Informed Consent for Neonatal Circumcision: An Ethical and Legal Conundrum
![handle is hein.journals/jchlp17 and id is 133 raw text is: INFORMED CONSENT FOR NEONATAL
CIRCUMCISION: AN ETHICAL AND LEGAL
CONUNDRUM
J. Steven Svoboda
Robert S. Van Howe
James G. Dwyer*
INTRODUCTION
Neonatal circumcision is the surgery most commonly performed on
children, yet reliable information regarding the surgery is not usually
made available to parents when they are asked to consent to the
procedure for their newborn sons. Often, parents are simply presented
with a paper to sign permitting the physician to perform the surgery,
without any discussion of the health risks or alternatives. Many medical
professionals, medical ethicists and legal scholars now dispute the
advisability, and even permissibility, of circumcising newborn boys.1
Margaret Somerville, a prominent Canadian medical ethicist, recently
went so far as to assert that neonatal circumcision constitutes assault
under the Canadian criminal code.2 Numerous legal scholars have
* J. Steven Svoboda, J.D., Executive Director, Attorneys for the Rights of the
Child, Berkeley, California. Robert S. Van Howe, M.D., F.A.A.P., Department of
Pediatrics Marshfield Clinic - Lakeland Center, Minocqua, Wisconsin. James G.
Dwyer, J.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor, William & Mary School of Law.
1. See generally R.S. Van Howe, Consent for Circumcision, 156 CAN. MED.
ASS'N J. 17 (1997); Jeremy Klein, Circumcision and Consent, 27 FAM. PRAC. NEWS
13 (1997); M.A. Somerville and D.M. Alwin, Lidocaine-Prilocaine Cream for Pain
during Circumcision, 337 NEw ENG. J. MED. 568 (1997); D. Keleti, Lidocaine-
Prilocaine Cream for Pain during Circumcision, 337 NEw ENG. J. MED. 568 (1997);
S. L. Bond, State Laws Criminalizing Female Circumcision: A Violation of the
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, 32 J. MARSHALL L. REV.
353 (1999); J. Smith, Male Circumcision and the Rights of the Child, in Netherlands
Institute of Human Rights (SIM), in SIM SPECIAL No. 21 To BAEHR IN OUR
MINDS. ESSAYS ON HUMAN RIGHTS FROM THE HEART OF THE NETHERLANDS 475-
97 (1999) at http://www.law.uu.nl/english/sim/specials/simsp21.asp (last visited
Nov. 12, 2000).
2. See S. Kirkey, Circumcising Baby Boys 'Criminal Assault': Ethicist Says
Society Must Consider Ban, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN, Oct. 17, 1997 at 1; see also
Crim. Code, R.S.C., ch. C-46, §§ 45, 265(1)(a) (2000) (Can.) [hereinafter Criminal
Code of Canada].](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jchlp17&div=10&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Informed Consent for Neonatal Circumcision: An Ethical and Legal Conundrum
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