BIID

            Body integrity disorder or BIID is a rare condition characterized by the desire to amputate one or more healthy limbs. This condition to cut arms or even legs off is starting to get Disabled advocacy groups upset and offended. The thought of having someone who can function normally walk and using their arms without any discomfort or problems would just choose to try and amputate it making them disabled as well.  To deliberately injure and cripple one’s self is almost unthinkable, but these people with Body integrity disorder all feel like the limbs that they do not desire aren’t part of them. They think that the extra limbs are alien feeling, something that needs to be removed to be whole.  To a person diagnosed with BIID the term disorder wouldn’t be an accurate description, they feel like this extra burden that they have is part of them, similarly to people who believe that they were born in the wrong body and having surgery to correct that mistake. But unlike having a sex change doctors are posed with a different set of problems. Having a surgeon amputate a perfectly healthy body part can seem unethical and depending on how it’s looked at can violate the doctor’s code of ethics. Making someone deliberately disabled doesn’t help anyone’s physical health so the question is whether a surgical physician has the right to be able to amputate someone’s leg. The most disturbing part of reading “Cutting Desire” may be at the beginning when the author describes “Josh’s” different attempts to amputate his arm. The way he said that “he drove countless miles with his arm out hoping to get side swiped” or how he’s practiced on animal legs. These attempts just show how serious and willing he was to lose his arm; it gives us an idea of just how bad these people with BIID need to have their limbs removed.  Opening the article with these gruesome images really gives the reader a feeling of the urgency that is placed on getting amputated and what people will do to achieve it.  This josh tries several different times all worse than the last, the thought of even trying to put your arm through a table saw and having everything prepared for it after you remove your arm without painkillers or anything is horrifying.  After Josh finally had his arm amputated this “torment” that had been plaguing Josh since the middle school, he said that after it was cut off that it was a tremendous relief and that his body felt right. Just having that train of thought and determination to cut off healthy body parts really scares me, what people can do if they’re determined enough is amazing and astounding.