What is it about?
This paper compares and contrasts male and female genital alteration (circumcision or "genital mutilation") in terms of their health benefits and harms, effects on sexuality, and symbolic meanings. It advances an autonomy-based ethical framework for evaluating these controversial practices.
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Why is it important?
This is the most comprehensive, up-to-date discussion of male and female genital altering surgeries that discusses the two practices under one ethical framework. It challenges the perspective that the two types of procedure should be analyzed separately.
Perspectives
This publication is the result of more than a year of sustained research into the subject while based at the University of Cambridge in England. It draws on medical science, philosophy, anthropology, bioethics, and other fields to build a comprehensive, interdisciplinary argument.
Brian D. Earp
University of Oxford
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Female genital mutilation and male circumcision: toward an autonomy-based ethical framework, Medicolegal and Bioethics, October 2015, Dove Medical Press,
DOI: 10.2147/mb.s63709.
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