ARC Resources

Articles Authored By Or About ARC

• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2005
• 2002
• 2001
• 2000

2010

“Tortured Doctrines, Tortured Bodies: How Legal Fictions Help Justify and Perpetuate Male Circumcision and Other Inhumane Practices”

By J. Steven Svoboda
Abstract for Presentation at the Eleventh NOCIRC Symposium, Berkeley, California, July 28-31, 2010

Although the doctrine of informed consent functions reasonably well within its area of applicability, it dissolves into an incoherent legal fiction when applied by proxy to incompetent persons such as newborns and mentally incapacitated adults. Both leading approaches to permitting an oxymoronic “proxy consent”—substituted judgment and best interests—cloak a usurpation of agency that allows ostensibly hallowed principles of autonomy and self-determination to be violated with impunity. Because a court can never truly know what an idiot or a newborn wants, Kantian ethics and human rights are violated. History abounds with examples of tortured doctrines applied to justify human atrocities such as male circumcision, Japanese internment, adult sterilization, organ transplants from incompetents, slavery, and inhumane experiments. Such legal fictions conceal our violations from ourselves and others under the pretenses of legal authorization and compliance with human rights, masking our failure to properly safeguard human dignity and autonomy.

2009

J. Steven Svoboda and Robert Darby
“A Rose By Any Other Name?
Symmetry and Asymmetry in Male and Female Genital Cutting”
A revised and substantially expanded version of the 2007 article (see below) originally published as "A Rose by any other Name: Rethinkng the Similarities and Differences between Male and Female Genital Cutting." from Fearful Symmetries: Essays and Testimonies Around Excision and Circumcision, edited by Chantal Zabus (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2009).
(pdf).

J. Steven Svoboda
A Treatise from the Trenches: Why Are Circumcision Lawsuits So Hard to Win? (book)
from Circumcision and Human Rights by George C. Denniston, Frederick Mansfield Hodges and Marilyn Fayre Milos, editors, 2009.
www.springerlink.com/content/h074372577760135/ (pdf of book).

Jerry K. Brayton
“My Circumcision Story
As Told to J. Steven Svoboda”
from Fearful Symmetries: Essays and Testimonies Around Excision and Circumcision, edited by Chantal Zabus (Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2009).
(pdf).

2008

Robert S. Van Howe, M.D. and J. Steven Svoboda
“Neonatal Pain Relief and the Helsinki Declaration”
An article addressing—for the first time, we believe—the ethical requirements imposed by the Helsinki Convention on medical studies addressing the efficacy of anesthetic for neonatal circumcision.
The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, December 2008, Volume 36, Issue 4, pp. 803-823.
(pdf).

Robert S. Van Howe, M.D. and J. Steven Svoboda
“Neonatal circumcision is neither medically necessary nor ethically permissible: A response to Clark et al.”
Published in Medical Science Monitor, May 21, 2008.
(pdf).

2007

Robert Darby and J. Steven Svoboda
“A Rose by Any Other Name:
Rethinking the Similarities and Differences between Male and Female Genital Cutting ”
Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Vol. 21, Issue 3, pp. 301–323, September 2007.
(pdf)

2005

Robert S. Van Howe, J. Steven Svoboda and Frederick M. Hodges
“HIV infection and circumcision: cutting through the hyperbole”
The Journal Of The Royal Society For The Promotion Of Health, Volume 125, Number 6, pp. 259-265, November 2005.
www.cirp.org/library/disease/HIV/vanhowe2005a/

2002

Douglas A. Canning
“Informed Consent For Neonatal Circumcision: An Ethical And Legal Conundrum”
The Journal of Urology, the official publication of the previously somewhat foreskin-hostile American Urological Association, praised the consent article by Svoboda, Van Howe, and Dwyer, predicting that the article “will be used to support the argument of those who would favor outlawing routine circumcision.”
Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy, Fall 2000.
Journal Of Urology, Volume 168, pp. 1650-1651, October 2002.
www.cirp.org/library/legal/canning1/

ARC's work was featured in a profile in the Fall 2002 issue of the Harvard Law Bulletin. The article was entitled, "The Unkindest Cut" and was complimentary of intactivism.

J. Steven Svoboda
Article “The Unkindest Cut” complimentary of intactivism.
Harvard Law Bulletin, Cambridge, Fall 2002.
www.cirp.org/news/harvardlawbulletin-fall-02/

Gregory J. Boyle, Ronald Goldman, J. Steven Svoboda and Ephrem Fernandez
“Male Circumcision: Pain, Trauma and Psychosexual Sequaelae”
Journal of Health Psychology, Volume 7, Issue 3, May 2002.
www.cirp.org/library/psych/boyle6/

J. Steven Svoboda
“Circumcision: A Violent Ritual in Search of a Rationale”
The Men's Center, themenscenter.com/mensight/Articles/Svoboda/circritual.htm, published April 2002.
Birthing, Winter 2001, pp. 36-37.
Birthlove
www.birthlove.com/pages/health/circ.html, published July 2001.
Satya, March 2001; Online Birth Center News, Issue 25.4, June 19, 2001.

Frederick M. Hodges, J Steven Svoboda and Robert S Van Howe
“Prophylactic interventions on children: balancing human rights with public health”
Journal Of Medical Ethics (U.K.), Volume 28 Number 1, pp. 10-16, February 2002.
www.cirp.org/library/ethics/hodges3/

2001

J. Steven Svoboda
“The Limits of the Law: Comparative Analysis of Legal and Extralegal Methods to Control Child Body Mutilation Practices”
in Understanding Circumcision: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to a Multi-Dimensional Problem, George C. Denniston, Marilyn F. Milos, and Frederick M. Hodges, eds., Plenum/Kluwer, 2001, pp. 297-365.
The Limits of the Law

2000

J. Steven Svoboda, Robert S. Van Howe and James G. Dwyer
“Informed Consent for Neonatal Circumcision: An Ethical and Legal Conundrum”
The Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy, Volume 17, Fall 2000.
cirp.org/library/legal/conundrum/

Gregory J. Boyle, J. Steven Svoboda ARC Board Member Christopher Price and J. Neville Turner.
"Circumcision of Healthy Boys: Criminal Assault?"
Journal of Law & Medicine, February 2000.
www.cirp.org/library/legal/boyle1/

J. Steven Svoboda, Gregory J. Boyle and Christopher P. Price
"Circumcision of Boys: A Serious Male Health Problem"
Journal of Law & Medicine, February 2000.
Everyman Article 2000.doc

1999

Robert S Van Howe, J. Steven Svoboda, J. G. Dwyer And C.P. Price
“Involuntary circumcision: the legal issues”
British Journal of Urology International, Volume 83 Supplement 1, pp. 63-73, January 1, 1999.
www.cirp.org/library/legal/vanhowe5/