31-year-old Theresia Fischer, who starred on Germany’s “Celebrity Big Brother,” has paid $160,000 for two painful surgeries that added five and a half inches to each leg. Now she is six feet tall in her stocking feet, six-four in those platforms.
The doctors inserted adjustable telescopic rods into her tibiae. I believe that this is a violation of medical ethics, as she had no actual malady that required medical intervention, and the procedure involved risk, as all medical procedures do. However, cosmetic surgeons tend to be live on the bottom of the ethics barrel.
In her publicity campaign celebrating being turned into a freak, she extols what the operation has done for her sex life, but also complains that she has been the target of “hate” on the web, where she is well-followed on TikTok and Instagram. “Why am I subject to so much hate?” she lamented to the New York Post.
Oh, I’m just spitballing here, but I’d guess that it’s because almost anyone can think of ways to spend $160,000 that would do some good in the world rather than to indulge oneself with extreme, unnecessary and grotesque physical alterations.
No question about it: it’s “Stretch’s” money and she has every right to spend it as she pleases. There is no ethical obligation to spend your own money wisely as long as there are no genuine debts or obligations that such waste prevents you from fulfilling. However, such conduct is not admirable or something that society should encourage. Flamboyant exercises in narcissism and vanity provoke resentment and disgust, and those who travel that road should be ready and willing to accept the rejection of their values.
Ethics Alarms 
I think the only time this type of surgery would be ethically justifiable is if it’s being done so someone could impersonate someone else who’d been genetically modified to be a superior human in order to show society that non-genetically modified people are just as good as genetically modified people.
Wouldn’t call Gattica a good movie but it was an interesting one.
Agreed.
I somewhat sympathize with her when it was initially reported that she was bullied for having disproportionate legs. Having disproportionately long hip bones could have legitimate mobility issues that would make intervention at least not inappropriate. The social benefits of having proportionately-sized hip bones would also be not-insignificant. However, after seeing the image, it seemed like the solution could have reasonably been to shorten her hips, rather than lengthen her calves. Her thighs and calves now match, but her legs are freakishly long.
Looking it up just now, apparently, she had a prior surgery to lengthen her hip bones 6 years ago. So, the “bullying” and any other mobility issues she experienced for having disproportionate legs was self-inflicted.
Freak show bizarre. And here I thought freak shows were a thing of the past. I guess the arc of history doesn’t go … anywhere in particular.
Wait. Why didn’t she save herself a ton of money and grief and simply identify as a 6″ tall woman? I mean, if race and gender are fluid, why not height?
jvb
Great point! Today I am identifying as Andre the Giant.
Anybody want a peanut?
(Andre’s dead.)
Alive? Dead? If race and gender (and height and weight) are fluid, why not life or death? I identify as a 3000 Egyptian pharaoh, or Andres the Giant.
jvb
Touche.
I thought about that important detail a minute or two after I responded.
If I could identify as a time traveler, I would go back and change what I typed.