Many Americans have not yet grasped the incompatibility between post-enlightenment notions of individual human rights, including those enshrined in the United States Constitution, and non-therapeutic, non-consensual genital surgery (including circumcision) upon minors. Such people, when they speak up and proclaim their anti-genital-choice position, deserve a patient, factual, kind, and educational response; However, that limited level of discourse must at times give way to hashing out a real way forward on America's peculiar institution of child genital mutilation.
So from this point forward, if you aren't already pro-genital-choice, this diary probably isn't for you;
You might want to give it a miss.
The goal is lofty: Guaranteeing every American the right to choose intact genitals.
The path is unclear: Let's hash out how we get from here to there.
I envision the following three potential paths forward:
Path 1: Legislate mgmbill (full text), as-is
Path 2: Legislate mgmbill, with amendment
Path 3: Legislate civil liability reform
Path 1
What's good about mgmbill is that it is an actual, already drafted and ready-to-go bill, simple in conception in that it accomplishes genital choice by extending the 1996 anti-FGM law to include males.
What's fairly criticized is its inflexibility in handling less common but important cases like a minor who wants a sex-change procedure, or who affirmatively and competently chooses a ritual circumcision. Another practical difficulty with the bill; It instantly makes a common practice into a crime.
Path 2
Amendments that might widen support for mgmbill include an exception enabling a minor to affirmatively and competently choose genital alteration surgery. Such an amendment would make allowance for the fact that the interest of an 18 year old to make such decisions autonomously is not discontinuously distinct from the interest of a minor who has not yet attained 18 years of age. Autonomy over one's own body is too important to be subjected to the same level of strict, arbitrary cutoff as, for example, as the age at which one can purchase alcohol. Such an amendment could be modeled after the protections afforded to female minors seeking an abortion. In all cases, the minor would need to clearly and verifiably give consent, thus protecting that minor's right to choose intact genitals.
Path 3
This path takes a completely different approach; It does not involve amending the anti-FGM law, or any criminal law whatsoever. I proposed this general approach in an earlier diary entitled Marginalizing Circumcision in America: My Proposal.
Representing one group of people for whom genital integrity and choice are a high priority is Intersex Initiative. Director Emi Koyama takes issue with the approach of mgmbill, and instead prefers civil liability reform:
Another potential legislative approach to restricting intersex genital surgeries is to statutorily limit parents' authority to consent in the cases involving cosmetic genital surgeries. While parents generally have the right and responsibility to make medical decisions on behalf of their minor children, clearly they do not have the carte blanche to do as they please on their children's bodily integrity.
A possible legislation would restrict parents' authority to consent to cosmetic genital surgeries on their children; such surgery can only be performed if a judge determines it to be in the best interest of the child. This legislation ensures that surgeries will only be performed to maximize the child's quality of life, and not that of the parents.
As such, this path seems likely to attract support from individuals with intersex conditions, estimated at 150,000 Americans, and the wider community which advocates for the rights of such persons to genital choice.
Building Consensus
Lofty goals alone will not give all Americans the choice of intact genitals. Credit goes to mgmbill.org for getting a pro-genital-choice bill onto the desks of legislators. To continue moving forward, the coalition of genital integrity supporters must be widened, our views on the path to protecting genital choice synthesized, and additional legislative choices made available for our congressional representatives to support.
Genital Choice For All Americans Act Version 0.10
Rather than initiate this discussion only to have it subsequently fall into obscurity as an old diary, inspired by Energize America, I hereby initiate Genital Choice For All Americans Act Version 0.10, to be collaboratively amended and perfected as a community, and to be ready for submission to Congress upon reaching Version 1.00. Its initial form is an amended and pared down mgmbill, adapted to achieve genital choice through reform of civil liability law instead of criminal law.
Amendments will be accepted in the form of a comment entitled "AMENDMENT PROPOSAL" containing a brief and precise amendment. This diary will be periodically updated with links to the best and most widely supported comments representing amendment proposals, consistent with guaranteeing genital choice to all Americans. Links to the top comments representing the best constructive criticism or unresolved issues will also be maintained. The initial version of the bill will not be modified; However, the next incremental version of the bill, Version 0.11, will incorporate community generated amendments and be published in either this or a future diary.
Genital Choice For All Americans Act Version 0.10
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled:
SECTION 1. TITLE
This Act may be cited as the "Genital Choice For All Americans Act Version 0.10".
