Congratulations you have a boy, oh wait!.....

another excellent article from the NY Times this past weekend:

What if It’s (Sort of) a Boy and (Sort of) a Girl?
By ELIZABETH WEIL

I have a doctor friend who once was called in an emergency to do a test on a newborn baby due to "ambiguous genitalia". This condition is not common but is well known in a small group of medical specialties. If you want to see what this looks like and read more about the medical background go to this picture and this article. This friend of mine, who at the time was not in the specialties, had little familiarity with this condition and was therefore quite surprised getting called in the middle of the night to rush in to do a test for such a thing. He was told that they needed to know the sex of the baby right away or otherwise it would create a lot of psychological stress and anxiety on the baby (while growing up). He posed a question, somewhat inappropriately but understandably, if this was a stress on the parents or the baby? (a dismissive and irresponsible response would have been: why dont you just name the kid "Pat" and went back to sleep!)

This is an interesting condition that raises a lot of questions about human sexuality requiring discussions in medical, ethical, religious and social aspects. For decades, doctors have performed gender (re)assignment surgery by hacking off infants' and young children's' small penises and large clitorises, and created all kinds of "reconstructive" surgery like vaginoplasty (making a vagina out of a piece of bowel.) Needless to say these procedures are not perfect and the patients become adults with severe sexual dysfunction and self image issues. I tend to side with the Intersex Society opinion of opposing surgery without the patients consent. But this also raises a question about circumcision and other procedures done during childhood, as discussed in the NY Times article. (cleft lip repair is easy--I think it should be done--by a good surgeon, of course.) Sadly many unfortunate parents (and doctors too) are left with little information on how to deal with these issues. So kudos to Cheryl Chase who pioneered the Intersex Society.

Showdown at the United Nations

This week the UN assembly so far has shown us the points of view of several of world's leaders. Regardless of one's opinion in the international conflicts, a few of the remarks are surprisingly off the wall, including the Venezuela Pres. calling Pres. Bush "the devil", and the Iranian president questioning the truth of the WW2 holocaust. US representative to the UN sort of ignored these comments totally. All I see is the lack of trust and reflection of the smaller and poorer countries, feeling alienated and oppressed, in turn react by behaving against the "conventional" rules set by the majority of the world. This obviously pisses of the US even more and they enter a vicious cycle of ego bashing on both sides. The response from the Bush administration seems somewhat dismissive and arrogant to me, and I think this is a very dangerous way to deal with these "rogue" groups. History repeats itself and this situation is reminiscent of how Germany and Japan were treated before the WW2. What the western world calls "the axis of evil" does have their own arguments and reasons, and these should get the attention. (it seems like the Iranian president is trying to express his, whether the ideas are right or not.)

The more I think about this, the more depressed I get.