Circumcision is NOT Necessary

Circumcision is NOT Necessary

The baby, Phil, is less than a day old. His tiny head still slightly misshaped, his eyelids puffy, his mouth half-open in his sleep. The nurse has taken him from his mother and is carrying him to another room in the pediatric ward. The nurse clicks on a white metal lamp with a twist of her fingers, removes the child from a cozy blue blanket, and lays him in a cold molded plastic form that is bolted tightly to the counter. This form fitting shell is called a Circumstraint. There are indentations for the baby’s arms and legs. The nurse methodically binds the secure restraining straps around his limbs, bends the flexible metal light over him and steps back. The baby is naked and spread-eagle, and he begins to cry. For many boys, life begins with circumcision, a painful cut to the sensitive skin on his penis. Is it necessary?

Every 30 seconds a baby boy is circumcised. It is the most common surgery performed in America. It is usually done without anesthesia, and often without the consent of the parents.

“I never questioned it,” says Mr. Theodore, the father of a circumcised boy. “The doctor took him away, performed the operation and brought him back. That’s just the way it was done. I was circumcised; he was circumcised. I don’t even remember signing a consent form.”

That’s typical, according to Craig Shoemaker, M.D., a North Dakota pediatrician and member of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) task force on circumcision. “Many doctors do not adequately counsel parents regarding circumcision—what the risks are, what the potential benefits are, how much it costs. Performing a circumcision without such counseling is inappropriate. Some people would call it criminal assault.” Most parent...

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...ion rate for circumcision varies from 2 to 6 percent,” says Dr. Van Howe. “The average male will have more health problems from being circumcised than from being left alone.”

Some medical professionals believe that circumcision for other than religious purposes would disappear from America if it weren’t covered by insurance. This is what happened in England, where the circumcision rate prior to World War II was roughly equivalent to that in the United States. After the war, British doctors could find no compelling evidence to continue the surgery, and it was dropped from the list of covered services. Within a decade, the circumcision rate dropped from 50 percent among the working class and 85 percent among the upper class to less than half a percent in both.

Bibliography:

Oech, R. (1998). A whack on the side of the head. New York, NY: Warner Books, Inc.