A “Right” to Large Breasts

This is the insanity to which government medicine inevitably leads: a British transsexual is suing for the “right” to breast enlargement surgery:

The legally aided gender dysphoria sufferer, who has been living as a woman for over 10 years, says breast augmentation is essential to her female identity and emotional well-being and the refusal to give her the op amounts to sex discrimination.
Her unique test case against the West Berkire Primary Care Trust (PCT), in which the the Equality and Human Rights Commission will also be playing a part, is now set for hearing at the High Court on October 20.

Any government medicine system suffers from a fatal contradiction: health care is a “right,” but a right that must be rationed. Thus, the sort of craziness we are seeing here is inevitable:

[The PCT’s barrister] told Judge Nicola Davies QC: “Public bodies who have to make rationing decisions, like PCTs, face enormous difficulties. Wherever you draw the line, there will be those who are disappointed. It would make the job of PCTs virtually impossible if their decisions were constantly attacked.”

The transsexual plaintiff’s theory is that she is being discriminated against by being treated the same as a “natal female:”

Her barrister, Stephanie Harrison, said it amounted to sex discrimination that she had been treated in exactly the same way as a “natal female”, not suffering from gender dysphoria, applying for cosmetic breast enlargment on the NHS.
Arguing that C would “derive psychological benefit” from breast enhancement, Miss Harrison said the PCT’s refusal “leaves a treatable condition and untreated” and exposed her to “significant suffering”.
Breast augmentation would be “an appropriate and cost-effective treatment” that would enable C to achieve “a congruent physical, psychological and social identity”.
But the PCT’s policy that breast augmentation will only be funded in “exceptional” cases is so tight as to amount almost to a blanket ban, the barrister added.

Once you adopt the view that medical care is a “right” which the government must vindicate with taxpayer funds, there is no end to the insanity that will result.

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