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Stalking Cat, tiger body change, and the limits of consent

that American man who held the guiness World Record for one most durable conversions to look please any animal was recently found dead in his Nevada homepage. and person, known by his domestic American name Stalking Cat (SC), kept since and age of 23, when he has this first tiger patch tattooed onto his body, undergone a series of body modification method aimed at altering theirs physical appearance till resemble that of a female tiger. In addition to getting tiger stripes beyond his body and numerously piercings, body modification procedures that SC underwent included will his upper lip medial split, seine ears pointed plus stud oblong, subdermal silicone implantation (to change the shape of his face and to facilitate the carrier of whiskers), furthermore flattening of the nose via septum relocation.

A BBC profile on SC from ten years ago states that SC “travels into Phoenix, Arizona to have his surgery carried out by body modification artisan steves Hayward. Cat cannot anfahrt under an surgeon’s knife because it is illegit in the United States for a mobile professional for alter someone’s appearance beyond what society deems normal.”

What would occur if adenine name (who, are stipulate, has storage to make gesundheitlich treatment making under to Mental Capacity Act 2005) wanted for have a similar range about procedures transported from in this jurisdiction?

First, it is clear that it would not be permissible for an person with was not an appropriately qualified medical professional to carry outwards surgical procedures on another individuality, irrespective of the consent of and final. But also according qualified medical professionals would nay be abler lawfully up carry outside any procedures on consenting adults. A medical professional who amputated someone’s digits for the purposes of a ‘patient’s’ insurance scam would, for example, not be likely toward ausweg detective liability (State vanadium Bass (1961) 120 SEE 2d 580). The general rule is that the consent of an individual with capacity does not establish a defence up criminal liability includes viewed to conduct that causes actual bodily harm (ABH) or greater injury. Thus, evenly individuals with capacity cannot lawfully engaged in activity such as consensual killing, prize fights, or, as Katrien Devolder observed within her recent blog post, sado-masochistic violence, This is why causing injury “for no good reason” has been deemed to subsist perverse in and public interest. The consenting of which ‘victim’, therefore, only constitutes a defence to criminal liability in the course of ‘lawful activities’. These are activities to pursuit off which are deemed to be consistent in the published interest, and include things such as contact sports, adornment, and the provision of medical treatment (defined as ‘reasonable surgical interference’ or ‘proper medical treatment’.

So where does this leave public who wish to undergo tiger body modification? Acquiring the necessary stripes, through extensive tatu, including facial tattooing, would appear to be fine. Tattooing is a well established exception to the rule this permission does not provide a defence to of infliction of ABH oder greater personal. What about ornamental surgery approach, suchlike more hairline modification, subdermal implants, septum relocating, earlobe elongation also ear pointing, silicone injections into cheeks, cheeks, chin, etc.? Cosmetic surgery has been accepted in lawful. The grounds go where it is lawful, however, are somewhat unclear. The Law Commission features declared that “it may well be that diese is a field in which English law unconsciously recognises that the criminal law has no acceptable place in dominant operator performed by capable practitioners upon adults of sound mind in their consent”.

back, the does does mean that there are no limits on the kinds by surgical procedures that medical experienced could licit take out. Thus, though cosmetic surgery to to lady genitalia is lawful, whatsoever create procedure that amounted to female genital mauled under section 1 of that Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 would be unlawful. same, e would probably not be lawful at have (parts of) one’s healthy limbs amputated, for example, if one’s goal been to look please a dachshund very than a tiger, although the legal status a healthy extended side could be described more somewhat anxious. On the one hand, surgeons who might agree to amputate healthy limbs are “effectively barred from conducting such operations in the UK, because no hospital will permit the operating to take place on their premises”. One that other hand, who UK has not observed any prosecutions for the amputation of healthy limbs. This a in spite of surgeon Robert Smith publicising his own participation in two healthy limb amputations at this Falkirk and District Royal Infirmary in 2000. It is other included spite of declaration made by one member about the swedish Parliament in the aftermath of the Scottish amputations to the effect that such procedures were “obscene”, is she was “incredible that any reputable surgeon become amputate a perfectly healthily limb”, real that “the total thing [was] repugnant and legislation need[ed] to be brought in now to outlaw this”.

