My once beautiful daughter is now nineteen years old, homeless, bearded, in extreme poverty, sterilized, not receiving mental health services, extremely mentally ill, and planning a radial forearm phalloplasty (a surgical procedure that removes part of her arm to construct a fake penis).
The level of heartbreak and rage I am experiencing, as a mother, is indescribable. Why does Oregon law allow children to make life-altering medical decisions? As a society, we are rightly outraged about “female circumcision.” Why are doctors, who took an oath to first do no harm, allowed to sterilize and surgically mutilate mentally ill, delusional children?