Midwifes Reject Circumcision

http://www.cirp.org/news/nationalpost08-30-02a/
http://www.cirp.org/library/cultural/goodman1999/
http://www.cirp.org/library/ethics/

'When the Canadian Pediatric Society (CPS) reviewed the medical literature and came out against routine circumcision in 1996, I thought the matter was settled... Still, I believe a consensus against circumcision is steadily emerging. In this new era of patient rights, circumcision has come to seem like an anachronism. Among doctors, there is a greater emphasis on informed decision-making, the limits on parents' rights to make decisions about their kids' health and the rights of children to be protected from parents who make wrong decisions. Even some adult men who were unnecessarily circumcised as children are asserting their rights to restitution. And since the balance of medical evidence suggests those who oppose circumcision have the facts on their side, doctors are increasingly refusing to perform circumcisions. Complications from bleeding, amputation, renal failure, sepsis and death are powerful incentives to stop.

Indeed, the media coverage of the incident may speed circumcision for non-religious reasons into the dustbin of medical practice -- alongside many other once-popular procedures, such as the removal of the ovaries for hysteria, tonsillectomy for a sore throat, lobotomy for mental retardation, etc. In a few years, looking like dad or wanting to keep a boy 'clean' may no longer be legally legitimate rationales for circumcision. It's about time they weren't. But it is unethical to continue a practice that is no longer medically defensible and could harm our kids.'
- The growing consensus against circumcision by Jackie Smith, National Post, Toronto, 30 August 2002.
http://www.cirp.org/news/nationalpost08-30-02a/

'The Central Union for Child Welfare considers that circumcision of boys that violates the personal integrity of the boys is not acceptable unless it is done for medical reasons to treat an illness. The basis for the measures of a society must be an unconditional respect for the bodily integrity of an under-aged person.

Circumcision intervenes in the sexual integrity of a male child causing a permanent change in organisms and has consequences pertaining to both health and quality of life.

The circumcision of girls is rightly considered as inhuman mutilation of the genitals and is punished abuse. Also boys must be guaranteed a similar protection by law.

The Central Union for Child Welfare in Finland hopes that the working group in the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health will consider measures to bring about a cultural change that will secure the integrity of children and leads to the end of circumcision.'

- Central Union for Child Welfare in Finland, Helsinki 25.8.2003
Presented to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health (STM060:00/2003)
http://www.cirp.org/library/statements/finland2003/

Natural and Holistic Doctors, Alternative Medicine, and Parenting and Childbirth Educators Use Homeopathy

'Even the redoubtable Benjamin Spock changed his mind over the years. Having always stood for the conventional wisdom that parents know best, Spock told Redbook in an interview in 1989 that his preference 'if I had the good fortune to have another son, would be to leave his little penis alone.' In a pamphlet, 'Circumcision: A Medical or Human Rights Issue?' one doctor went so far as to suggest that removing the foreskin for strictly hygienic purposes was analogous to removing the eyelid for a cleaner eyeball.' - Prof. Michael S. Kimmel, TIKKUN, Volume 16, Number 3, May/June, 2001. Michael Kimmel is the author of Manhood in America and, most recently, The Gendered Society (Oxford University Press). He teaches sociology at SUNY Stony Brook.
http://www.cirp.org/pages/cultural/kimmel1/

*Harvard University Professor, Nobel Laureate in Physiology and Medicine, & Benjamin Spock (Dr. Spock) Oppose Circumcision*

'The prepuce has been demonstrated to have immunological functions and properties, which protect its owner from disease, and to be erogenous tissue with important functions in human sexual response.'
http://www.cirp.org/library/treatment/

Health Benifits of the Foreskin
'This directory contains academic articles and discussions about anatomy, dimensions, immunological functions, innervation, vascularity, sexual function... The articles are indexed in chronological order of publication.'
http://www.cirp.org/library/anatomy/

