PORT HURON, MI: Intactivists picket hospital

"Nobody told me we didn't have to."


the Times Herald (Michigan)
March 30, 2013

Protesters decry infant circumcision

by Bob Gross

The people carrying signs Saturday in Pine Grove Park across from Port Huron Hospital were protesting cuts — but not to health care spending or state government.

Members of Intact Michigan were protesting infant circumcision.

“We believe that since girls are protected under the law from genital cutting, males also should be protected under the law from genital cutting until they’re old enough to decide,” said Kaitlyn Young, who organized the protest.

“We’re not against circumcision per se,” she said. “We’re against it being forced on infants.”

Mandi Owczarzak, of Sterling Heights, is one of the co-directors of Intact Michigan. She said the group picked Port Huron as a protest site, not because it’s a center of circumcision, but “it was a good place for all those who wanted to come.”

She has three children, two daughters and a son.

“This is important to me because nobody told me and I almost did it to my son,” she said. “Nobody told us we didn’t have to.”

Young said male infant circumcision is an American cultural tradition and usually is not done for religious reasons.

She said the group advocates religious circumcision be delayed until the male is old enough to make his own decision.

“It he wants to do it for religious decisions, it makes more sense for him to make that decision himself,” she said.

Young said the infant can suffer harm from the procedure, including death.

“A lot of people say it’s parental right or parental decision,” she said.

“It should be a son’s right whether or not he should have his foreskin.”

Young said the procedure is harmful.

“It did hurt the son, it did hurt the husband, it did hurt themselves if they are a man,” she said.

“We don’t need to perpetuate it on future generations.”

• For more information about Intact Michigan, go to www.facebook.com/IntactMI

LEXINGTON, KY: Circumcised men less likely to use condoms

PubMed
March 20, 2013

Intact men more likely to use condoms

This study shows circumcised men are less likely to use condoms at all, more likely to use them rarely, and lack confidence in using them.

Int J STD AIDS. 2013 Mar 20. [Epub ahead of print] A comparison of condom use perceptions and behaviours between circumcised and intact men attending sexually transmitted disease clinics in the United States. Crosby R, Charnigo RJ. Source College of Public Health at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, USA. Abstract This investigation compared circumcised and intact (uncircumcised) men attending sexually transmitted infection (STI) clinics on condom perceptions and frequencies of use. Men (N = 316) were recruited from public clinics in two US states. Circumcision status was self-reported through the aid of diagrams. Intact men were less likely to report unprotected vaginal sex (P < 0.001), infrequent condom use (P = 0.02) or lack of confidence to use condoms (P = 0.049). The bivariate association between circumcision status and unprotected sex was moderated by age (P < 0.001), recent STD acquisition (P < 0.001) and by confidence level for condom use (P < 0.001). The bivariate association between circumcision status and infrequent condom use was also moderated by age (P = 0.002), recent STI acquisition (P = 0.02) and confidence level (P = 0.01). Multivariate findings supported the conclusion that intact men may use condoms more frequently and that confidence predicts use, suggesting that intervention programmes should focus on building men's confidence to use condoms, especially for circumcised men. PMID: 23514832 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Since condoms are so much more effective than circumcision at prevening HIV acquistion and transmission (assuming the RCTs are valid) this just underlines the risk of promoting circumcision.

LONDON: Two out of five would ban infant circumcision

Nearly two out of five support a ban on infant circumcision

Jewish Chronicle
March 27, 2013

Forty five per cent of Britons ready to ban shechita

by Simon Rocker

Almost half the population favour a ban on religious slaughter of animals for meat and nearly a third want a ban on male circumcision, according to the results of a YouGov poll for the JC.

Asked whether they support or oppose a ban on religious slaughter, 45 per cent back a ban, 27 per cent are against and 28 per cent say they do not know.

Opinion diverges less when respondents are asked about “male circumcision for religious reasons”, with 38 per cent [More like 2/5 than 1/3] supporting a ban, 35 per cent against and 27 per cent undecided.

Dayan Yisroel Lichtenstein, head of the Federation Beth Din, said: “It’s worrying and it shows we need to do a lot more public relations to put our case.”

...

Forty-one per cent of 18-24 year-olds would ban both shechita and circumcision.

...

The German government recently passed legislation to protect religious circumcision after a mohel was arrested last year. [No, not even detained, but convicted and discharged.]

...

But David Graham, senior research fellow of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, cautioned against reading too much into the figures.

...

If people are asked are whether they support or oppose a ban on an issue, he said, “the seed of doubt is already sown in the respondent’s mind, before he or she has had a chance to consider what they are being asked. It is hardly surprising a majority opts for a ban.”

