Health and medical ethics (page 12 of 18)

For an introduction to these issues, see our page on bodily integrity

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Alice Dreger: Do you have to pee standing up to be a real man?

Alice Dreger, professor of clinical medical humanities and bioethics at the Northwestern University, USA, writes on hypospadias in Pacific Standard, The Science of Society: the simple idea that a real man has to pee standing up “has put a surprising number of babies under the knife”. Hypospadias is likely more common than widely understood: In…
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We welcome the VEOHRC Guidelines for General Practitioners

We welcome the publication of guidelines for general practitioners by the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission. With our input, it includes a good statement about what constitutes discrimination by family doctors towards intersex people. The statement reads: Intersex people are a distinct group from transgender people and may experience different forms of discrimination….
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Morgan speaking at the Geelong Pathways to healthcare event

Healthcare pathways for intersex people

Morgan Carpenter and Tony Briffa (OII Australia) and Bonnie Hart (AISSGA) spoke on intersex healthcare in Geelong in October. The event also discussed healthcare pathways for transgender and gender diverse youth. Morgan gave a presentation: Tony and Bonnie participated in a panel discussion with Dr Nate Reid and Tracy Whitmore:

Participants at the Third International Intersex Forum in Malta

Malta Declaration

Between 29 November and 1 December 2013, the Third International Intersex Forum, supported by ILGA and ILGA-Europe, took place in Valletta, Malta. The event brought together 34 activists representing 30 intersex organisations from all continents, and produced a common declaration.

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Gay News Network: We must put an end to normalising surgery

Gay News Network has kindly published an opinion piece by OII Australia president Morgan Carpenter: While it may not be foremost in the minds of many gay men, the clitoris is the only part of any human body that’s purely designed for pleasure. But is too much of a good thing a bad thing? Research…
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Open birth sex assignments do not reduce surgical interventions

Blank or indeterminate classifications on infant’s birth certificates do not, alone, reduce the likelihood of surgical interventions. This might seem like a non sequitur, but it turns out to be fundamentally important because many people do argue that moves in Germany to establish similarly open sex assignment polices for some intersex infants at birth will…
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Intersex Awareness Day, 2013

Here are this year’s Intersex Awareness Day words, by Morgan Carpenter, OII Australia president.