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Medical interventions for children born with variations in their sex characteristics: what’s the rights approach?

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Abstract

There have been growing calls within Australia and beyond to defer medical interventions for children born with variations in their sex characteristics. These calls are increasingly grounded in the claim that such interventions when performed on infants and young children are a violation of their human rights. This paper examines the basis for this claim. It also examines the differences between the principles-based approach to medical ethics which has tended to dominant decisions regarding the treatment of children born with variations in their sex characteristics, relative to the adoption of a rights-based approach. It identifies the points of complementarity between these two discourses but suggests that a rights-based approach offers some unique and differing insights into several issues concerning children born with variations in their sex characteristics.

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Hannah Holland and Michael Frommer for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. All errors remain my own.

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  1. Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

    John Tobin

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Tobin, J. Medical interventions for children born with variations in their sex characteristics: what’s the rights approach?. Monash Bioeth. Rev. 39 (Suppl 1), 67–81 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40592-021-00137-1

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