[Perhaps if the question had been,

"Do you think babies' genitals should

1. be left alone?
2. have part cut off?"

the proportion in favour of intactness would have been considerably higher.]


...

WASHINGTON, DC: Intactivists converge for Genital Integrity Awareness Week

DCist
March 27, 2013

Anti-Circumcision Protesters Cut Into Supreme Court Scene

by Benjamin R. Freed

While most of the thousands of demonstrators lined up outside the U.S. Supreme Court today were there to show their opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act, a handful of people were getting snippy about a completely different issue.

Circumcision.

This week marks the 20th annual Demonstration Against Infant Circumcision, a yearly protest in which hundreds of "intactivists" descent upon Washington to clamor for an end to the practice of doctors removing newborn infant boys' foreskin, whether for religious purposes or because it's a standard practice in American medicine.

"Forcing children to participate in blood rituals is wrong," says Jonathan Conte, a San Francisco resident holding a large sign reading "Equal Justice" above a large, graphic photo of a newborn being circumcised. "Religion of one's parents is not a reason to abuse."

Noting that the federal government adopted legislation in 1996 banning vaginal circumcision, Conte wants to see a similar measure adopted that protects penises. While the removal of the foreskin is an ages-old custom in Judaism, Conte says that accounts for only a fraction of circumcisions performed in the United States, where it was adopted as a standard medical procedure for newborns in the mid-19th century.

"That started 150 years ago as a way to curb masturbation," he says. Conte also argues that the reasons for circumcision continuing as a customary operation keep changing, such as AIDS prevention, despite what he says is a lack of evidence. It's also a practice he says is unique to American medicine.

"Most of the world's men have their whole penises, and they're not dropping dead," he says.

To his very open frustration, Conte does not have his whole penis either. He was snipped at birth, and he says he resents his parents for electing to have the operation conducted, as well as the doctor who performed it.

"Every one of my sexual partners has had sex with a mutilated man," he says.

Conte says that a circumcised man of is missing roughly 15 square inches of protective issues around the glans, or head, of his penis, an effect he displays by rolling up a small handbill preaching the ills of foreskin removal. "It permanently alters the form and function of the penis," he says. "The glans is mucosal tissue. It's meant to be covered."

Then there are the effects on the most important functions of the penis. Conte wants to assure people he speaks with that circumcised men—like himself—are still capable of sex and procreation, though in his opinion it can be a bit dodgy.

"I'm not saying cut men can't have sex," he says. "Or that they can't feel pleasure or get erections. Sex without a foreskin is much more abrasive and dry. It's the mechanics of it."

Moreover, the circumcision opponents say the practice is one more example of the U.S. medical system's fee-for-service setup, in which doctors have a natural incentive to perform as many procedures as possible. Only, in the case of circumcision, Conte says doctors are being paid to lop a body part that "years of evolution" haven't discarded.

"Can you imagine if doctors were making money cutting off other parts of healthy baby boys?" he asks.

Conte and his fellow "intactivists" will be in town through the weekend, culminating with a march from the U.S. Capitol to the White House on Saturday. The demonstration will be "extremely diverse" he says. "We have both victims and intact people."

ROSTOCK, GERMANY: Metzitzah Rabbi sued; "Most Jews in Germany don't circumcise"

MOGiS un Freunde
March 23, 2013

Rabbi sued for circumcising his son

by Christian Bahls

Why I am sueing the orthodox Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal for having a circumcision performed on his son
I'd like to make one thing very clear right up front:

This lawsuit is not driven by any anti-Jewish resentments, but by the strong belief that all children bear the same inalienable rights.

With it I don't aim to attack the Jewish naming ceremony that involves amputation of the foreskin, that is an issue for an internal debate among the Jewish people.

I want to point out explicitly that I reject any ideology or action that is directed against a humane, tolerant, free and democratic value- and law-abiding society. I will refuse or quit any cooperation with persons or groups of whom I think would put a society based on democratic values, unconditional and at any time, in question.

In that spirit I also disapprove of any misuse of my efforts to further children's rights to bodily integrity by people that use the issue of circumcision to fuel their discriminating thoughts against minorities.

For now my aim is to shed some light on the circumstances of this particular circumcision. It clearly shows that some people are unwilling to abide to at least the minimum standards set forth by law, for example just obeying the rules for proper medical treatment.

In the video published on the website of the Berlin Tagesspiegel one can see how Mr. Menachem Fleischmann takes a mouthful of wine, then leans down over baby Mendel Teichtal to suck blood from his bleeding penis.

In §1631d BGB the law states that parents may only consent to a foreskin amputation if it is to be performed according to the rules of medical science, with the degree of skill and learning commonly applied under all the circumstances in the community by the average prudent reputable member of the profession.

...

