Margaret A. Somerville
Canadian medical ethicist Dr. Margaret A. Somerville, (born 13 April 1942 in Adelaide, Australia), Founding Director of the McGill's Faculty of Law Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law[1], has likened infant male circumcision to criminal assault.
She wrote to Pierre Blais in 1993, then Minister for Justice and Attorney-General, to propose that "male circumcision would not be totally banned. Rather circumcision of those persons unable to consent for themselves (which would, of course, include all infants) would not be allowed under the Criminal Code as it presently stands." However, no action was taken.[2]
At the Fifth International Symposium in 1998, she gave a lecture on the subject "Respect in the Context of Infant Male Circumcisiion: Can Ethics and Law Provide Insights?".
After 40 years of service at McGill, Margaret Somerville returned to Australia in 2016, where she joined the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Notre Dame Australia, in Sydney, to help establish a major bioethics component in their new MD program.[3]
Publications
- Somerville, Margaret. Medical Interventions and the Criminal Law. McGill Law Journal. 1980; 26(82): 82-96. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
- Somerville, Margaret. Therapeutic and non-therapeutic medical procedures--what are the distinctions?. Health law in Canada. 31 December 1980; 2(4): 85-90. PMID. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
See also
External links
- Wikipedia article: Margaret Somerville. Retrieved 5 October 2020.
References
- ↑ McGill
Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law
. Retrieved 10 May 2020. - ↑ Somerville, Margaret (28 January 1993).
Letter to Pierre Blais, Minister of Justice
. Retrieved 4 November 2019. - ↑
Retirement of our colleagues Paul Dempsey and Margaret Somerville
, McGill. Retrieved 10 May 2020.