Intersexuality and the ‘Right to Bodily Integrity’

Abstract

In 2013, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe passed a resolution on ‘children’s right to bodily integrity’. In the resolution, concerns were expressed for about practices carried out on children without their formal consent. Among these practices, female genital cutting (FGC), non-medical circumcision and ‘normalizing’ surgeries for intersex children were listed among these practices. As a result of the adoption of the resolution elicited, strong reactions, ensued especially from Jewish and Muslim communities, which widely practices male circumcision. Simultaneously, however, intersex activists welcomed the resolution, as it gave legitimacy to their long-standing call to establish a common framework for the evaluation of all invasive medical and surgical practices on children carried out without their informed consent ( Preves, 2005 ). This article uses an examination of the resolution to reflect on both the emerging concept of the ‘right to bodily integrity’ and on current developments in the field of intersex human rights in Europe. Firstly, the article considers the political process leading to the adoption of the resolution, in order to understand and appraise the limitations of the choice to use the framework of the right to bodily integrity to jointly address jointly issues of FGC, circumcision and intersex ‘normalizing surgeries’ jointly, without fully engaging with the cultural, religious and social factors underpinning each of these phenomena. Following this discussion, the article will further analyses the specific case of intersex rights, particularly in relation to the difficult balance between a medical and the juridical approach to intersexuality. This reflection will ultimately be useful to assess the role of the resolution in helping to subtract intersexuality from the sole gaze of medical practitioners at the advantage of a human rights approach which may best protect the interests of intersex children and adults.