Immunological functions of the human prepuce
'A review of the scientific literature, however, reveals that the actual effect of circumcision is the destruction of the clinically-demonstated hygienic and immunological properties of the prepuce and intact penis....The higher rate of STDs in circumcised males might well be the result of the loss of preputial immunoprotective structures. The loss of the protective, self-lubricating, mobile, double-layered prepuce exposes the glans penis and meatus to direct friction, abrasion, and trauma. Eyes without eyelids would not be cleaner. Neither is a glans without its prepuce. The surgically externalized and unprotected glans and meatus of the circumcised penis are constantly exposed to abrasion and dirt, making the circumcised penis less hygienic. The circumcised penis is more prone to infection in the first years of life than the intact penis....These factors may explain why circumcised males are more likely than their genitally intact peers to engage in high risk sexual behaviours (such an anal intercourse and active and passive homosexual oral sex) that lead to HIV and other STD infections.'
http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/STD/fleiss3/
Immunological functions of the human prepuce, P M Fleiss, F M Hodges, R S Van Howe, STI (London), Volume 74, Number 5, Pages 364-367, October 1998

Circumcision as a Risk Factor for Urethritis in Racial Groups
GREGORY L. SMITH, MD, MPH, ROBERT GREENUP, AND ERNEST TAKAFUJI, MD, MPH
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, Volume 77 Number 4: Pages 452-454.
April 1987.
http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/STD/smith/

Other resources can be found at http://www.PEACEFULBEGINNINGS.cjb.net, http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org, http://www.DOCTORSOPPOSINGCIRCUMCISION.org, and http://www.Nurses.cirp.org.

For more Jewish and Israeli resources, see http://www.jewsagainstcircumcision.org, http://www.gonen.us, http://britmilah.org.il & http://www.kahal.org

Holistic treatment for phimosis, paraphimosis, and BXO (Balanitis Xerotica Obliterans), sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and other reproductive issues that avoid any procedure or surgery can be found with alternative medicine, natural healing, and homeopathy via websites such as http://www.abchomeopathy.com/go.php, http://www.abchomeopathy.com/forums.php, and http://www.Hpathy.com.

SUNDAY TIMES, London, Sunday, 4 November 2007.
http://www.cirp.org/news/sundaytimes2007-11-04/

Cutting comments: the foreskin debate
Some say it’s barbaric, others a matter of hygiene. But with babies dying from circumcision, should it continue? Our correspondent hears from the ‘intactivists’

Simon Mills

The actor Alan Cumming gets quite a reaction when he drops his trousers. Especially in America. Why? His penis is uncircumcised. He is genitally intact, a cavalier rather than a roundhead. His johnson wears an opera cape, as they say in US gay circles. This gives him something akin to freak status in the hygiene-obsessed States, where 70% of the mature male population have been circumcised.

Cumming, an endearingly puckish type, is really rather proud of his foreskin. “During interviews in America, I have made a point of talking about it,” he says. “I think it’s insane that an entire nation is ignorant about a part of their body they have lost. When I take my pants off in America, people gasp, which is kind of nice, until I realise that they’re actually staring at my penis as if it’s some kind of National Geographic photo come to life. Nobody has a foreskin there. They’re, like, ‘Wow! What do you do with that? How does it work?’ ”

Why is it that so many American men are circumcised? Well, it seems the Brits are responsible. Queen Victoria, who, along with much of the British aristocracy, believed that the English descended from one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, chose to have her sons circumcised. It became fashionable, and the procedure travelled to America. It was there that John Harvey Kellogg campaigned for circumcision as a cure for masturbation, which was, in his opinion, a cause of psychological problems. And ever since (in the 1950s, it is estimated, 90% of American boys were snipped), middle-class Americans have grown up believing that foreskins are filthy, wholly unnecessary fleshy adjuncts that harbour disease and make a sensitive teenage boy something of a fairground attraction in the communal-shower environment.

That’s why the uncut likes of Nick Nolte, Leonardo DiCaprio, Willem Dafoe, Emilio Estevez, Nicolas Cage and Keanu Reeves, all born during the barbaric period of the last millennium, are listed on pro-foreskin websites as if they were all some kind of heroic locker-room maverick.

Blame Cumming and the unlikely figure of Ben Affleck, if you like, but the circumcision debate has suddenly caught the attention of a new breed of quietly militant pro-choicers and so-called “intactivists” who are putting foreskins to the fore again and unleashing some appropriately cutting comments from the high-minded and famous.

Men with foreskins squirm and buttock-clench comedically when the subject is broached, while men who were cut as babies can’t see what all the fuss is about. Foreskins are said to heighten sexual pleasure but harbour disease.

