Unclear how it made sense to provide such a potential life changing treatment to someone that was likely more than halfway through their adult life. Is this common to perform such potential profound treatment when there's a very real chance of it having a negative impact?
I _really_ don't understand your point of view, on so many levels.
Let's start at the beginning then. This is an experimental treatment. There was almost zero knowledge of the impact, at the time it was done, since it was experimental (and probably still is?). I very much so doubt they could have been able to predict the outcome with any certainty.
Second, why would age have any play in whether or not a treatment of this type is attempted? I think you should really explain yourself a bit more.
Medicine is not the Wild West, in my opinion, the best most common example would be that most "medical" grade medicines require the approval of a doctor. To me, the idea that someone that's already well adjusted should literally be allowed to put there life at risk potentially is the very definition of malpractice. Lastly, age was not the factor, but the percentage of the fellows life already lived as "well" adjusted. To me, what's evil is the desire to make everyone the same for the sake of being the same.
> To me, what's evil is the desire to make everyone the same for the sake of being the same.
No such desire here. In fact, I'd not be opposed to a treatment that made people autistic, or, for a (perhaps) more attractive proposition, synesthetic.
As long as there is informed choice by an adult.
You can want neurodiversity, and think it is a good thing. Maybe it is. But imposing it on others, for me, is not defensible.
Now, setting diversity aside for a moment...
> Medicine is not the Wild West...
No. In general, we only allow people treatment when we think they have a disease(1).
This idea has merits: for example, it seems "obviously better" to treat the hypocondriacs hypocondria than to allow them to take unnecessary surgery.
But it also has problems: the definition of disease becomes a matter of consensus (i.e.: a political matter, even if the politics just happens amongst doctors - or worse, philosophers or politicians) and individuals are disallowed choosing what and who they want to be, by themselves.
Perhaps the best way to go is to have a "waiting period", to force you to consider and seek alternative treatment before undergoing procedures that are dangerous. I dont know, and I fear this is one of those "really no good answer" questions.
(1) This might be a circular definition, "disease" being a thing we can treat for
