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'Wait until later,' say pediatricians

Mastodon - Tue, 2012-07-17 23:34

Article here. Excerpt:

'Children have to be old enough to give their consent to a religious circumcision, says leading pediatrician Maximilian Stehr. But the law does not need to be changed.
...
'Would you see the issue of the inability of the child to give its consent as a bigger issue than that of the child's physical integrity?

I don't think you can separate the two. Physical integrity is certainly the highest value. That goes without question. There are certainly medical conditions and situations in which people want to decide for themselves that they would like to change something about their body. That is standard procedure in cosmetic surgery - it's the same in pediatric surgery, for example, when we correct protruding ears. For that, the child has to be able to judge for itself the seriousness of the operation, as well as its risks and side-effects, and that is only possible when the child is 14 or 16 years old.'