SECTION 2. PROVISIONS
(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), whoever knowingly circumcises, excises, cuts, or mutilates the whole or any part of the labia majora, labia minora, clitoris, vulva, breasts, nipples, foreskin, glans, testicles, penis, ambiguous genitalia, hermaphroditic genitalia, or genital organs of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years or on any nonconsenting adult; whoever prematurely and forcibly retracts the penile or clitoral prepuce of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years or on any nonconsenting adult, except to the extent that the prepuce has already separated from the glans; whoever knowingly assists with or facilitates any of these acts; or whoever arranges, plans, aids, abets, counsels, facilitates, or procures a genital mutilation operation on another person outside the United States who has not attained the age of 18 years or on any nonconsenting adult outside the United States shall be subject to unlimited liability to all claims made by the person on whom it is performed of harm resulting from the operation, complications of the operation, failure to obtain proper informed consent for the operation, deprivation of genital choice rights implied by this Act, or any other damage attributable to the operation.
(b) A surgical operation is not a violation of this section if the operation is (1) performed on a person who has not attained the age of 18 years and is necessary to the physical health of the person on whom it is performed because of a clear, compelling, and immediate medical need with no less-destructive alternative treatment available, and is performed by a person licensed in the place of its performance as a medical practitioner; (2) performed on an adult who is physically unable to give consent and there is a clear, compelling, and immediate medical need with no less-destructive alternative treatment available, and is performed by a person licensed in the place of its performance as a medical practitioner; (3) performed on a person in labor or who has just given birth and is performed for medical purposes connected with that labor or birth because of a clear, compelling, and immediate medical need with no less-destructive alternative treatment available, and is performed by a person licensed in the place it is performed as a medical practitioner, midwife, or person in training to become such a practitioner or midwife; or (4) performed on a person who has not attained the age of 18 years and who has been found by a judge (i) to have expressly consented to the operation, (ii) to have been informed regarding the operation to that person's maximum capability, and (iii) to have that person's best interests served by the operation.
(c) In applying subsection (b), no account shall be taken of the effect on the person on whom the operation is to be performed of any belief on the part of any other person that the operation is required as a matter of custom or ritual.
SECTION 3. EFFECTIVE DATES
All section of this Act shall take effect 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act.
If you are interested in the most salient differences between mgmbill and "Genital Choice For All Americans Act Version 0.10", they are presented here in the format expected for an "AMENDMENT PROPOSAL":
AMENDMENT PROPOSAL
In SECTION 2. (b) add "; or (4) performed on a person who has not attained the age of 18 years and who has been found by a judge (i) to have expressly consented to the operation, (ii) to have been informed regarding the operation to that person's maximum capability, and (iii) to have that person's best interests served by the operation."
AMENDMENT PROPOSAL
In SECTION 2. (a) replace
"shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 14 years, or both" with
"shall be subject to unlimited liability to all claims made by the person on whom it is performed of harm resulting from the operation, complications of the operation, failure to obtain proper informed consent for the operation, deprivation of genital choice rights implied by this Act, or any other damage attributable to the operation."
AMENDMENT PROPOSAL
In SECTION 2. (c) replace
"any belief on the part of that or any other person" with
"any belief on the part of any other person"
AMENDMENT PROPOSAL
Remove SECTION 4., and replace
"SECTION 3. INFORMATION AND EDUCATION REGARDING GENITAL MUTILATION" with
"SECTION 3. EFFECTIVE DATES
All section of this Act shall take effect 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act."
Amendments Under Consideration:
None
Constructive Criticism or Unresolved Issues:
johnny rotten: Should the bill be prepared for submission federal only, or states too?
Misha Case Update
Finally, a brief update on the Oregon boy whose forced and unwanted circumcision is legally prohibited pending appeal to the Oregon Supreme Court. Previously reported as 12, he is now known to be 11 years old. Since the publication of this diary, Doctors Opposing Circumcision has updated their front page with information about the case, in which they announce "Doctors Opposing Circumcision intends to intervene in this case by filing an amicus curiae brief with the Supreme Court of Oregon." They also have published this dedicated page. Media coverage of this case has yet to materialize, to my knowledge. Contact your local media organizations and ask them to cover this latest in a series of cases which test the oft-made presumption that minors possess no genital integrity rights.
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Intended Tags: genital choice,circumcision,intersex,mgmbill,grassroots legislation