Law must put age before beauty

Wang Jiajuan, a deputy of the National People's Congress, the nation's top legislature, recently proposed to amend the Law on the Protection of Minors so as to prohibit cosmetic surgery on minors. Beijing Youth Daily comments:

Wang's worry is not unwarranted. For the past few years, double eyelids, nose jobs and chin shaping plastic surgery have become increasingly popular among young people.

For example, Xinhua News Agency reported that the majority of the 32 students of a high school class in Chengdu, Southwest China's Sichuan province, had operations on their eyelids.

Besides, according to a report released by a plastic surgery website last year, those born in the 1990s are the absolute majority of the about 20 million people who have plastic surgery in China, while those born in the 2000s show an even stronger tendency than them.

The pursuit of beauty is understandable and it is not a problem for people to improve their appearance by surgical means. However, the emotional and mental state of minors is far from being mature and they do not have the true sense of aesthetics and values. Should the cosmetic surgery fail, or they be disappointed with the outcome, it is bound to leave a psychological shadow on their lives. It is also common sense that plastic surgery does carry risks, and people have died during operations.

Some plastic surgery facilities also tend to exaggerate the benefits of the operations, which have caused quite a number of conflicts between consumers and the institutions. And it is even more difficult for minors to find the loopholes in contracts and defend their rights when problems happen.

However, by far, there is no law clearly forbidding plastic surgery on minors. Actually, there are regulations and legal clauses prohibiting cigarette sellers or internet café runners to provide services to minors, which have proved quite effective. It is time to consider Wang's advice and ban cosmetic surgery on minors.