The act of performing a Metzitzah B'peh in itself would be a violation of the demand for adherence to the rules for medical treatment to make the foreskin amputation legal according to §1631d BGB.

It is not to be assumed that the legislator intended to legalize the Metzitzah B'peh. During the hearing in the justice committee of the German Bundestag on Nov. 26th, 2012, Rabbi and urologist Dr. med. Antje Yael Deusel stated: "The most recent medical standards concerning surgical execution, including sterility and appropriate pain treatment, both during and after the operation, have to be met. A so-called Metzitzah B'peh - meaning a direct sucking of blood from the wound - is obsolete and has to be omitted unconditionally." (German protocoll from the hearing)

...

Another reason for me to file this lawsuit is to clarify the practice of "Periah". It can be assumed that the Mohel - when alone with the infant in an adjacent room - while do what he called "caring for the wound" - performed a radical foreskin amputation on the infant.

During a Periah, the remaining inner layer of the foreskin - which on newborns is fused to the glans, much like a fingernail to the nail bed - is scraped off all the way down to the corona glandis. (https://www.realeyz.tv/de/its-a-boy.html)

...

I believe it should be investigated whether the entire inner layer of the foreskin down to the corona glandis has been removed, and if, whether this can still be considered part of the naming ceremony or rather an infliction of bodily harm not covered by §1631d BGB.

...

In conclusion, as Mr. Teichtal - because his involvement in the german discussion 2012 - must know about the illegality of his acts. I see the way the ritual has been performed on March 3rd, 2013, as a deliberate provocation.

Also there is one thing I'm totally aware of: by far the most people of Jewish descent in Germany don't have their sons circumcised. Only a small minority has their sons circumcised, and of those only a few have it done to such an extent and following such an archaic rite like Mr. Teichtal had it done on his son on March 3rd.

BERKELEY/ILLINOIS: Dr and lawyer slam ethics of AAP circumcision policy / Task Force defence: "Respect!"

March 24, 2013

AAP Circumcision Task Force fails again

by Hugh Young

In the latest Journal of Medical Ethics, a paediatrician and a lawyer have demolished the ethics of the 2012 American Academy of Pediatrics circumcision policy. (pdf may require opening in a reader to show the comments.)

They say the policy suffers from several troubling deficiencies, including "...the exclusion of important topics and discussions, an incomplete and apparently partisan excursion through the medical literature, improper analysis of the available information, poorly documented and often inaccurate presentation of relevant findings, and conclusions that are not supported by the evidence given."

• Topics excluded:
  • Anatomy and function of the foreskin
  • Harm caused by its removal
  • Biomedical ethics
  • Human and children’s rights
• Incomplete and partisan survey of literature:
  • Case reports, case series, ecological studies, reviews and opinions excluded
  • Studies finding detriments from circumcision excluded
  • Cost/benefit analyses that fail to find benefit ignored
  • No North American STD or HIV studies (which consistently fail to find circumcision benefit)
  • Cherry-picking from within studies
• Improper analysis:
  • Internally contradictory statements
  • Conclusions that do not follow from data
  • No risk/benefit analysis (either of circumcision or intactness)
  • Move toward recommending based entirely on three African HIV studies
• Poorly documented and inaccurate presentation:
  • Ignores anti-circumcision findings within cited studies
  • Gets numbers wrong, e.g. in cancer risk
  • Discusses circumcision, but not Gardasil, to prevent HPV
  • Fails to apply cost/benefit to UTI, the only early-onset risk
  • Fails to consider cost of meatotomy
• Conclusions not supported by evidence:
  • Third-party payment called for, yet still "elective"
  • Doctors advised to be cultural brokers for parents

Accordingly, the critics say, the AAP should immediately replace its policy with one reflecting such critical concerns as the functions of the lost tissue, medical ethics and the importance of respecting non-consenting children’s rights.

---

This is followed by a reply by the Task Force (pdf may require opening in a reader to show the comments) that addresses none of the issues it raises, but just questions the tone of opposition to circumcision in general, asking four times that criticism to be "respectful".

This is essentially the fallacy of Appeal to Authority.

The most disrespectful word in the Svoboda-Van-Howe paper is "myopic".

This repeated demand for "respect" ignores one of the major realities of that case - that an increasing number of men are very angry that this was done to them, and they resent the lack of respect shown for the most intimate part of their bodies, for their individuality, their privacy, their religious freedom, their sexuality, their equality with women and for the security of their persons.

Nobody should be surprised when these men show disrespect toward those who stand by the ones who did that to them.

The Task Force claims to be "unbiased", unlike its critics, but it has an inherent bias to which it is blind: it treats cutting a normal, healthy, functional, non-renewing part of a baby's (and hence a man's) genitals off as if it were equal and opposite to just leaving the baby's body alone - when in fact it is is medically and ethically a different kind of activity, with a different kind of consequences.

