ARC is proud to announce that our Legal Advisor, Peter Adler, has had his article, “The Draft CDC Circumcision Recommendations: Medical, Ethical, Legal, and Procedural Concerns,” accepted for publication in the Spring 2016 issue of The International Journal for Children’s Rights.

Peter’s article analyzes the draft recommendations regarding male circumcision that were issued in December 2014 by the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control. The article shows that the draft CDC recommendations are not medically correct, ethically sound, legally permissible, or procedurally valid. As stated in the abstract to Peter’s paper: “Accordingly, [the CDC guidelines] should not be implemented and would be legally invalid if they are. They provide erroneous and misleading advice to physicians that exposes them to the threat of lawsuits by men and parents. The CDC must revise its draft guidelines to comport with the prevailing view that circumcision is on balance deleterious to health; that men have the right to make the “circumcision decision” for themselves; that physicians are not permitted to circumcise healthy boys; and that Medicaid cannot be used to pay for unnecessary surgery.

Congratulations to Peter on a job well done.

UPDATE (July 2016)

The International Journal of Children’s Rights has published a response to Peter Adler’s article condemning the CDC recommendations on male circumcision. Surprisingly, the IJCR violated accepted ethical standards for journals by publishing the response in the same issue as Peter’s article, which is actually longer than Peter’s article, and without informing him the reply was coming and without giving him an opportunity to respond to it. The response is titled, “Critical Evaluation of Adler’s Challenge to the CDC’s Male Circumcision Recommendations,” and is authored by Beth E. Rivin, Douglas S. Diekema, Anna C. Mastroianni, John N. Krieger, Jeffrey D. Klaussner, and Brian J. Morris. Morris is, of course, the Australian author notorious for self-citation and for bullying journals and authors with whom he disagrees. Diekema is the ethicist associated with the American Academy of Pediatrics who was an unofficial second opponent of Steven’s at the 2013 pediatric ethics debate in Charleston, South Carolina. The resulting paper, titled “Circumcision is Unethical and Unlawful” (written by Steven, Peter, and Bob Van Howe), was published in July 2016 by the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics and can be downloaded from the above link or below.

Steven Svoboda
Attorneys for the Rights of the Child

Peter W. Adler “The CDC’s Draft Circumcision Guidelines: Medically, Ethically, Legally, and Procedurally Untenable,”

Critical Evaluation of Adler’s Challenge to the CDC’s Male Circumcision Recommendations

Circumcision is Unethical and Unlawful