Choppin’ broccoliiiiii
Andrew is sighing over it, but I think Rod Dreher poses a valid question:
If we accept that people who claim that they need to have sex reassignment surgery to make their bodies conform to who they believe they truly are, then on what basis do we deny people who claim that they need to have one or more limbs amputated to feel whole their moral and/or legal right to the desired surgery?
I certainly have no desire to keep anyone from transgenderating, but I also don’t see exactly why we should prevent someone from chopping off their own arm if it bothers them. I see it as a legitimate question.
Except in so far as society suffers a cost due to such an action.
There also seems to be some discussion on a person’s ability to make such decisions from a mental health standpoint (more the amputations than the gender reassignment).
But then I realize that this comment really only gets back to the tension between personal autonomy and societal obligations or mores, which Dreher said already.
How about this answer? It is somewhere in the middle, some surgeries for either sex reassignment or limb removal or whatever are allowed and some are not based on a balance between personal autonomy and societies needs and taking into account mental health. Of course that is the moderate, boring, gray area answer, the radical all or nothing points of view get more page views.