MICHIGAN: Circumcision Prevention Seminar coming

Metro Times (Michigan)
November 11, 2014

Circumcision prevention seminar comes to U of M campus

by Alysa Offman
No doubt MT readers already know we have a fascination with circumcision round these parts. Michigan has a startling high rate of non-religious circumcision and we sought to find some reasons why when we wrote a cover story about it a couple months ago.

Of course, the story of why some people are obsessed with the idea that our sons must be circumcised while others are obsessed with the idea what they should absolutely not be is one that never ends. [It never began in most of the developed world, and it has virtually ended in the rest of the English-speaking world.]

NoCirc of Michigan, an anti-circumcision organization, is holding a seminar entitled New Perspectives next month to discuss and extrapolate on what it means to circumcise, including the surgery's history and what it means culturally, socially, medically, and ethically.

“Our goal is to educate the public about this ancient practice that is generating modern controversy worldwide. The practice of circumcision around the world raises many compelling issues for healthcare providers, parents, and the general public," said NoCirc of Michigan head Norm Cohen in a release.

Cohen and NoCirc contend that 83 percent of newborn boys in Michigan are circumcised, which ultimately costs taxpayers $3 million every year when 19,000 surgeries are covered through Medicaid.

New Perspectives is free and takes place on University of Michigan's Ann Arbor campus on Sunday, Dec. 7. from 1-4:30 p.m.

The presentation will include speakers like Robert Van Howe, MD, MS, FAAP. He's an anti-circumcision professor and Interim Chairman of Pediatrics at Central Michigan University College of Medicine. He has lectured and been published internationally on the topic of circumcision and has been a consultant to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization, according to the release as well as John V. Geisheker, JD, LL.M, Director and General Counsel, Doctors Opposing Circumcision. He has practiced medico-legal law as an arbitrator, mediator, litigator, and law lecturer for over 30 years.