Brian D. Earp

Brian David Earp is an American bioethicist, philosopher, and interdisciplinary researcher. He is probably best known for his writings on bodily autonomy and integrity, the involuntary non-therapeutic (medically unnecessary) genital cutting of children and drug use in the United States. sex and gender and the replication crisis in psychology. He has also worked on relational moral psychology, human enhancement, philosophy of love and children’s rights. and in the United States as Love Drugs: The Chemical Future of Relationships).

He is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal for Medical Ethics (JME) alongside Professor Lucy Frith (University of Manchester) and Associate Professor Arianne Shahvisi (Brighton and Sussex Medical School) and Editor-in-Chief of the inaugural open access companion journal to the JME, JME Practical Bioethics.

Personal life Earp grew up in a conservative evangelical Christian household. His mother was a stay-at-home mother; his father was an X-ray technician. He has argued that certain forms of medications can be ethically consumed as a "helpful complement" in relationships. Both to fall in love, and, to fall out of it. For this work, Earp was nominated for the 2020 John Maddox Prize, and received commendation from the judges, for “taking a multi-disciplined, science-based approach to a deep-rooted cultural practice”. Some advocates of the permissibility of medicalized newborn penile circumcision who recognize the physical and symbolic overlaps between this custom and what they see as “minor” female genital cutting (e.g., ritual cutting of the labia or clitoral hood) increasingly argue that the latter should be permitted in Western societies even for nonconsenting girls (i.e., for the sake of parity) overlaps between this custom and what they see as “minor” female genital cutting (e.g., ritual cutting of the labia or clitoral hood) increasingly argue that the latter should be permitted in Western societies even for nonconsenting girls (i.e., for the sake of parity) (Arora and Jacobs 2016; Cohen-Almagor 2020; Porat 2021; Shweder 2022b; for analysis, see Van Howe 2011). Nonvoluntary intersex surgeries have also in some cases been justified by appeals to the presumed acceptability of nonvoluntary penile circumcision (Fox and Thomson 2005; Meoded Danon 2018; see also Earp, Abdulcadir, and Shahvisi 2024). With other child genital cutting experts, he asks that clinicians stop involuntary clitoral reduction surgeries on children with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH), as well as the non-therapeutic genital cutting of endosex male minors and intersex children.

He is one of the authors of both statements made by the Brussels Collaboration on Bodily Integrity.