WUNRN
Special
Commentary - REINFIBULATION
Rebecca J. Cook
University of Toronto - Faculty of Law
Bernard Dickens
University of Toronto - Faculty of Law
International Journal of Gynecology
and Obstetrics, Vol. 109, pp. 97-99, 2010
Abstract:
Policy on reinfibulation exposes the
interface between individual or micro-ethics and population-wide or
macro-ethics. If, following childbirth, an infibulated woman requests
reinfibulation, a gynecologist may respectfully advise her of its negative
implications, but would not act in breach of ethical or usually legal
requirements in undertaking the procedure. However, as a matter of health
policy and professional responsibility, physicians should refuse to initiate
infibulation, and advise their patients and communities that the procedure is
harmful, not required by religious or other ordinance, and frequently if not
always unlawful. Reinfibulation is not genital cutting (or “mutilation”) in itself,
but when undertaken by a physician may appear to condone infibulation. This is
contrary to medical professional ethics, which condemn medicalization of
infibulation and generally of reinfibulation, even as a harm-reduction strategy
to spare women the risks of injury and infection from unskilled interventions.
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