title: Regulating bodily integrity: cosmetic surgery and voluntary limb amputation.
abstract: Cosmetic surgery and voluntary limb amputation share a number of features. Both procedures are patient-driven forms of body shaping that can only be performed by surgeons, and therefore the procedures require the imprimatur of the medical profession to be lawful. Both invoke identity construction as a central legitimating factor that renders the procedures therapeutic. The legal regulation of surgery is subsumed within general principles regulating medical practice, where autonomy and consent are constituted as fundamental authorising principles. The legitimacy of consent to surgical intervention operates unevenly in relation to these two forms of surgery. Amputation of healthy limbs is presumed to be non-therapeutic. Capacity is closely interrogated and minutely scrutinised. Consent to cosmetic surgery, by contrast, is presumed to be a valid expression of autonomy and self-determination.
authors: School of Law, University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales. akenned5@une.edu.au
authors: Aileen
authors: A
authors: Kennedy
mesh_terms: D000671:Amputation, Surgical / Q000941:ethics*; D057215:Body Dysmorphic Disorders; D001828:Body Image; D017558:Elective Surgical Procedures / Q000941:ethics*; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D018579:Patient Selection; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D019651:Plastic Surgery Procedures / Q000941:ethics*; D012652:Self Mutilation