Amputees By Choice Analysis

“What is worse, to live without a leg or to live with an obsession that controls your life?” Elliots book chapter “Amputees By Choice” describes what it's like to live the life of an apotemnophilia (someone with the attraction to the idea of being an amputee) or an acrotomophilia(a sexual attraction to amputees). Elliot discusses how the concept is “an ambivalent moral ideal-a struggle between the impulse toward self-improvement and the impulse to be true to oneself”(pg3). Apotemnophiliac’s are being denied the removal of healthy limbs because the idea is unusual and abstract to the typical surgeon. Although, cosmetic surgery is certainly not prohibited by law, in fact there are people everyday receiving plastic surgery because they are not happy with the way their nose sits on their face. Cosmetic surgery is the term used to describe an elective procedure intended to enhance a person's appearance toward a beauty idea. This concept is different from plastic surgery, which is intended to repair and reconstruct abnormal structures of the body such as birth defects, developmental disabilities, accidents …show more content…
The physician must first identify what is worth having for its own sake by stating what is intrinsically bad and what would value from each result, the hope is to yield the best balance. The problem is how do we add up the benefits/ harms when the action could result in so many different possibilities… how do we know that the patient is completely rational? The answer for the consequentialist is that if nearly everyone in society would accept it, and if society would be off with this rule than competing rule, it classifies as necessary. If the physician has done everything they can for the patient, including psychiatric help and other practices that continue to yield negative results, then at this point can the limb removal be taken into