Circ. of Boys Prevents Implementation of Genital Integrity Policy
No medical society recommends neonatal circumcision. By this action, they imply that non-circumcision or genital integrity is most likely to provide the highest state of health and well-being. Nevertheless, they have failed to state this explicitly and parents frequently are deceived into believing that circumcision is best for their child.
The United States, where infant circumcision is promoted, has a very expensive health care system, however, the infant morbidity and mortality is much higher than it should be in any developed nation.
By contrast, in Australia, where infant and child circumcision has been discouraged since 1971 and where the incidence of circumcision has declined steeply, infant mortality has been cut in half.
Genital Integrity provides total freedom from the complications, risks, loss of physiological functions, emotional issues, sickness, and occasional deaths that follow the circumcision of children.
The Canadian Paediatric Society says:
• All infants, children and adolescents – regardless of physical or mental disability – have dignity, intrinsic value, and a claim to respect, protection, and medical treatment that serves their best interests.
• Although family issues are important and must be considered, the primary concern of health professionals who care for children and adolescents must be the best interests of individual children and adolescents.
These principles are equally applicable in the United States. The medical establishment of the United States, therefore, has a duty to change its policy regarding infant and child circumcision to discourage the practice, so as to promote child health and well-being throughout life.
Goldman, however, writes persuasively on the emotional inability of circumcised doctors to develop a responsible genital integrity policy. It appears that the United States medical establishment will be unable to develop a genital integrity policy until intact, non-circumcised doctors, who are free of the emotional consequences of child circumcision, are in the majority.
Boys should not be circumcised, so that they may enjoy optimum health and well-being and so that a new generation of non-circumcised doctors may grow up and institute a genital integrity policy for America’s children.
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You state that the death rate of Australian Babies was cut in half as circumcision rate declined but neglect to clarify that the death rate in girl babies was cut by about the same amount.
This disconnects circumcision from being a cause of death.
Hal 84
The fact that the death rates of both infant boys and infant girls declined by the same amount as the male circumcision rate declined suggests that circumcision had little or no net impact on the health of baby boys. Therefore alarmist propaganda suggesting something different should be rejected.
M. Glass
Where is the consideration of the pro-circumcision croud for the choice of the child to choose non-medical procedures for himself? Where is the adherence to the mandate "First, Do No Harm?" It does not pass any reasonable ethics test.
Hpwever, I am not referring to the removal of a small strip of foreskin.
I am referring to having had my prostate removed as a treatment (supposedly "cure") for Prostate Cancer.
Perhaps my providing some detail would be valuable information for others.
What you are not told about the operation is that the removal of the prostate has several negatives besides the risk of possible complete impotence or severe incontinence.
The prostate is a gland-muscle surrounding the urethra that contributes immensely to the force and satisfaction level of an orgasm. The prostate tends to back-up the erection itself. The congested feeling that cycles in a few days after an ejaculation increases libido. The removal of the prostate tends to shorten the penis, possibly 3/4". The removal of the prostate will definitely accelerate the age at which erectile capacity will become insufficient for penetration.
I am partly presenting the above analysis for a comparison as to how little effect being circumcised or not has on a man's sexuality. The removal of the touch sensitive area in the foreskin is compensated for by the deep pressure orgasm triggering sensors in the glans and sulcus being better exposed to direct stimulation. i had a foreskin half my life.
Hal 84
Hal 84 I am sorry to read your letter about your suffering from the outcome of your prostate surgery. This comes as a bitter blow to many men who have undergone surgery to their prostate. Prostate cancer is all our concern, because we all go to our graves with prostate cancer to some extent.
Although the loss of sensation due to circumcision is probably nothing compared to what you have suffered through the removal of your prostate, you were given the choice to have the surgery done and you gave consent to have the procedure done to you. This is not the case in infant circumcision and this is the crux of the argument against infant circumcision. Those little boys do not chat to the doctor and do not sign a consent form.
It would be an outrage if infant boys routinely had their prostate glands removed to prevent prostate cancer. So what harm would it be to the world, if we allowed infants to grow up first and then ask them to sign a consent form before we circumcised them? What difference would it make granting consent to the patient?
A lot to that patient I suspect!
...of whether or not it is ethical to remove the foreskin from a healthy, involuntary infant.