| p136: | The question of consent to the procedure raises issues of peculiar difficulty. The reasoning of the Court in the Belgian case illustrates the contradiction: if the justification for the procedure is the restoration of the patient's psychiatric balance it seems difficult to conclude at the same time that the patient is well-balanced. Bearing in mind that major elective surgery bringing about irreversible consequences including sterility is involved, the need to ensure that a genuine and informed consent has been given cannot be overstressed. Although the transsexual may well be psychologically healthy, the fact that the specific disorder, which is the occasion for the procedure, causes an obsessive desire that the procedure be undertaken must create very real difficulties in arriving at a conclusion that the giving of consent to the procedure was the result of a genuine and informed decision on the part of the patient. |