If a person voluntarily gets himself surgically lobotomized (whether by a doctor or in a “back-alley”) and then wants to take cortex replacement therapy, then would his insurance cover this?
Any thoughts on this?
Also, Yes, this is a completely serious question.
And what would my personality be like, after the change? Would I no longer recognize friends or family? Would my personality undergo odd changes, be subject to random fits of shouting at the imaginary roaches on my walls, and spinning in circles? Would I forget how to do simple arithmetic? Leave my possessions strewn all over creation? Would the insurance also cover a guide dog, to keep me from wandering randomly into traffic?
“Cortex replacement therapy”? That’s a thing? Last I heard nerve loss in the CNS was basically irreversible.
As to insurance coverage, I suspect it’s possible. Doesn’t insurance cover the medical care needed to recover from other self-inflicted traumas, like a suicide attempt?
You said “lobotomy”, as in 1950s, as in “ice pick thrust past the inner canthus of the eye into the front of the brain and wiggled around to sever the nerves”. The doctor who made them famous, Dr. Walter Freeman, is said to have once done two simultaneously, one with his left hand and one with the right hand, to show off how easy it was.
By most reports, you would
• not care very intensely about anything, ever again; you would cease to have much emotional reponse of any sort to anything, although it might be possible for something to annoy or amuse you briefly
• you can kiss a few points’ worth of your IQ goodbye; anticipate an outcome somewhere between low normal (like 85 or 90) and tree stump level, assuming you don’t simply die (there’s not a lot of finesse involved in the process, in case you weren’t too clear on that point)
• memory was not generally listed among the things most centrally damaged by the process; admittedly one should not draw too many conclusions based on the absence of something being mentioned, but if I recall correctly people knew their names and could recognize family members; the above article mentions some people having to relearn things like how to go to the bathroom but I’m not sure memory was the issue there.
Psychosurgery is not entirely dead, although it is not in good repute; modern versions do not fly under the namebrand banner of “lobotomy” and instead may be found listed under terms like “cingulotomy” and “leukotomy”. It’s still intentional destruction of medically healthy brain tissue, any way you, umm, slice it.
Hey, if it means you’re no longer financially responsible for anything stupid you might hypothetically have done with your brain, it’s TOTES WORTH IT!!
TriPolar - literally any of the dozens of threads Futurist110 has started. Pick one at random. They’re all the same.
Will you be financially responsible for the ideas you create? What if you give someone an idea and they die? What if someone turns your idea inside-out and uses it?
Edit: Sorry. I’m an idiot. I just got it. Good one
Edit 2: For anyone who, like me, was a little slow on the uptake on this one, the OP is a parody of some of the…shall we say speculative hypotheticals proposed by this poster.
On a serious note, several weeks ago, I saw an interview on C-SPAN2’s “About Books” with the author of the new Rosemary Kennedy biography. Someone in the Q&A asked if lobotomies are still being performed in the United States today, and she said they are.
The procedure is only done when all other known therapies have proven useless, it involves several layers of medical ethics, and (this is probably the biggest obstacle) none of the entities involved are allowed to receive any payment for it. :eek: A neurosurgeon she spoke to while doing research for the book said he had done it twice in recent years; she divulged no further details.
