Pros and Cons - Debbie Newman, Ben Woolgar 2014

Cosmetic surgery, banning of
Section H. Health, science and technology

Cosmetic surgery is a sub-category of ’plastic’ surgery, which is the use of surgical techniques to change physical appearance, and derives from the Greek word plastikos for ’able to be moulded’. The other category, which this debate is not about, is ’reconstructive’ surgery, which helps people recovering from severely deforming accidents to look as they did before. Cosmetic surgery is about procedures to make subjects more attractive. In 2011, there were over 1.6 million cosmetic procedures in the USA alone; 91 per cent of those were performed on women.

Pros

[1] Cosmetic surgery reflects an unhealthy social obsession with physical appearance, which is not one which we should accept. Individuals are unlikely to be happy with the way they see themselves after the procedure, because they have falsely been promised an unreasonable idea of beauty which they cannot in fact attain. Many people become ’addicted’ to cosmetic surgery, having endless procedures in pursuit of this unreasonable ideal.

[2] Cosmetic surgery is high-risk; many people end up with serious complications because, like any surgery, there are unexpected surprises, such as infections or surgical errors. Given this possibility, individuals should not be allowed to make the irrational decision to take such risks with their physical safety, especially for such trivial gains.

[3] Cosmetic surgery objectifies women. Although there are cosmetic procedures for men, they are the overwhelming minority; for the most part, such procedures are conceived for, marketed at and performed on women. This encourages women to believe that their physical appearance is of primary importance, which is particularly bad for young girls, who should not be taught that they must be permanently seeking to make themselves more attractive, even if it entails physical harm.

Cons

[1] It is not clear that caring about physical appearance is ’unhealthy’; we allow people to work hard to improve their intelligence, and taking steps to make themselves more attractive is not different. Second, even if it were, surgery cannot be meaningfully distinguished from extreme dieting, the use of huge quantities of make-up or the huge numbers of non- surgical cosmetic ’procedures’ like Botox injections; if those things are to be allowed, then surely cosmetic surgery is merely a route by which something more successfully transformative could be achieved.

[2] Cosmetic surgery may have some risks, but it is far less risky than other forms of surgery, including those such as eye surgery which aim not at saving life, but simply making it better. Those are risks that individuals have to be allowed to balance for themselves. Moreover, for individuals with body dysmorphic disorder (where they grow to hate a certain aspect of their physical appearance), the pain of living with that may be much greater than any risks from surgery.

[3] Cosmetic surgery is increasingly becoming a cross-gender choice, which plenty of men make too. Moreover, who is the government to tell individual women what they should and should not consider to be the ’feminist’ choice? If women believe that having cosmetic surgery is something that will make them happy, then regardless of the social structures that might condition that choice, they should be allowed to do so.

Possible motions

This House would ban cosmetic surgery.

This House believes that going under the knife for the sake of appearance is a step too far.

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