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ireadinbed's review against another edition
4.0
This book was a challenging read for me. Not because it was difficult to parse or uninteresting, but because it literally challenged my mindset, and in many ways the information and insight I gained has changed my perspective on unusual anatomies and where and how they belong in human rights discussions.
Before I would have been much quicker to say how fundamentally unbearable conjoinedness sounds to me. But the first hand accounts concerning conjoined person's made me seriously think about how different it would be if that person had always been there. The familiarity breeds it's own culture and brings the relativity of individuality into stark relief.
That said. . .I was so infuriated by the blatant glossing over of what is to me the most analogous condition to conjoinedness: pregnancy. Specifically late term pregnancy and particularly on the topic of scrifice surgeries.
The entire chapter on sacrifice surgery left an ugly taste in my mouth because yes there are people who have grown to love people they are physically attached to and still sacrifice their remaining life for the chance to continue living. Those people are expecting parents.
The opinion expressed in the book is that you can't narrowly restrict the circumstances under which you can sacrifice a human being for another to physical parasitism without creating a special class only populated by the conjoined.
I would counter that it would also be populated by the pregnant, and that the situation is needfully more complicated than it has been presented in this book because any precedent concerning the elimination of necessarily joined bodies to save lives is going to affect the perceived autonomy of pregnant person's everywhere.
I'm not sure I can get into it more without quoting and I'm still having a lot of feelings so I will just say this, I liked this book. It's important. It will make you see parts of the world you ignore. . . but it is for sure not perfect.
Before I would have been much quicker to say how fundamentally unbearable conjoinedness sounds to me. But the first hand accounts concerning conjoined person's made me seriously think about how different it would be if that person had always been there. The familiarity breeds it's own culture and brings the relativity of individuality into stark relief.
That said. . .I was so infuriated by the blatant glossing over of what is to me the most analogous condition to conjoinedness: pregnancy. Specifically late term pregnancy and particularly on the topic of scrifice surgeries.
The entire chapter on sacrifice surgery left an ugly taste in my mouth because yes there are people who have grown to love people they are physically attached to and still sacrifice their remaining life for the chance to continue living. Those people are expecting parents.
The opinion expressed in the book is that you can't narrowly restrict the circumstances under which you can sacrifice a human being for another to physical parasitism without creating a special class only populated by the conjoined.
I would counter that it would also be populated by the pregnant, and that the situation is needfully more complicated than it has been presented in this book because any precedent concerning the elimination of necessarily joined bodies to save lives is going to affect the perceived autonomy of pregnant person's everywhere.
I'm not sure I can get into it more without quoting and I'm still having a lot of feelings so I will just say this, I liked this book. It's important. It will make you see parts of the world you ignore. . . but it is for sure not perfect.
beergeekgirl's review against another edition
4.0
Fascinating.
Dreger provides a really interesting perspective on unusual anatomies and whether they really need to be "fixed," since the bodies aren't broken, just different.
The book is a little clinical at times. I would have liked some more personal stories from the families about whom she writes, especially the Schapell twins. But it definitely makes you think and challenges traditional narratives.
I'd kind of like to see an updated version of the book (since it's now 10 years old and things have changed for the Shapells).
This was one of John Green's 18 books that you haven't read but you should, or something like that. And it sounded intriguing, so I ordered it through ILL. Glad I did.
Dreger provides a really interesting perspective on unusual anatomies and whether they really need to be "fixed," since the bodies aren't broken, just different.
The book is a little clinical at times. I would have liked some more personal stories from the families about whom she writes, especially the Schapell twins. But it definitely makes you think and challenges traditional narratives.
I'd kind of like to see an updated version of the book (since it's now 10 years old and things have changed for the Shapells).
This was one of John Green's 18 books that you haven't read but you should, or something like that. And it sounded intriguing, so I ordered it through ILL. Glad I did.
flaviaaalouise's review against another edition
3.0
I've been interested in this book for well over 5 years and though it is interesting and features a lot of information about intersex individuals as well as conjoined twins I ultimatively felt like it was just too surface-level. It is also quite outdated in its understanding of gender.
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