Ending Forced Genital Cutting of Children and Violation of Their Human Rights Ethical....pdf (original) (raw)
Neonatal male circumcision has no medical indication, is non-therapeutic, and violates the child's right to bodily integrity. No national or international medical association anywhere in the world recommends routine neonatal male circumcision. Female circumcision has been outlawed in a several Australian jurisdictions. Failure to provide equal protection under the law for male minors is discriminatory. Parents cannot give legal consent for a non-therapeutic surgical intervention performed on an unconsenting minor. All forms of genital cutting imposed on children (including unnecessary sex-reduction circumcision surgery, as well as sex-assignment/reassignment surgery) may have serious life-long adverse physical, sexual and psychological consequences. Genital cutting imposed on normal, healthy children causes grievous bodily harm (genital mutilation), and in the absence of medical necessity, amounts to criminal sexual assault
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BMC pediatrics, 2013
Background: Recent attempts in the USA and Europe to ban the circumcision of male children have been unsuccessful. Of current concern is a report by the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute (TLRI) recommending that non-therapeutic circumcision be prohibited, with parents and doctors risking criminal sanctions except where the parents have strong religious and ethnic ties to circumcision. The acceptance of this recommendation would create a precedent for legislation elsewhere in the world, thereby posing a threat to pediatric practice, parental responsibilities and freedoms, and public health.
Medically unnecessary genital cutting and the rights of the child: moving toward consensus
American Journal of Bioethics, 2019
We seek to clarify and assess the underlying moral reasons for opposing all medically unnecessary genital cutting of female minors, no matter how severe. We find that within a Western medicolegal framework, these reasons are compelling. However, they do not only apply to female minors, but rather to non-consenting persons of any age irrespective of sex or gender. Keeping our focus exclusively on a Western context for the purposes of this article, we argue as follows: Under most conditions, cutting any person’s genitals without their informed consent is a serious violation of their right to bodily integrity. As such, it is morally impermissible unless the person is non-autonomous (incapable of consent) and the cutting is medically necessary.
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