What is the Catholic stance on this type of surgery?

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Hi, everyone! I have been a “lurker” on this forum for several years now and I find the variety of topics and discussions to be fascinating. However, there is one subject I am curious about that I don’t believe has been discussed.

Scenario: A Catholic couple has an infant who was born a hermaphrodite (possessing both male and female genitalia).

Question: Does anyone know the official Catholic stance on whether this infant should ever be surgically corrected to become “all male” or “all female”? Or would the Church say that this child should be left as he is and just live a celibate life for Christ?

-- Patience (nospam@idelete.it), January 20, 2005

Answers

I don't know of any specific teaching, but I see no reason why the Church would object to surgical correction of a physical defect. The Church is never opposed to legitimate medical care which does not involve an intrinsically immoral act or immoral purpose.

-- Paul M. (PaulCyp@cox.net), January 21, 2005.

True hermaphroditism does not occur in humans. Pseudo-hermaphroditism (where the sex of a baby is not obvious from simple observation) occurs but is very rare. It is caused either by defects in growth and development, or sometimes by hormonal drugs taken by the mother. In these cases a chromosome test is done. If the baby has a Y chromosome, it is a male. If not it is a female. You see a lot of stories in the media of people who have "changed their sex" with surgery and hormone treatments, but a true change of sex is not possible. The operations and drugs make no difference to the genetic component of every cell in the person's body, which is what determines a person's sex from the moment of conception.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), January 21, 2005.

One additional though to add to the mix. In decades past, when Pseudo-hermaphroditism occurred, doctors usually asked the parents which sex they wanted for the child and then performed the surgery to accommodate. This sadly did not recognize the true underlying, chromozonally (word?) pre-determined sex and did cause situations in which a child who was truly a female being surgically made a man and vice versa. As they were gorwing up and were raised as that sex, it would understandably create huge emotional and physical conflicts for the child, especially since most parents would never disclose what happened to "protect" the child. So these poor kids had are truly victims of a mistake and some have sought to correct that error by having themselves surgically restored to their true sex. It's probably extremely rare and I, personally, have no problem with that kind of surgery.

David

-- non-Catholic Christian (no@spam.com), January 21, 2005.


i saw a special once about hermaphrodites and was saddened that some of the choices the parents made were obviously false. so like david said, the child grew up confused. some of them lead homosexual lives because the wrong gender is chosen. i just wonder if it is possible to lay off the surgery for awhile, maybe right before puberty, or must the surgery be done while the person is still a baby?

-- rina (hellorina@aol.com), January 21, 2005.

Today, as Steve mentioned, doctors can check the chromozones to see whether its a boy or girl, so they can make the decision without fear of being wrong.

David

-- non-Catholic Christian (no@spam.com), January 21, 2005.



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