Routine female circumcision, which has been practiced in some cultures, is completely unacceptable. Few people would argue otherwise. In fact, the United Nations has issued a decree against it. Circumcision is a form of sexual abuse whether it's done to girls or boys. We justify male infant circumcision by pretending that the babies don't feel it because they're too young and it will have no consequences when they are older. This is not true. Women who experience memories of abuse in childhood know how deeply and painfully early experiences leave their marks in the body. Why wouldn't the same thing apply to boys?Let adults decide for themselves. Unless they are born to religious nuts. Then hack away at the little baby's genitalia.
In medical school, I was taught that babies couldn't feel when they were born and therefore wouldn't feel their circumcision. Why was it, then, that when I strapped their little arms and legs down on the board (called a 'circumstraint'), they were often perfectly calm; then when I started cutting their foreskin, they screamed loudly, with cries that broke my heart? For years, in some hospitals, surgery on infants has been carried out without anesthesia because of this misconception!
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Stop Circumcision
Christiane Northrup, MD: We Need To Stop Circumcision
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2 comments:
A good post - most of the world agrees with you!
Pain is only one issue. The big issue is human rights. It's his body, his penis, his decision. There is no other healthy, non-renewable, functional, normal part of his body that may be cut off at parental whim, and the nearest corresponding parts of girls' bodies get extra Federal and often state protection. Why the anomaly, and why the double standard?
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