Intersex Human Rights Australia

Although OII Australia does not favour the use of “condition” in connection with intersex; this article encapsulates the problems of intersex ‘normalization’ and especially the chemical ‘normalization’ of unborn children.

I fear that the campaign to hold the main propagator of the dexamethasone treatment accountable would, if not accompanied by sustained challenges to more fundamental problems with this treatment, also result in creating a more “ethical” means of continuing the treatment – that is, a means that complies better with the established procedures and codes of ethics – rather than stopping it.

I am starting to question seriously what role bioethics and bioethicists play in medical controversies involving children who cannot make decisions for themselves, and parents, especially mothers, who are forced to make the decision under complicated social, cultural and economic circumstances – growth attenuation is promoted as a solution to parents’ hardship of taking care of their child without adequate public assistance. Does a medical treatment become “unethical” because it violates an established policy or law, or because it accommodates and abets social prejudices against those deemed “abnormal.” rather than addressing a legitimate medical problem?

I feel that bioethics is moving away from the disability rights movement, women’s health movement, and other movements seeking social justice in medicine, and instead is offering consulting services and grand rounds speakers to smooth things over so that the same problematic treatments can continue to be performed “more ethically.” “We don’t tell doctors what to do,” I heard one bioethicist explain at a symposium on growth attenuation therapy. “We simply advise how it should be done.” …

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