Parents and Childbirth Educators Saying No to Circumcision

*PREGNANCY, PARENTING, CHILDBIRTH, HOME BIRTH, MOTHERHOOD, & FATHERHOOD SITES*

Mothers Opposing Circumcision
http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org

Peaceful Beginnings by Rosemary Romberg
http://www.PEACEFULBEGINNINGS.cjb.net


*DOCTORS, NURSES & RELIGIOUS GROUPS OPPOSING CIRCUMCISION*

Doctors/Physicians Opposing Circumcision
Today, however, the prepuce is considered to be of value to its owner and there is ever increasing interest in the preservation of this tissue. 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.DOCTORSOPPOSINGCIRCUMCISION.org

Nurses for the Rights of the Child
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.
http://www.Nurses.cirp.org

Jews Opposing Circumcision
http://www.JEWSAGAINSTCIRCUMCISION.org

Dr. Ronald Goldman's Website
http://www.jewishcircumcision.com

Catholics Opposing Circumcision
http://www.catholicsagainstcircumcision.org

The History of Circumcision
http://www.HISTORYOFCIRCUMCISION.NET


*JEWISH & ISRAELI GROUPS OPPOSING CIRCUMCISION*

'Judaism is a fluid religion that has been subject to change as it meets challenges and reaches new and better understandings. This is shown with the advent of non-traditional ceremonies, like Bat Mitzvah, and other significant changes to advance the roles of females including the ordination of women rabbis, chazzans and shamases.' - Jews Opposing Circumcision, http://www.JEWSAGAINSTCIRCUMCISION.org

Israeli Parents' Group, Kahal (website in Hebrew)
http://www.kahal.org

Israeli Association Against Genital Mutilation (website in Hebrew)
http://britmilah.org.il

Israel: Gonen Al Hayeled (Protect the Child) (website in Hebrew)
http://www.gonen.us

DUTCH PERSPECTIVES

Dutch doctors: circumcision should be stopped
Published on 28 May 2010 - 10:41am
Radio Netherlands Worldwide

The Royal Dutch Medical Society (KNMG) has said it wants a stop on the circumcision of underage boys. The society said on Thursday that circumcising boys without any medical reason infringes the right to autonomy and the right to bodily integrity.

Family doctors have been asked by the society to warn parents 'actively and urgently that there are no medical advantages to circumcision and that there is a risk of complications'. Such complications include haemorrhages, infections, urethra constriction and panic attacks. Complications, although a normal concomitant of surgical interventions, are not justifiable when the surgery is not medically necessary, the medical association says.

KNMG President Arie Nieuwenhuijzen Kruseman says the basic principle underlying the statement is that one does not perform surgery on perfectly healthy children. The doctors' association felt urged to express its views because of the increased emphasis on children's rights, he said.



PERSPECTIVES FROM FINLAND

Central Union for Child Welfare in Finland, Helsinki 25.8.2003
'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/

THE OAKLAND TRIBUNE, Oakland, California, Sunday, 14 March 2004.

The unkindest cut? Many parents disenchanted with circumcision
By Melissa Schorr,
STAFF WRITER

But increasingly, Bay Area parents are questioning whether circumcision -- a surgical procedure that removes the foreskin covering the tip of the penis -- truly is what nature intended. Even some Jewish families, who once wouldn't have thought twice about the religious tradition, are having second thoughts, seeing the procedure as cosmetic at best, inhumane at worst.

When Rachel Berger, an Oakland-based journalist, gave birth to her son, Isaiah, 11 months ago, she was adamant against circumcising him, despite her own Jewish heritage.

'I thought, 'Why mutilate my child?'' she recalls. 'I didn't believe it was a medical necessity. I thought it was a pretty barbaric practice.'

Fueling the fire are a cluster of anti-circumcision activists based in the Bay Area, who heatedly claim that circumcision is tantamount to genital mutilation conducted without the child's medical consent.

The foreskin is normal tissue,' declares Marilyn Milos, director of the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers, an anti-circumcision group based in San Anselmo. 'Circumcision is amputation of a normal body part that hurts, leaves psychological scars and denies a baby (its) right to its own determinism. It's a human rights issue.'

This concept of denial of personal choice especially resonates with Berger. 'If my son decides at some point he wants to be circumcised, he can do it,' she points out. 'But it can't be undone.'

References against circumcision are popping up on TV sitcoms such as 'Arrested Development,' which has a character running a group called H.O.O.P., or Hands Off Our Penises. The debate has also entered the political arena, with 13 states, including California, no longer covering the procedure for infants covered by Medicaid.

'The foreskin is sacred in Berkeley,' Piser observes. 'It is quite an emotional issue for a lot of people.'

Adam Edell, a San Rafael software engineer, deeply regrets his own circumcision and that of his only son, who was born in Israel seven years ago.

Had I to do it over again, I definitely would not,' he says. 'I feel robbed of millions of nerve endings, of sensations I'm not going to feel and my son's not going to feel.'

Edell once passionately believed in circumcision as a part of his Jewish faith. But after leaving Israel and his religious beliefs behind, Edell now bemoans his choice.

'It's ridiculous. It has no medical purpose,' he says. 'It's quite amazing that something so unfounded is something everyone does -- and in a very sensitive place, too.'

Cunningham had her own three sons circumcised years ago, knowing it was safe and not a traumatic experience, but would make a different decision today. 'If I was having my kids now,' she says flatly, 'I wouldn't.'

