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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 7, 2022

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Plastic surgery (and other controversial elective surgeries like liposuction or bariatric surgery) exist, but they're controversial enough that they're not really good examples even if social conservatives don't really go after them with the same strength that they do (directly) sexual/sexuality stuff. Non-trans hysterectomy and endometrial ablation are similarly politically complicated, though in ways that don't break down into simple Red Tribe/Blue Tribe splits. And there are other 'cosmetic' plastic surgeries that are still pretty well-established for young patients that I wouldn't put into this category, like cleft lip repair.

But for a really outside-the-box example that isn't controversial because everyone accepts it, the current standard of care for all non-Becker's birthmarks over 20 cm, and for most other 'hairy' non-Becker's birthmarks over 2 cm, includes surgical removal or laser 'surgery' (basically high-power light therapy). This had a historic cause, since there's a small subclass of that may have an elevated chance of cancer, and historically for any birthmark in this class it was practical to remove, a meaningful biopsy was almost as invasive as the full surgery to remove it and nearby tissue.

We could now evaluate these in higher levels of fidelity without having to cut out large portions of tissue, so we could reduce the number of total surgeries being performed on minors. But the birthmarks do genuinely look pretty ugly, and they're very common targets for stigma and self-image problems, and surgery performed at younger ages tends to have better recovery and less obvious scarring than surgeries on older people (or, in the case of haemangiomas, can have less visually obvious scarring than what occurs as the haemangiomas naturally shrink and fade with age).

There seems a somewhat similar class of matters for some dental surgeries, where the results are aesthetically pleasing and have some ease-of-care benefits, but have complicated tradeoffs for health directly. I know less about that field, though.