From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.med,alt.support.breast-implant
Subject: Re: DOCTOR, ARE YOU LISTENING? by by Susan E. Kolb, M.D
Date: 22 Mar 1998 02:22:03 GMT

In <351408C3.4012@nospam.com> meredith@nospam.com writes:

>Heh, how true. Besides, silicon-filled implants are no longer in use
>(except for research purposes). If you're vain enough to get them for
>cosmetic purposes, I'd say you had it coming.


    No woman has it coming, you dip.

    Even leaving that aside, "vanity" is a rather relative thing.
Dentures, for example, have no medical purpose, as you can live just
fine on baby food.  One man's vanity is another's identity or quality
of life.

   I see precious little philosophical difference between a woman who
has lost both breasts to mastectomy, and wants reconstruction, and a
woman who has essentially no breasts to begin with, and wants
augmentation.  You can't call one state "disfigured" and the other
not-- they are the same state.  Nor do previous states matter in this.
If I lose my ears (say) in a burn accident, is it vanity to want them
back?  No?  But you say it's vanity if I'm born without them?

                                       Steve Harris, M.D.