"A
common error made by those who want to justify infant male circumcision
on the basis of medical benefits is that they believe that as long as
some such benefits are present, circumcision
can be justified as therapeutic, in the sense of preventive health
care. This is not correct. A medical-benefits or "therapeutic"
justification requires that overall the medical benefits should outweigh
the risks and harms of the procedure required to obtain them, that this
procedure is the only reasonable way to obtain these benefits, and that
these benefits are necessary to the well-being of the child. None of
these conditions is fulfilled for routine infant male circumcision. If
we view a child's foreskin as having a valid function, we are no more
justified in amputating it than any other part of the child's body
unless the operation is medically required treatment and the least
harmful way to provide that treatment."
~Margaret A. Somerville
MARGARET
SOMERVILLE is the founding director of the Centre for Medicine, Ethics
and Law at McGill University, where she holds the Samuel Gale Chair in
the Faculty of Law and is a professor in the Faculty of Medicine. As a
consultant to numerous government and non-governmental bodies, she has
worked with the World Health Organization, the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights and UNESCO. She Has received a number of
honorary doctorates in law and is the recipient of many awards,
including the Order of Australia. She lives in Montreal.
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