Pressure groups such as Brothers United for Future Foreskins (Buff) and Uncircumcising Information and Resources Center (Uncirc), and even Jews Against Circumcision, fronted by Rabbi Moses Maimonides, do their best to break with tradition and prevent unnecessary cuts in the United States, while Cumming and the art critic Brian Sewell are both spokesmen for the British branch of the National Organization of Restoring Men (Norm, originally known as Recover a Penis, or Recap), founded in 1989 for men hoping to restore their foreskins. Foreskin restoration? It can be done. Sort of.

Medical techniques are not sufficiently advanced to give back the erogenous tissue and nerves amputated at circumcision, but careful stretching can create a more natural-looking penis, and softening the epithelium (or outer tissue) of the glans (or tip) can return the penis to a much higher level of sensitivity. The pro-choicers feel that they are on a roll right now. Non-medical circumcision for children is now illegal in Sweden. The numbers of circumcision procedures in the UK are slowly declining and, after peaking in the 1930s, when 35% of British boys were snipped, fell to a mere 6.5% in the 1980s. Today, only 12,200 circumcisions are performed in the UK annually. Most of them go ahead without a hitch. A few end in tragedy.

The inquest into the death of Amitai Moshe, who was just seven days old when he stopped breathing after being circumcised at a synagogue in north London last February – he died a week later from a heart attack – is to be held tomorrow at Hornsey coroner’s court. “No causal link has been established between the circumcision and the baby being taken ill. There is no indication that this was anything other than a tragic juxtaposition of two events,” a spokesman for the synagogue said after the child’s death. “The mohel [appointed circumciser] is a registered member of the Initiation Society, which has been licensing and training practitioners of the procedure for more than 200 years. It is a well-established and well-regulated practice.”

Anti-circumcision horror stories such as this have served only to rally the pro-choice, intactivist PR machine. As well as Affleck, who has made it known that he is against routine infant circumcision, celebrity supporters include Colin Farrell.

But this isn’t just about cautiously radical telegenic celebrities or grown men checking one another out at the urinals or intact males doing histrionic winces and leg-crosses at the thought of the dreaded bris. For parents, there’s a basic guilt issue at play, too. In his eloquently incensed invective against religion, God Is Not Great, the firebrand polemicist Christopher Hitchens rails against parents who have their boys circumcised.

“As to immoral practice,” he writes, “it is hard to imagine anything more grotesque than the mutilation of an infant’s genitalia.” He argues that circumcision weakens the faculty of sexual excitement and diminishes its pleasure, pointing out the significance of the operation being performed on babies rather than those who have reached the age of reason.

Unconcerned that militant Jewish factions rancorously dismiss the intactivist lobby as wholly antisemitic, Hitchens states that, as recently as 2005, a mohel in New York City quite legally performed a ritual known as metzitzah (taking a mouthful of wine and then sucking the blood from the circumcision wound) on newborn babies, giving genital herpes to several small boys and causing the death of at least two.

And what happens to all those lopped-off foreskins? Believe it or not, there is a handsome profit to be made from harvested bits of young penis. The Norm UK website features the following item: “Since the 1980s, private hospitals have been involved in the business of supplying discarded foreskins to private bio-research laboratories and pharmaceutical companies, who require human flesh as raw research material. Human foreskins are in great demand for commercial enterprises, and the marketing of purloined baby foreskins is a multimillion-dollar-a-year industry.”

There is even an expensive face cream, SkinMedica, on the market, made from a formula grown from young foreskins. Yes. Really.

“There’s a sinister side to all this,” Cumming says. “It’s tradition, control and pleasure-removing masquerading as a hygiene thing. What it comes down to is mass genital mutilation. It’s barbaric. I don’t mean to offend anyone, but I’ve heard about men who can’t orgasm for ages because they have no sensation. People in America are impeded, because they don’t feel, you know?”

There have been a number of studies conducted to find out whether male circumcision reduces the risk of acquiring sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/Aids. While some of them show it may reduce the risk, they are not entirely conclusive, and using a condom still offers the best protection.

For Cumming, it’s more of an emotive issue. “As far as I am concerned, the default-setting arguments about hygiene just don’t stand up,” he says. “The sanitation issue, especially, always comes up when I am in America. But you know what? I am very clean. I shower frequently.

“I am very proud of my foreskin. I believe it’s there for a purpose. And I just want people to stop and think for a second before they decide to get a big bit of their newborn son’s cock cut off.”