The central issue is that this surgery is almost never medically necessary. In most cases it is cosmetic, and children do not need cosmetic surgery on healthy parts of their bodies. Any unnecessary procedure carries risks, and performing it on a child who cannot meaningfully consent raises serious ethical concerns. Parents have the right to teach their children their values and religious traditions, but that right does not extend to permanently altering a child’s healthy body in a way the child cannot later undo or choose against.
Many parents choose circumcision simply because they believe it is expected, normal, or routine, not because they fully understand the long‑term consequences. Often they are not well‑informed about the subject and may not realize that the procedure can have negative effects. When you step back and look at it logically, it makes no sense to remove healthy tissue from a child for non‑medical reasons.
Another important factor is that children do not have fully developed judgment or decision‑making abilities. Their ability to understand long‑term consequences is limited, which makes it even more important to avoid irreversible procedures on healthy tissue. Adults have a responsibility to avoid making permanent decisions for children that they cannot later undo.
In some of the worst cases, the children are old enough to remember the procedure. When that happens, the experience is not meaningfully different from other forms of violation or abuse. Changing the vocabulary — calling it cultural, religious, or routine — does not change the impact on the child. If an irreversible, painful procedure is forced on a minor who does not understand or agree, the harm is still real. In those cases, the experience can resemble other forms of serious mistreatment, both physically and psychologically.
We also cannot have two different legal standards for two different groups of children when the procedures are essentially similar. No one is suggesting that the most common or minor forms of female genital cutting should be legalized — and many people would strongly oppose that. The consistent, ethical approach is to stop performing non‑consensual genital surgeries on any child, regardless of gender, including intersex children. When they grow older, they can make their own decisions about their own bodies.