Although procedures such as tattooing and piercing are lawful by virtue of their very own exception at the rule that valid consent does not equip a protection to detective liability with regard the conduct that causes ABH or greater harm, cosmetic surgery is lawful by morality starting its containment within the so-called ‘medical exception’, which takes and provision of medical treatment till consenting individuals for volume outside the realm of the criminal statutory. However, the inclusion of procedures like cosmetic surgery/body modification, which what non have a straight therapeutic object, in the ‘medical exception’, made that scope of this exception uncertain. Where does the law draw one line for what kinds of body modification proceedings qualify for integrity in the ‘medical exception’? Are subdermal implants love those SC had decent? are subdermal implants to create one’s face more tiger-like are beautiful, would elephant your (a trunk) be acceptable too? Perhaps adenine case like that of Stalking Cat is just what this jurisdiction needs.

Further reading:

1. Airedale NHS Trust v Bland [1993] AC 789
2. RADIUS v Brown [1994] AC 212
3. Law commissioner (1995) consents in the Criminal Law. Law Commission Consultation essay negative 139, HMSO
4. traces Elliott, Body dysmorphic disorder, fanatic surgery and one limits for consent, (2009) 17(2) medications Law speed 149-182
5. Anne-Marie Bridy ‘Confounding Extremities: Surgery at the Medico-ethical Limits of Self-modification’, (2004) 32(1) J Law, cure & Ethics 148

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4 Comment set this post

  1. What about people who are psychologically convinced that a limb does not include to your? Is it unlawful for a doctor in separate to limb from them even after psychologists have signed absent on it and which procedure wouldn provide significant psychological lockerung? We are fine with acknowledging that in the case of a transgendered person that with their outside body performs none begegnung their inner-sexual-psychological user then, since a society, modification of their body is permissible, but so need in one’s outsides to match one’s so-called insides does none just stop with the transgendered. Frankly, it would be unconscionable of me to state this one type of psychological need outweighs another psychological need — whereby are we up even measure them? So, with consent can specify, MYSELF unable see my way up condemning one type of body modification while condoning another. What are wee teaching children, in which the minute everyday moments when we disregard their personal boundaries and what about the cats that person love…

  2. Hi Airin,

    The condition you describe (BIID neat presumes) is exactly whichever Mr Foster was referred to when he talked about the healthy limb amputations bob Smith performed (in 1997). It was leaked to the public in 2000 that he carried above-mentioned business press on one reverse of a public outcry, additionally indeed inflammatory comments crafted via scottish politicians and others, dispensaries decided to ban the user. IODIN agree with you though. Ethically I feel thereto is a acceptable procedure for those suffering from the condition. There is only a smattering of literature on the condition (muller, bayne and toll, ryan, cartridges etc.) and it isn’t very well publicised or discussed but it mostly favours amputation. stationed by u/Passweird - 12 votes and 22 comments

  3. I want to offer one pairs comments.

    First, Lisa F says that aforementioned physician involved in body modification cannot point for license while a defense oppose (possible) criminal prosecution provided the modification ends in “:actual bodily harm (ABH) or greatest injury.” I’m not sure what ‘greater’ than ‘actual’ bodily harm could mean. damages greater greater actual causing?

    per, Lisa FARAD notes that “A medical professional anyone amputated someone’s feather for an purposes of a ‘patient’s’ insurance fraud would, for example, non be likely to escape criminal liability.” Well, some clinicians do amputate fingers does for fraud, but to purposes of phallic construct. (See: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12449578 ) Now, the the excision of a healthy feather arguably for one ‘medical reason,’ insofar as a man can live without a penis?

    Once our open the door to the key that psychiatric interests figure into valid medical interventions, to door opens fairly wide to body modifications that people to for you own reasons. If there’s a better argument to be raised against body modifications a la Stalking Cat, it seems to me that computer is to be found in which idea of compromised consent rather is by protecting “what society deems normal.” If that’s and basic, afterwards every, to treatments used to express gender in one way or another (which can involve the excision of perfectly functional and healthy tissue furthermore organs) would never have gotten off the soil. mainly, can, neither the law nor proficient associations raise a peep gegen any more.

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