title: Circumcision of male infants as a human rights violation.
abstract: Every infant has a right to bodily integrity. Removing healthy tissue from an infant is only permissible if there is an immediate medical indication. In the case of infant male circumcision there is no evidence of an immediate need to perform the procedure. As a German court recently held, any benefit to circumcision can be obtained by delaying the procedure until the male is old enough to give his own fully informed consent. With the option of delaying circumcision providing all of the purported benefits, circumcising an infant is an unnecessary violation of his bodily integrity as well as an ethically invalid form of medical violence. Parental proxy 'consent' for newborn circumcision is invalid. Male circumcision also violates four core human rights documents-the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention Against Torture. Social norm theory predicts that once the circumcision rate falls below a critical value, the social norms that currently distort our perception of the practice will dissolve and rates will quickly fall.
authors.affiliation: Attorneys for the Rights of the Child, 2961 Ashby Avenue, Berkeley, California 94707, USA. arc@post.harvard.edu
authors.forename: J Steven
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Svoboda
mesh_terms: D002944:Circumcision, Male / Q000941:ethics* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D018594:Human Body; D006806:Human Rights / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D045809:Human Rights Abuses; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D038622:Internationality; D008297:Male; D033282:Parental Consent / Q000941:ethics; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D012068:Religion and Medicine; D012742:Sex Offenses; D014104:Torture / Q000941:ethics / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D014481:United States; D019564:Unnecessary Procedures / Q000941:ethics / Q000639:trends
keywords: Children; Circumcision; Confidentiality/Privacy; Informed Consent; Newborns and Minors