I ran across a fine article today written by Rio Cruz that I want to share with you.
It appears be 9 years old, but sadly it's every bit as applicable today:
Genital Mutilation American Style: How a father discovered, too late, that circumcision is not a good thing.
Read on for all the human-rightsy goodness that's fair to use...
Most Americans, when presented with the information that approximately 97% of the world's infant male population is not circumcised, are rather astounded. "But I thought everybody was circumcised. I thought it was a medically necessary thing to do," said a friend when I brought up the issue a few weeks ago.
The infant intactness rate is much higher than the adult intactness rate mainly because Muslims and many African cultures circumcise later in life, and because the infant circumcision rate has fallen dramatically in the industrialized world, even in the United Stated, the last such nation in which this practice is still common.
Roughly one million baby boys a year in this country are rudely welcomed into the world by the amputation, without anesthesia, of an integral, sexually important part of their anatomy. By definition, the removal of a normal, healthy, functional body part is mutilation. Pure and simple. These one million babies represent around 60% of all male infants born in this country, a figure that is down from a high reached in the 1970's and 1980's of around 90%. And what is truly astounding is that, while we become incensed over the female genital mutilations going on in Africa and other third-world countries far, far away, we ignore the routine mutilations perpetrated here against our own sons.
Thankfully, since the writing of this article, some temporary comfort in the form of at least some anesthesia is now so graciously provided to most American boys enduring circumcision.
The sexism of this perspective is stunning. In fact, in 1996 the U.S. Congress, eager to appease feminist groups and appear to be the Great White Protectors of American Girlhood, passed a law against female circumcision or any other form of genital modification of girls below the age of consent. This was pure political theater, baby kissing, butt patting. As a society, we simply do not cut the genitals of baby girls in this country... only the genitals of baby boys. Passing a law against female genital mutilation (FGM) was a slam dunk for the politicians. They could look big and strong and macho and foursquare in favor of protecting babies... as long as the babies were girls, that is.
How right Rio was! Since passage, the anti-FGM law has been used to prosecute, count 'em, one case of FGM. The law is to be commended from protecting girls, but it fails to extend equal protection to boys.
I never saw anything wrong with it either until I witnessed my own son being circumcised.
This is extremely common, and it is the reason I write publicly on this issue. It's easy to assume that whatever happened to you before you can remember couldn't have been that bad.
I'm not even going to quote the description of the procedure that comes next. I'll save my fair-use quota for the more intellectual, less gruesome parts.
I will just include this, for those of you who believe that an infant can "sleep" while he undergoes surgery without anesthesia (which still happens, despite anesthesia being much more common):
My son stopped screaming. His eyes were glazed and rolled back. He appeared to be sleeping, but he was really in a state of complete and total shock.
How convenient it is, if trying to rationalize it, to imagine one can "sleep" through such a thing,
Not many years ago it was perfectly accepted for dog owners to amputate the tail and cut the ears of their pets for cosmetic reasons. It was the owners' choice to make. Social consensus now holds this to be inhumane treatment of animals and few veterinarians will accede to such requests. The idea that anyone would even consider circumcising their pet for any reason at all is abhorrent.
We do to our children worse than what's fit for a dog. Dogs should be treated humanely. So should humans.
The idea that parents have the right to request amputation of normal, erogenous tissue is central to the debate surrounding this issue and highlights the ethical void enveloping the medical establishment. Leading medical ethicist and professor at the McGill Center of Medicine, Ethics and Law, Dr. Margaret Somerville, has stated publicly that circumcision, as performed in our country, is nothing short of "criminal assault."
Medical Ethicists? Who cares what they have to say?
Doctors Opposing Circumcision (DOC) was founded in 1996 and now counts physicians from all over the world among its ranks. "Many doctors recognize that no one has the right to forcibly remove sexual body parts from another individual," says Dr. George Denniston, President. "They recognize that doctors should have no role in this painful, unnecessary procedure inflicted on the newborn. Routine circumcisions have been found to violate not only the Golden Rule, but the first tenet of medical practice, 'First, Do No Harm'. Amazingly, circumcision violates all seven principles of the A.M.A. Code of Ethics, and yet doctors continue to do it!"
DOC is the organization which today is graciously helping the 12 year old Oregon boy nicknamed "Misha" take his fight to the Oregon Supreme Court. Misha needs his own legal defense against his father, who wants him circumcised. Clayton C. Patrick, the lawyer who helped Misha's mother wage this legal battle for no money, is quoted as saying he spoke to the boy personally and that "he confirmed his desire not to be circumcised."
