TY - CHAP
T1 - Hand transplants and bodily integrity
AU - Slatman, Jenny
AU - Widdershoven, Guy
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - In this article, we present an analysis of bodily integrity in hand transplants from a phenomenological narrative perspective, while drawing on two contrasting case stories. We consider bodily integrity as the subjective bodily experience of wholeness which, instead of referring to actual bodily intactness, involves a positive identification with one's physical body. Bodily mutilations, such as the loss of a hand, may severely affect one's bodily integrity. A possible restoration of one's experience of wholeness requires a process of re-identification. Medical interventions, such as a hand transplant, may improve the possibility of a successful re-identification. However, since the experience of wholeness does not refer simply to physical intactness or impairment, the choice for medical intervention should not be based merely upon the degree of physical mutilation. It should also be based upon the degree to which a person fails in re-identifying with his or her mutilated body. We argue that a normalizing operation is only ethically justifiable if the intervention enables the person to be the body he or she has.
AB - In this article, we present an analysis of bodily integrity in hand transplants from a phenomenological narrative perspective, while drawing on two contrasting case stories. We consider bodily integrity as the subjective bodily experience of wholeness which, instead of referring to actual bodily intactness, involves a positive identification with one's physical body. Bodily mutilations, such as the loss of a hand, may severely affect one's bodily integrity. A possible restoration of one's experience of wholeness requires a process of re-identification. Medical interventions, such as a hand transplant, may improve the possibility of a successful re-identification. However, since the experience of wholeness does not refer simply to physical intactness or impairment, the choice for medical intervention should not be based merely upon the degree of physical mutilation. It should also be based upon the degree to which a person fails in re-identifying with his or her mutilated body. We argue that a normalizing operation is only ethically justifiable if the intervention enables the person to be the body he or she has.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=85063189137&origin=inward
U2 - https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315237367
DO - https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315237367
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9781409466079
T3 - The Right to Bodily Integrity
SP - 393
EP - 416
BT - The Right to Bodily Integrity
PB - Taylor and Francis
ER -