But anti-circumcision activists claim those who are 'intact' have no greater challenges staying clean, provided they are diligent about washing beneath the foreskin.

Instead, they charge that the true motivation of circumcision was a Puritan urge to decrease sexual desire and masturbation among men.

Circumcision diminishes sexual function,' Milos states flatly. She adds that diminished feeling in men can translate into a less pleasurable experience for women as well.

Some circumcised men who agree with Milos are taking action.

The National Organization of Restoring Men runs monthly support sessions inside a Berkeley church for men who aim to restore themselves to their previous state by stretching their foreskins back into shape.

At the meetings, the group's founder, R. Wayne Griffiths, 70, a Concord-based construction inspector, reviews a variety of devices from tape to more elaborate weights that use 'moderate tension' to stimulate the creation of muscle tissue, as in weight lifting.

'I've always been jealous or whatever about not being covered, and uncomfortable in whatever briefs I wear from the rubbing, so I decided I would restore,' explains Griffiths, who circumcised his own sons before his change of heart but has convinced them not to circumcise his grandsons.

On the decline

Regardless, in California, the percentage of male newborns being circumcised is dropping dramatically, in contrast to national trends.

But in California during that time, the rate of hospital circumcisions dropped from 64 percent to 37 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Both sides in the debate agree this is primarily because of the high population of Asian and Hispanic residents, who don't have a strong cultural tradition of circumcision.

But Milos claims her crusade has also changed minds. 'I think it has to do with our educational efforts,' she says. 'People on the coasts don't cling to tradition. We're more progressive and open to new ideas.'

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AUSTRALIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION, Saturday, December 8, 2007.

Call to end circumcision of baby boys

Posted Sat Dec 8, 2007 9:00am AEDT

Tasmania's Commissioner for Children has again called on the State Government to review laws covering the circumcision of baby boys for cosmetic reasons.

Paul Mason says the practice is painful, inflicts permanent and irreversible disfigurement, and is a breach of human rights.

He says parents do not have an unfettered right to do whatever they like with their children.

Mr Mason says with Human Rights Day approaching, it is important to remember that everyone is entitled to equal protection under the law, regardless of their gender, culture or race.

'If I have a religious obligation, a religious belief that my child should do X, Y and Z and that conflicts directly with a human right of the child, then the human right of the child will prevail,' Mr Mason said.

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SALEM NEWS, January 15, 2008.

Is Circumcision Another Form of Genital Mutilation?
Tim King Salem-News.com
Legislation could change the future of American males.

(SAN DIEGO, Calif.) - Circumcision is flying to the front of medical and political arguments as Americans face the idea that we as a society may be gravely in error in our choice to allow doctors to complete circumcisions of young boys, particularly those just born which is the common approach in most cases.

Experts on both sides of the argument are esteemed researchers, but a closer look at what circumcision really brings us; campaigns for Viagra and a lack of sexual satisfaction in men, shows that it may be among our worst and most cruel cultural practices.

Now the movement is stepping forward with legislation that would curb or end the practice in our hospitals. The MGM Bill to End Male Genital Mutilation in the U.S. could change the way our society treats its young boys.

'The legislation that we are proposing would give boys the same protection from genital cutting that girls have enjoyed since 1997,' said Matthew Hess, the group’s president. 'Circumcision removes erogenous tissue in both sexes and results in a measurable loss of sexual feeling. It is a traumatic and disfiguring surgery that should not be performed on children unless there is a clear, compelling, and immediate medical need – period.'

Hess says genital cutting of girls has been prohibited in the U.S. since 1997 when the Female Genital Mutilation Act took effect, requiring women to be eighteen years old before consenting to any type of genital surgery. The law has been credited with helping to keep forced female circumcision from spreading to the U.S. from Africa and the Middle East, where it is much more common.

A Frankfurt, Germany, regional appeals court pushed circumcision further into the legal gray area recently when it found that the circumcision of an 11-year-old Muslim boy without his approval was an unlawful personal injury. And in November, the Oregon Supreme Court heard a case filed by the mother of a 12-year-old boy trying to protect him from being circumcised by his father for religious reasons. (Oregon Courts Have No Right to Force Circumcision) The court’s decision on the Oregon case is pending.

Perhaps the word 'convince' says it all. Doctors make money from circumcising young male children.

If you jump past the Biblical origination of the story and flash forward about 1850 years, you learn that Jewish people were actually scorned for their circumcisions in most western societies. But then a belief developed in England that circumcising boys would reduce masturbation. That is all it took, along with the money the practice represents for European and American doctors and hospitals.

This practice according to Milos, reduces the feeling that men experience during sex. That diminished quality has lifetime implications. She says it is that diminished feeling that leads to men seeking cures for erectile dysfunction.

She says pro-circumcision advocates also released through medical journals decades ago, a connection between uncircumcised men and penile cancer, which was proven to be false information. Instead, she says that in the case of many circumcised men who contract penile cancer, it begins at their circumcision scar.

This is a subject just gaining momentum in this country and it isn't likely to lose steam as parents and others become increasingly aware of a number of problems associated with the practice. The online dictionary Wikipedia clearly defines the practice of circumcision as mutilation.

Wikipedia states, 'Mutilation is an act or physical injury that degrades the appearance or function of the (human) body, usually without causing death.' Circumcision is listed alongside burning and amputation, as a form of mutilation or maiming.

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