Read what the Katrina Moncure, Treasurer and DC Chapter President of the National Youth Rights Association wrote about this case last week:
There are a lot of pretty disgusting news stories out there proving more and more how little youth are regarded in society. This, however, has got to be one of the worst.
Back to Genital Mutilation American Style, the next section details the anatomical structures removed in a circumcision. Anyone who thinks it's "just a little snip" is uninformed.
The article next describes how historically, a main purpose of circumcision has been to weaken sexual capacity. That it is effective at doing so is one of the most difficult aspects for adult circumcised men to confront, and the medical studies proving it are only beginning to appear.
The "weakening" of sexuality was precisely the reason circumcision was introduced into medical practice in the United States as a "prophylactic" during the 19th century. Until that time, the practice was virtually nonexistent. Here in good ol' God-fearing, Puritanical America, masturbation was not only considered sinful, but was deemed a major health peril as well.
Of course, it didn't stop masturbation, because sexual pleasure is so basic a human function that people will use whatever genitalia they've got left in its pursuit.
These self-promoting defenders of public health and morality claimed that circumcision also cured a vast litany of masturbation-related ills and proselytized for its mass acceptance as an "immunizing inoculation." They claimed it cured everything from alcoholism to asthma, curvature of the spine, enuresis, epilepsy, elephantiasis, gout, headache, hernia, hydrocephalus, insanity, kidney disease, rectal prolapse and rheumatism. In the face of rationality and modern research, contemporary circumcisionists have abandoned most of these claims but have now updated their list to include cancer, urinary tract infections, sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, and premature ejaculation.
What will be the next boogey-man? Let's hope this practice is finally put to rest before there is a next one.
Such persistence in the face of overwhelming evidence against routine circumcision should alert us to the fact that irrational, more emotional and compulsive forces may also be at work.
Nobody expects ancient cultural practices to be rational, but rational is precisely what licensed medical practitioners in the United States should be.
It should be obvious to any caring, feeling person that amputating normal, healthy, sexually sensitive tissue for no valid medical reason whatsoever, especially when such a mutilative procedure is harmful both short term and long, performed against the child's screaming protests and with no informed consent, can only be regarded as an act of supreme cowardice, devoid of moral or ethical support.
It should be, but cultural blindness, pressure to not discuss such things, and lack of information are powerful forces.
The circumcision epidemic is a national scandal in this country and a crime against infant boys. Simply put, infant circumcision is child abuse. It is gratuitous genital mutilation and should be banned along with thumb screws, hot pincers and boiling in oil as nothing short of perverse.
Our position advocating for the abolition of FGM in cultures in which it's a time-honored practice is severely weakened by our failure to confront our own entrenched practices. Cultures which practice FGM often view it just like we view male circumcision.
Journal of General Internal Medicine:
First, until recently in the societies in which it is practiced, circumcision has been regarded as a necessary condition of life. The concept of female (and male) circumcision, as with many traditions, can be invisible until people are forced to examine it. This may explain why nearly half of the Nigerians in one study gave as their reason for the practice, "It is the custom of our people."16 A 36-year-old Ethiopian woman explained, "I had the foreskin on my clitoris removed as a baby, just like my brother . . . Why does everyone say it is so terrible and that I should have problems from it?" Circumcised female genitalia are considered normal to some Africans, just as circumcised male genitalia are normal to many Americans.
The Journal of General Internal Medicine is published by the Society of General Internal Medicine, to whom you should send your TRs for raising the issue of FGM alongside male circumcision. Send a few to Hanny Lightfoot-Klein of The Female Genital Cutting Education and Networking Project, too, while you're at it.
Attorney J. Steven Svoboda, a former Human Rights Fellow at Harvard Law School and director of ARC, considers circumcision to be medical malpractice. "The medical profession, which has perpetuated this tragic disfigurement of baby boys' genitals, will now be challenged by an organization of legal professionals."
Directly questioning the ethics of medical professions who perform circumcision without medical indication is especially irksome to some people. The reality that proxy-consent may be invalid for non-therapeutic circumcisions must be a serious concern to those who practice it. As well it should be.
If physicians cannot find the ethical and moral center sufficient to end this barbaric habit, then let a stop be applied by the courts. At the very least, it should make for spectacular theater. However you look at it, the case against circumcision is building towards critical mass and it won't be long before the whole putrid business falls of its own dead weight.
Amen. Who owns that penis, anyway? The patient, or his family?
I want to thank stopcircumcision.blogspot.com, for keeping an eye on and calling for transparency in the peer-review process, and for linking back to my page here! |
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