Cutting to the Core: Exploring the Ethics of Contested Surgeries

When the benefits of surgery do not outweigh the harms or where they do not clearly do so, surgical interventions become morally contested. Cutting to the Core examines a number of such surgeries, including infant male circumcision and cutting the genitals of female children, the separation of conjoined twins, surgical sex assignment of intersex children and the surgical reassignment of transsexuals, limb and face transplantation, cosmetic surgery, and placebo surgery.

Stephen Coleman is Priest-in-Charge of the Grosvenor Chapel, Mayfair, and Assistant Director of the Centre for Law and Religion, The School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University, UK.