Scientists must engage with the ethical implications of their work: a commentary on Cepeda-Emiliani et al.

Child genital cutting and surgery across cultures, sex, and gender. Part 2: assessing consent and medical necessity in “endosex” modifications

“…In the latter two cases-intersex "normalization" surgeries and non-therapeutic penile circumcision-the justification for proceeding even without the consent of the affected individual is often given in terms of potential "health benefits" (whether physical or mental) which might be expected to accrue to the child as a result of the surgery, that is, speculatively (or on a statistical basis) over the long run. Such a justification rests on the assumption that these potential future health benefits will in some way "outweigh" the harms of the procedure, whether intrinsic (e.g., pain, damage to or loss of sensitive, prima facie valuable genital tissue [84][85][86]), or accidental (e.g., possible surgical complications, negative psychosexual sequalae) [87][88][89][90]. Whether this is a reasonable assumption, at least for penile circumcision, is debated by several authors in this issue [91][92][93][94][95], while an analogous debate on the potential benefits and harms of intersex surgeries can be found in Part 1.…”