VANCOUVER: Foreskin Pride parade wants stronger stand from doctors

Metro News (Vancouver)
August 3, 2012

Foreskin Pride March rallies for ban on child circumcisions

By Kate Webb

A group of foreskin-loving activists plans to rally outside the downtown offices of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C. Saturday calling on the federal government to ban circumcisions on minors.

Glen Callender, founder of the first ever Foreskin Pride March, wants to see the Criminal Code amended to include foreskins in the list of specified sexual organs that can not be mutilated or removed before the age of 18.

The College’s official stance is that routine infant circumcision is a cosmetic, medically unnecessary procedure, with risks that outweigh the benefits.

“The bottom line here is that here in Canada we protect the genitalia of girls from any kind of unnecessary surgery until they’re 18 years old, and then they have the right to modify their vulva as they see fit,” he told Metro.

“If girls have that right, then boys and intersex kids should have the same right. The Charter guarantees equal protection under the law.”

Circumcision rates have been falling in Western countries for decades, according to the Royal Dutch Medical Association, which condemns the practice.

In the U.K., the number of circumcisions on newborns fell from 35 per cent in the 1930s to 3.8 per cent by 2000. In the U.S. the incidence fell from 85 per cent in 1965 to 56 per cent in 2006.

In Canada, the prevalence fell from 47 per cent in 1973 to 32 per cent in 2007.

Dr. Neil Pollock, one of Vancouver’s most prominent circumcision surgeons who has performed the procedure more than 30,000 times, did not return Metro’s call requesting comment Thursday, and when reached Friday said he was too busy to do a phone interview on such short notice.

The Foreskin Pride marchers will rally at 3 p.m. at the Vancouver Art Gallery after protesting at noon on Saturday at the College. An adults-only education session on foreskin at the Qmunity queer resource centre at Bute and Davie Streets starts at 7 p.m.

On Sunday, for the third year, Callender will host adults-only demonstrations at his “foreskin awareness booth” from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Sunset Beach Pride Festival.

VICTORIA, B.C.: Rally against private circumcision clinic

Monday Magazine (Victoria, B.C.)
April 12, 2012

Foreskin rally calls for ban on infant circumcision

Verbal battle erupts over specialized private clinic

By Danielle Pope

Have you hugged your foreskin today? A passionate rally this week is calling on the government and Victoria residents to show the normally shy body part a little bold love — or at least protection.

The “Whole World/Whole Children” rally is set to gather outside one of the newest private health-care offices to start offering circumcision, Diversified Health Clinic at 1063 Fort, on Friday, April 13, at 11:30 a.m. The group will then march to the legislature lawns and finish with a protest and speeches. But while foreskins may not be an issue paramount in the minds of many (save expectant parents), rally organizers say this affects all of us more than we think.

“What this really comes down to is a human rights issue,” says Glen Callender, speaker at the event and founder of the Canadian Foreskin Awareness Project. “When you consider that infant female circumcision was banned in Canada in 1997 and is now considered a criminal offence, why is the genital mutilation of an infant male any different?”

Kira Antinuk, a local mother and nursing student who organized the rally, says that the impetus for the protest came when her organization, Victoria Circumcision Resources, heard about Dr. Neil Pollock, a Vancouver-based physician who is known for being outspoken on the issue of circumcision, bringing his practice to the Island.

“We were really concerned to hear that Dr. Pollock . . . was planning on opening up a genital-cutting clinic in Victoria,” says Antinuk. “This is not acceptable on the Island, and it shouldn’t be acceptable in B.C. at all. I don’t think a lot of people are aware of this yet.”

Pollock says he has performed over 35,000 circumcisions —...

...

B.C. was the first province to pull Medicare funding from circumcision back in 1984, with all other provinces following suit after research showed it was no longer a necessary medical procedure. In 2009, the B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons stated the procedure should be delayed until the child can make his own decision, and the Canadian Pediatric Society now states on its website the relative risks of the foreskin being left intact alongside the proven risks of removing it.

Since circumcisions are no longer covered provincially or performed in hospitals, private health clinics are left to pick up the slack from parents and some adults still wanting to perform the procedure. That privatized bias is exactly what concerns Callender, who says clinics are now preying on misinformed parents to push the invasive procedure onto children who cannot give their consent.

“Criminal law protects the foreskin of a girl, the hood of her clitoris, but not of a boy — yet it’s the same translated body part,” says Callender. “So much of what we hear about why circumcision is ‘good’ is misinformation from years ago, or even old wives tales, but the tales stick. We have to recognize the severe and detrimental impacts not only of making a decision for an individual who cannot consent, but that this is a form of assault, and we need the government to say ‘No more.’”

...

Callender emphasizes that the rally is not an effort to prevent circumcision on the whole — it’s a plea to halt the procedures on infants, ...

UPDATE
4/17/2012

A YouTube video of the rally (6:32).