The Task Force ends its reply "It is our fervent hope that, through the combined efforts of well-intentioned, open-minded researchers, we will achieve greater understanding so as to better serve our young patients."

The Task Force's melifluous, unctious tone belies its subject-matter, cutting parts off babies' genitals - "patients" who have nothing the matter with them. People from cultures where this is not a norm will be baffled by the disconnect between the Task Force's words and its actions.

ILLINOIS: AAP exhibits cultural bias in its denial of it

March 21, 2013

AAP Task Force reveals cultural bias while denying it

by Hugh Young

Last August, the American Academy of Pediatrics released its new circumcision policy in a flurry of publicity. The policy claimed that "the benefits outweigh the risks" (without actually comparing them). It fell short of recommending universal infant circumcision, though it was widely reported as having done so, and it recommended that insurance pay for this "non-recommended " procedure.

This week, Pediatrics published a rebuttal from 38 heads or spokespeople for the paediatric associations of Austria, Britain, Denmark, England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Sweden and the Netherlands, and senior paediatricians in Canada, the Czech Republic, France and Poland, accusing the AAP of cultural bias, and finding fault with its methodology, its conclusions, and its ethics.

The AAP has published their letter with a reply from its "Task Force on Circumcision" that just underlines the same cultural bias for which it was criticised. It basically says "You're another!" without noticing that leaving a child's genitals alone, doing nothing to them, is medically and ethically a different kind of thing from cutting part off.

They reveal their bias even while denying it: they refer to the whole penis as "uncircumcised" and discount the sexual value of the foreskin found by some studies because "the relevance to individuals undergoing circumcision during infancy was questionable." but with no consideration of their relevance to individuals not undergoing circumcision during infancy.

They falsely claim that "approximately half of US males are circumcised, and half are not." In fact, a chart in their own policy indicates the rate is more like 80%. This is in order that they can say "Although that [50:50 ratio] may lead to a more tolerant view toward circumcision in the United States than in Europe, the cultural “bias” in the United States is much more likely to be a neutral one than that found in Europe, where there is a clear bias against circumcision."

In fact, in Europe, the default position is to do nothing, simply to leave the child's body alone. No need for any "cultural bias" or any Task Forces on Leaving Children's Genitals Alone.

They go on "... a culture that is comfortable with both the circumcised penis and the uncircumcised penis would seem predisposed to a more dispassionate analysis of the scientific literature than a culture with a bias that is either strongly opposed to circumcision or strongly in favor of it."
In what mad world is the United States "a culture that is comfortable with" the whole penis when the Task Force won't even call it that? When a TV show can include nine negative references to foreskins and the men with them without exciting comment? (Positive references are virtually unknown.) To rebut the claim of the 38 that the foreskin has a sexual function, the Task Force says:

Members of the task force appreciate that the foreskin has nerve fibers: the task force clearly recommends adequate pain control for infants undergoing circumcision. However, the task force did not move beyond what these studies actually reveal (the foreskin has nerve bundles and pain fibers, the foreskin contains Meissner corpuscles, the inner surface of the foreskin resembles a mucous membrane) to speculate about the effect that circumcision might have on sexual function or pleasure.
The 38 European critics do not need to "speculate": its male members or their male partners will have foreskins. Of course the inner foreskin resembles a mucus membrane, because it is one - like the lips. The lips also "have nerve fibres". Whose first thought about those would be about how to minimise the pain of lip-removal? Who either doubts, or can find a study to prove, that the nerves of the lips are intimately involved in the pleasure of kissing? Who needs one?

The Task Force, both in its policy and this response to its critics, criticises the only study that actually attempted to measure the sensitivity of the foreskin itself by ignoring its main finding - that "male circumcision [removes] the most sensitive part of the penis."

They now admit that the critics' "argument about the basic right to physical integrity is an important one, ..." yet they ignored this important argument in their 2012 policy, and now they contrast it with a new, unmeasured and undocumented claim that "...it is also true that some males will be harmed by not being circumcised." By that reasoning, the man who had to cut his own arm off after it was trapped under a boulder in the desert was "harmed by not having had it previously amputated" but nobody would ever think that meant infant amputation should be given even a moment's consideration - yet this is just "to prevent zipper injury" writ large.

The Task Force says nothing about the critics' case, based on the AAP's own policy, that the diseases circumcision reduces are so rare, or of such late onset, or so readily prevented or treated, that circumcising infants to prevent them is a bad option compared to letting the child grow up to decide the fate of his own genitals.

Its claim that "the benefits outweigh the risks" is now nowhere to be seen, and goes undefended.

Earlier story