The legality of extreme body modifications

[JellySaurus]

I can across this article on the legality of body modifications.

^The Court of Appeal held that the judge was correct and, in these circumstances where serious injuries were caused, the consent of the clients did not mean that offences were not committed. The court considered whether the procedures that had been performed were analogous to tattooing and piercing and decided that the injuries caused by the removal of body parts and tongue splitting were far more serious than those incurred in the course of those lawful activities.
They also felt that there was no “good reason” to allow consent to absolve the appellant of liability. They stressed that the procedures posed a serious risk to health and were surgical in nature – yet they were performed for no good medical reason by an individual who was not medically trained.^
Surely surgical interventions to affirm a person's gender identity fall in this area of body modification, so how are they legal? Is the essential difference that they are performed by medically trained people?

I think the difference is that there is said to be a medical reason for them.

Do people who believe that their body image would be improved by splitting/removing/inserting horns into their normal, functional, tongue/ears/skull have a different, non-medical condition to people who believe that their body image would be improved by removing their normal, functional, breasts/vulva/testicles/penis?

The people are medically trained

At some point we're going to have to accept that personal responsibility and consent over this is what matters. And adult may regret what they've done, but at the same accept that they decided to do it.

Where it will become controversial (as in publicly accepted that it is wrong) is where children and those with other mental disorders are unable to give informed consent and have yet received such surgeries.

JellySaurus · Today 11:03

Do people who believe that their body image would be improved by splitting/removing/inserting horns into their normal, functional, tongue/ears/skull have a different, non-medical condition to people who believe that their body image would be improved by removing their normal, functional, breasts/vulva/testicles/penis?

A very good question. Not only that but I thought gender dysphoria was not longer a medical condition, it's a fashion statement or a sign or moral superiority or something nowadays, so doctors no longer have the medical get out that they once did.

I have to say that whilst not the same and not equally serious, FGM, male cicumcision and any "sex change" (obviously this term is euphemistic) surgery is all part of a very similar thing in my mind. Seriously, just don't take blades to other people's genitals unless absolutely 100% necessary. Not complicated.

If these sorts of modifications are to be banned, it will have to be wider and cover more “normal” modifications. I’m not in favour of either being banned and not SRS either, as long as there is informed consent. If someone regrets it later, that is a shame but if they have mental capacity and go ahead with it, they have to live with the consequences. Maybe seeing others’ regret will force others to think more carefully about what they decide to do with their bodies.
but why do we treat tongue slicing as grotesque but not slicing into breasts to insert (sometimes contaminated) silicone? Why is someone having a double mastectomy grotesque but someone having silicone inserted in their bottom is just shrugged at? It’s all a construct as to what we find acceptable and what is “freaky”. I’d expect all sane adults to think extremely carefully about whether they want to do to their bodies but I don’t think they should be banned from modifications.

Ariella Scarcella and Back Angel discussed this about three weeks ago.

Isn't there a differentiation to be made between the nature of different body modifications?

Eg body mods that have a negative the functioning of the body, such as tongue-splitting, mastectomy or emasculation.
Body mods that are neutral in their effect in the functioning of the body, such as piercing and tattooing.
Body mods that have a positive effect on the functioning of the body, such as amputation of a malformed foot so that a prosthetic can be used to give the person full mobility, or breast reduction where a woman has such large breasts that they are causing her back pain and ligament damage.

While we have to accept that adults have full body autonomy to do consent to procedures we may think inappropriate, we do not accept that even adults can consent to everything. Consent cannot be given to your own murder, for example.

Some body mods are more socially acceptable than others. Social acceptability cannot be the guide to whether an adult can be concerned to be able to give consent.

@jellysaurus [Samll tangent out of interest] I don't like tattoos and went on a google search with an agenda. It actually turns out that tattoos are actually beneficial - they seem to trigger an immune response which actually benefits the immune system!

I agree with your points though.

Well I think there is another element, which is who the practitioners are. A tattoo artist simply doesn't have the same level of responsibility as a doctor. A doctor has an ethical and I believe legal obligation to not harm the patients, to not make their health worse. Now this can involve a balancing act where a treatment that helps in one way can harm in another, but arguably there is a whole host of body modifications that would all outside what is proper for a doctor to do. Arguably most cosmetic surgery, certainly the kind that isn't correcting an abnormality. And that is a live question in medical ethics circles and among doctors.

In some ways it might be simpler if we could say, if this is not medical, a doctor can't do it. You need to see someone like a medi-spa practitioner. And that might naturally limit what could be done, because they would not have the skills to do some of the more etereme cosmetic procedures.

As far as gender reassignment, it gets a pass mainly because of teh argument that it's medically indicated. There are however people who will say, people should be able to do what they want with their bodies, and seem to think that also means other people can be paid to carry out whatever that is.

But it's clear in law I think that there are limits to consent. Where to draw the line is less clear but a good chance of serious complications seems a fairly reasonable possibility. At one time that might have included tattoos, before antibiotics.

There's no accounting for taste: sploid.gizmodo.com/the-most-extreme-tattoo-and-body-modification-just-got-1683298094

Of course, children's consent is quite another thing. As is the medical training of the person carrying out the procedure - though as the lobotomy saga shows, what is considered to be medically acceptable is subject to drastic change over relatively short periods of time.