The limited resources of medicine are increasingly being diverted to alter healthy bodies to boost one’s inner satisfaction, or for non-medical purposes such as cosmetic (as opposed to reconstructive) purposes.

The trend is growing more extreme. Here’s an example. For $100,000, short people can have their healthy legs broken so that they can be made taller. From the Neoscope story:

Officially called distraction osteogenesis, the leg extension surgery involves cutting either the femur, tibia, or both, and using metal braces to extend the bones. Over time, new bone cells will grow, effectively making each leg up to three inches longer. For nearly a century, doctors have used it to help patients with congenital defects or after traumatic injuries — but now, it’s become the latest trend in extreme cosmetic surgery.

Any doctor who does this should lose his or her license. I don’t care if the customer wants this procedure — these people are not “patients” because there is nothing wrong with them and no malady is being treated. This is serious surgery. Lives are put at risk. Doctors should not break healthy body parts for reasons that are altogether non-medical.

Moreover, it opens the door to other harming interventions, such as intentionally disabling “transable” people because of their inner obsessions.


Transhumanists will love this idea of radical personal recreationism. But “do no harm” has to mean something — even in our decadent times. Doctors are being increasingly deprofessionalized. It’s time to draw some lines to keep medicine “medical.”