Confounding extremities: Surgery at the medico-ethical limits of self-modification

This article discusses the debate over apotemnophilia and its diagnosis and treatment, focusing on the bioethical, legal, and cultural implications of elective amputation as a possible therapy. The author argues that the sensationalism surrounding apotemnophilia should not be allowed to deter the thougful interdisciplinary inquiry that is appropriate to this debate, which raises important questions about the definition of body integrity, the process of medical standard-setting, and the limits of physician and patient autonomy when it comes to surgical modification of the body.