A Leg Up? Neuroprosthetics, Elective Amputations, and Body Integrity Identity Disorder

• In Event: (Re)generating Dialogues between STS and Bioethics

Abstract

Sufferers of Bodily Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) have been known to experience so much distress as a result of their condition that they attempt to amputate their limbs. Their condition consists of a severe non-delusional perceived mismatch between the individual’s physical body and their internalised bodily-image. For some, amputation is the only identifiable alleviation for their suffering.
This paper will explore how developments in the area of neuroprosthetics disrupt and challenge commonly held assumptions about what can be considered healthy, disabled and impaired; especially when restrictive biomedical models of health support these assumptions. In order to demonstrate this point, it will use the example of therapeutic, healthy limb amputation in cases of BIID. The paper will engage with the oppositional argument that to carry out such amputations breaches the principle of non-maleficence as not only would a surgeon be removing a healthy limb, but they would also be imposing a lifetime of disability on a non-disabled person. In response to this objection, the paper will employ the social model of disability to contend that such an argument, due to its reliance on the goal of therapeutic normalisation, employs an overly simplistic understanding of the experience of disability. Additional, it also disregards the considerable role current prosthetic technologies play in enhancing the lives of individuals with impairments, and the potential afforded by developments in areas such as sensory feedback prosthesis. It concludes that as these technologies become more prominent, the boundary between disability and non-disabled becomes increasingly blurred.

Author

• Richard B Gibson, The University of Manchester