Wednesday 12 July 2017

My body, my choice?

"The case for banning extreme sports, for example, is much stronger than the case for banning extreme medicine. Extreme sports don’t provide much benefit to the rest of humanity, other than some entertainment of questionable social value. Extreme medicine, on the other hand, has the potential to improve all our lives and at the very least is a useful warning about what not to do. Yet, extreme sports are lauded, or at least treated as mostly your own business (we do put some regulations on boxing and race car driving), while extreme medicine is heavily regulated and socially frowned upon.

My attitude is the reverse. You want to risk your life climbing without ropes? Knock yourself out–but don’t expect any support from me. ... But, you want to risk your life trying an unapproved medical treatment? Sir, I salute you. Give that man a Nobel prize.
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That's from here.

The background to this is that foecal transplants are highly regulated in the US. They could of course lead to infection. As the writer puts it, "No doubt–this is why we also ban sex and french kissing.

Which prompts in me this thought: would the authorities be more likely to bend to pressure from adults who wanted to carry out these procedures if they were sexually motivated rather than prompted by an interest in curing diseases?  And, for adults at least, isn't this a question of "My Body, My Choice"?

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