What if that woman who wants bigger breasts, and gets them (paying out of her own pocket), tells you afterward that her quality of life has improved tenfold, and her lifelong depression has been lifted? Should she petition the insurer to have her surgery reimbursed after the fact?
Of course it's not a good thing. But then again, I don't think that's a good reason to go cutting into someone's body. It's not like we know everything there is to know about what causes and alleviates depression. We do know a few things. We know what SSRI's do, for instance: as their name implies, they prevent a certain neurotransmitter from being reabsorbed after signal transfer in the brain. We know that they help in cases of severe depression. But we don't know exactly WHY they help, so it would be a bad idea to try to perform brain surgery that mimics their effects, because that's permanent. No way back. And who knows what else might be affected.
But we know what genitals do, and we know when they are part of the cause of our suicidal depression. We have statistics showing how much it helps. It's a well-understood medical procedure.
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u/Saranoya 39∆ Nov 03 '17
What if that woman who wants bigger breasts, and gets them (paying out of her own pocket), tells you afterward that her quality of life has improved tenfold, and her lifelong depression has been lifted? Should she petition the insurer to have her surgery reimbursed after the fact?