20,860
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
→Comment by Shea Lita Bond: Correct date.
==Comment by Shea Lita Bond==
Shea Lita Bond reviewed the issues presented in the 2025 Hadachek in her comment in The ''John Marshall Law Review''in 1999. She concluded as follows:
<blockquote>
Both male and female circumcision are medically unnecessary procedures that can cause children to experience physical and psychological harm. State legislatures enacted FGM statutes to protect female minors from circumcision complications, but never extended the same protection to male children. This ''Comment'' does not suggest that female circumcision is less important than male circumcision or that it is not a serious human rights problem. However, here in the United States male minors face circumcision at a wider scale, yet they are not legally protected from this painful, medically unnecessary procedure. Laws criminalizing female circumcision are a step in the right direction toward protecting child welfare. However, all children are at risk of being circumcised and yet currently only half are protected under state laws.
State FGM laws violate the constitutional guarantee that similarly situated males and females be treated equally before the law. Notwithstanding a state governments good intentions, and its legal prerogative to protect young girls from an injurious procedure, the state must extend the same legal protections to boys at risk for a similar procedure. Striking down unconstitutional FGM statutes and replacing them with gender neutral, generally applicatable laws will protect all children from harm and further the state's legitimate interest in protecting child welfare without discriminating on the basis of gender.<ref name="bond2001bond1999">{{REFjournal
|last=Bond
|init=SL
|title=Female Circumcision Laws and the Equal Protection Clause
|journal=The John Marshall Law Review
|date=20011999-12
|volume=32
|issue=