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17 J. Contemp. Health L. & Pol'y 61 (2000-2001)
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].