I haven't read the rest of the thread yet, but in response to the OP:
Non-consentual, non-medically indicated genital cutting hurts everyone it touches. It causes mothers to set aside their fierce protective instincts, and often also causes intense grief and heartache. It often causes otherwise loving and intelligent fathers to insist their son's 'match'. It eats away at the consciences of medical professionals. It irreversibly damages the primary sex organ of over half of male, American babies.
I told a story in another thread about how I inadvertantly left a spice jar of cayenne pepper out on the counter one night after cooking dinner and didn't realize it until the next day when my son's screams caused my body to shudder. He's found the cayenne pepper, opened it, and poured it into a pile on the kitchen floor and then played with/in it, and you guessed it-rubbed his eyes. I rushed him to the bathroom and rinsed him with water, I was so panicked, I rinsed his entire head and his look of terror from having water sprayed over his head and face as he held his breath still haunts me. I worried I'd damaged him for ever...worried he'd be blind...called the ped, whose nurse was reassuring. He didn't require a trip to the ER, but he was traumatized by the experience and was fearful of even having his hair washed for many months.
Fortunately, he's okay now. I don't think he consciously remembers it. His vision isn't effected, and he's back to loving his baths and usually lets me wash his hair without freaking out. I know what happened was my fault. I acknowledge I was careless, even neglectful to have let him stray from my sight although it only took a moment. I still get a knot in the pit of my stomach thinking about it though.
How much worse would I feel if permanent harm-true damage-had come to him? Thankfully, most of us can't fathom that kind of guilt...but we can try to understand it and be sensitive to it.
Certainly, the boy is the one who suffered direct physical pain and loss and he deserves our sadness and compassion but there are moments and intensities of remorse, guilt, and grief that can make parents literally sick with heartache. I think they deserve our compassion too. What they didn't know did hurt their child, and there is no way to turn back time, no way to take it back or reverse it.
The circumcision issue issue is wrought with cultural misperceptions, myths, and misinformation. Parents rely on care providers to be honest with them and to provide them with unbiased, balanced, and truthful information. Sure, they could have (and should have) researched the topic independently and more thoroughly...but circumcision is just so d-mn culturally engrained, still so automatic and assumed: "It's more hygienic. Dad's circed, baby should be too. Better now than later."
Those of us who learned about circumcision before the birth of our son(s) often take our fortune for granted; most parents know disturbingly little about the anatomy & physiology of the foreskin, the mechanics of normal intercourse, the circumcision procedure, it's risks, and it's long-term effects. Think back to how you stumbled across the truth. Were you shocked? Horrified? Outraged? Those reactions only result from learning something profoundly disturbing...a surprising, terrible, widespread secret.
Those of us who learned the truth in time to protect our sons are so, so, so lucky...because it easily could have been one of us who trusted our care provider and circumcised based on inadaquate or inaccurate information or ignorantly succumed to pressures from other directions.
When I read the words of a regretful mother who's hurting, that's what I think: It could have been me. It could have happened to my son. When I think of it that way, I feel sadness rather than judgment and compassion rather than anger---for everyone, all the way around.
The entire situation is tragic.
"You do what you know, and when you know better, you do better."
-Maya Angelou
Parents who circumcised and later learn the truth and process the guilt and grief make some of the most experienced, passionate, and effective intactivists.
Jen
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