With October designated as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, now is the time for the increasing number of women wanting breast implants to demand complete information from their doctors about the potential risks for diseases including breast cancer, the interference with breastfeeding as well as the decrease in the effectiveness of mammograms, urges Professor Julie M. Spanbauer of The John Marshall Law School.
“There is important information about the health risks women face (when they elect to have breast augmentation surgery) that physicians have downplayed or not always told their patients,” Professor Spanbauer says. “Women should know what they’re getting into –not just when they have the procedure, but for the rest of their lives.”
Professor Spanbauer has compiled extensive medical and legal research on the topic and hopes to raise questions about what women should ask of their doctors and the information doctors should provide their patients, especially when women are seeking breast implants for reconstructive purposes after a mastectomy.
Professor Spanbauer’s research into the legal and ethical issues surrounding the trend of doctors and manufacturers to downplay the complications associated with breast implants has been published in the article “Breast Implants as Beauty Ritual: Woman’s Sceptre and Prison” in the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism.
