Emphasizing children's rights over their own bodies should play a key role in protecting them against genital cutting and modification, a new study says. The research says children 's interest in bodily integrity has priority over their parents' community or religious associations. It should also take priority in cases where community or religious interests come into conflict with the child's welfare.
Until the child has developed sufficient autonomy to be able to give ethically valid consent to procedures, their bodily integrity should be prioritized medically, legally, and politically. The study is published in the journal Clinical Ethics . The study, by Dr.
Kate Goldie Townsend, from the University of Exeter, outlines how genital cutting and modification practices (CGC/M) shouldn't be done to children for any reason apart from medical need. The study was produced to emphasize how the protection of bodily integrity, and its centrality to children's welfare, should be used to inform the arguments of those who take a zero-tolerance approach to CGC/M practices, and inform responses to those who claim that CGC/M is in the child's interest as a prospective member of a cultural or religious group. Dr.
Goldie Townsend said, "I want to defend children's rights to bodily integrity against all other arguments. Children are individuals, and they are owed rights as individuals to have their bodily integrity respected. This right should be used as a defense against child genital cutting.
