth pulled, even ovaries can be discarded if they're found to be hosting cancers, but all of these are examples of organ dysfunction. We know what is regular, non-painful, and non-disruptive about the human body because many human beings spend a lot of time in that state and most begin life in that state before transitioning to a disordered state. When that transition happens, medical science seeks an explanation for the dysfunction: how did these tonsils become inflamed?, why do wisdom teeth crowd the mouth?, how did this woman's ovaries come to carry so much cancer?

We look for the cause of a dysfunction in order to treat it.

If instead we remove the well functioning breasts of a 15 year old, or replace a healthy penis because a patient informs us that they abhor their member, or prescribe a blocker for an otherwise well regulated puberty, then we have inverted the entire thrust of centuries of medical understanding. We are taking a healthy body and searching for a malady that we have been told must be there. Once there is no longer a discernment between the regular and the dysfunctional for a human body then an explosion of maladies abounds all begging for treatment.

If enlarged breasts are causing spinal issues then perhaps they should be reduced in order to correct those issues. But why not removal? We remove enlarged tonsils, why not enlarged breasts? Surely the removal of them would also correct any spine issues. In fact, it may even be ethically easier as the doctor and patient do not have to contemplate a correct breast size. But of course it is unlikely the patient or doctor ever considered the wholesale removal of the breasts in these cases because both approached the question with an idea already in mind of what a healthy human body would look like despite they're not having any precise agreement on the topic beforehand.

And in fact, we should question the ethics of both vasectomies and birth control. In 2023 these treatments are mostly, though not entirely, considered mostly in the pursuit of carefree pleasure and fun. Why should either be condoned? We condemn being fat on entirely the same terms. Often Americans are fat because they eat too often and always in excess due to eating feeling good. If one doesn't praise obesity, then what ought they find desirable about self-imposed sterility?

Of course what compounds these ethical concerns is that in these cases the subjects are children. On the whole this takes the acts from merely questionable or wrong-headed to monstrous.

[the_only_law]

> And in fact, we should question the ethics of both vasectomies and birth control. In 2023 these treatments are mostly, though not entirely, considered mostly in the pursuit of carefree pleasure and fun.

Perhaps we should question the ethics of kids playing casual sports because it’s in the pursuit or carefree pleasure and fun

[bruiseralmighty]

Play is important to a child's development. Try to refocus and retain that the context of the conversation is about medical interventions not playground games.

It is self-evident that reversing a decision to play freeze tag is orders of magnitude easier than reversing a dental tooth cleaning; a mundane medical procedure.

[the_only_law]

How about you worry about yourself. What’s it to you if someone decides to get a vasectomy in their 40s? Or are you simply more interested in bending and controlling people with your personal moral views where “pleasure and fun” are sins.

[filoleg]

> How about you worry about yourself. What’s it to you if someone decides to get a vasectomy in their 40s?

I don't think almost anyone in this thread, including the person you are replying to, has any issues with 40 year olds doing whatever they want to with their own body. They are adults who can accept full responsibility over their actions and consequences, no matter how irreversable or disastrous they could end up being. Children are an entirely different story, as they, by definition, have no ability to provide informed consent to a lot of things, and rightfully so.

> Or are you simply more interested in bending and controlling people with your personal moral views where “pleasure and fun” are sins [?]

You are fighting windmills here. At no point had anyone in this chain of comments exerted any moral judgement against people transitioning or even suggested that it was sinful.

And to be extra clear, I have no issues with adults transitioning, and I would have no issues with minors either, if the process was fully reversible. Most western countries don't consider minors being legally able to give consent to getting tattoos due to their (near-)permanency, but no one has any issues with adults getting those. I, personally, would consider transitioning to have a much higher bar for "minors should be able to consent to it" than I would for getting a tattoo.

[the_only_law]

> I don't think almost anyone in this thread, including the person you are replying to, has any issues with 40 year olds doing whatever they want to with their own body.

> Of course what compounds these ethical concerns is that in these cases the subjects are children. On the whole this takes the acts from merely questionable or wrong-headed to monstrous.

FROM wrong-headed TO monstrous. Sounds like they have a pretty negative and judgmental opinion regardless if it’s an adult, that just intensifies when children are involved. So yeah, I do think GP has issues with said 40 year olds. How many minors are getting vasectomies anyway? How it is comparable to a gender transition except in the most vague and useless ways?

> You are fighting windmills here. At no point had anyone in this chain of comments exerted any moral judgement against people transitioning or even suggested that it was sinful.

Not even talking about people transitioning . Why the fuck is this guy comparing it to vasectomies and obesity in the first place.