Surgically Shaping Children

"This compilation of essays edited by Erik Parens is vitally important . . . Provides an amazing wealth of practical advice . . . All the chapters are well written and engaging . . . Parents facing grueling decisions about surgical interventions for their children will find great solace in this book."—New England Journal of Medicine

"What I most liked about Surgically Shaping Children was the way it drew me into an ongoing conversation that exposed, interrogated, and rearticulated my common sense views on normality and the role of medicine in normalizing the differently embodied."—Kathy Davis, Hastings Center Report

"An important book for the questions it puts forth."—Medical Humanities Review

"A rich and fruitful diversity of perspectives, opinions, and styles."—Henri Wijsbek, Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

"A truly striking collection of voices that are largely absent from ordinary bioethics texts, and one of the finest anthologies I have read in years."—Carl Elliott, University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics, author of Better than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream

"Surgically Shaping Children is a must-read for anyone concerned about the cultural denial of differences in human embodiment and the desire for the 'surgical fix.' In a style that is the trademark of any conversation initiated by the Hastings Center, the contributors—philosophers, physicians, patients, and parents—tackle all the difficult questions without opting for easy answers. This is a book that will make you think."—Kathy Davis, Institute for History and Culture, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, and author of Reshaping the Female Body

"In this thoughtful book, patients, parents, doctors, and distinguished philosophers speak to difficult questions of disability, technology, identity, and values."—Peter D. Kramer, Brown University, author of Against Depression and Listening to Prozac

"As medicine gains ever greater skill at 'correcting' the physical deficiencies of children, we are also acquiring the power to alter personal identity and change the meaning of normality. In Surgically Shaping Children, Erik Parens has collected a wonderful range of provocative and thoughtful essays that, while providing no easy answers, raise crucially important questions about when, why, and how we should 'fix' the appearance of our children. Doctors, patients, ethicists, and parents will all be enriched by its wisdom and empowered by its intelligent consideration of these thorny issues."—Stephen S. Hall, author of Merchants of Immortality

"It is extraordinary when a book manages to be both informative and critical. Surgically Shaping Children is an important book for parents who confront the reality of their children's appearing different from what they and society imagined. It is also a book for all readers interested in how norms of appearance affect the way we imagine ourselves and others and, equally important, how we employ medicine to rectify such differences."—Sander L. Gilman, Emory University

"This fascinating and disturbing collection explores the difficult question of when and how surgery might be used for children born with disabilities and other anomalies. It speaks not just to every parent's desire to help his or her child, but also to concerns about the contested borders of health, normality, and difference, in an age when our biomedical powers may sometimes exceed our wisdom."—Tom Shakespeare, University of Newcastle, UK

"It was a joy reading this brilliant collection of essays. This carefully conceived and well-written book will be welcomed by health care professionals and medical ethicists, but they are by no means its only potential audience. The challenging issues it raises would make it an excellent text for seminar courses on ethics and philosophy. But in my opinion its greatest and most lasting value will be as a resource for parents and other family members of affected patients."—Bruce J. Beckwith, Loma Linda University