In the 1990s, Dr. Robert Smith, a surgeon at Falkirk and District Royal Infirmary in Scotland, performed leg amputations on two men. Both men were perfectly healthy but suffering from “apotemnophilia,” a rare psychiatric condition involving the desire to amputate healthy limbs. Apotemnophiles claim not to feel complete with four limbs and obsess over the idea of having unwanted body parts chopped off.
Smith believed the surgeries were life-saving, arguing that otherwise, the patients would attempt the amputation themselves and possibly die in the process. He claimed the men’s motivations were not erotic. But it was later revealed that Smith was indeed aware that one of the men ran an amputee fetish website.
After conducting an investigation, the hospital deemed the procedures unethical, and Smith was banned from further mutilating healthy bodies. The ethically dubious experiment ended.
But let’s imagine for a moment an alternate reality, a world in which a powerful apotemnophile lobby group convinces society that apotemnophile rights is the next civil rights movement. The messaging of this movement would be simple: An amputee is anyone who identifies as an amputee. Amputee rights are human rights.