Cutting through red tape: non-therapeutic circumcision and unethical guidelines

Paper published in Clinical Ethics, 2009;4:181-186.  doi:10.1258/ce.2009.009029. David Shaw, Faculty of Medicine and Centre for Applied Ethics & Legal Philosophy, University of Glasgow, writes that the current General Medical Council (GMC) guidelines are flawed in stating that any doctor who does not wish to carry out a non-therapeutic circumcision (NTC) on a boy must invoke conscientious objection. The author argues that the GMC guildelines are illogical, as it is clear that an ethical doctor will object to conducting a clinically unnecessary operation on a child who cannot consent simply because of the parents religious beliefs. A copy of the paper is available here.