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Doctors Opposing Circumcision

515 views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  baybee 
#1 ·
I thought this an interesting note from a lawyer in Doctors Opposing Circumcision. Baybee

Dear Anastacia-You may post this to your doula friends if you deem it worthy:

Yes, Doctors Opposing Circumcision is true to our name and we are not
secretive about our mission.

We are also against child-footbinding, child-head shaping, child
mouth-widening, child scarification, child-nosebones, child-ear lengthening,
child-tatooing, child-FGM, child-marriage, child-beating, child-labor, child-slavery, and
child prostitution.

About none of these do we feel the slightest need to take a 'balanced' view.
Balanced views are reserved for circumstances with evenly balanced benefits
and where cost /benefit analyses are possible. Not a single medical
organization in the world recommends circumcision on scientific or medical grounds, not
one. End of medical discussion, onto cultural justifications--which have always
been tissue-thin to the point of transparency.

Circumcision is merely a social mutilation, (just like its fellows listed
above) invented by British doctors in 1860 to control sexuality. The fact that US
doctors today will do it on request only reflects-- 1) its historical,
imbedded feature; 2) inattention of the law, 3) helplessness of the child-victim,
4) cultural momentum, and 5) MONEY.

Parents who want their child circumcised are doing so mostly to humor their
conformity fears, not for the child's medical benefit. We at DOC do not blame
parents. Parental enthusiasm, as I have said many times in lectures, is the
lagging and predictable result of aggressive medical marketing in decades past.

Bioethics, however, suggests the only analysis is this:

*Is this a necessary, urgent, and unavoidable procedure?
*Is there an alternative?
*Is there a proven, immediate and lifetime benefit without loss?
*Could the procedure wait until the child could choose for himself?
*Is the risk of harm substantially overbalance by the benefit?

Birth professionals with access to modern bioethics and science should not
coddle a parent's ill-informed request for a 19th century mutilation merely to
avoid social awkwardness. To do so sells out the child, who is entitled to the
full and impartial protection of modern bioethics, and is a full partner in
the birth process, even if he or she is not writing out the check.

Any birth professional who feels no urge to recommend the best, most
up-to-date, and kindest care for the neonate in his or her arms is in the wrong
business. Every neonate is an adult in miniature, a neighbor, a co-worker, a
friend, a lover, ------some day.

Those of us who were circumcised as infants and toddlers (invariably without
anesthesia, strapped down screaming for a friend, any friend), and who face a
lifetime of reduced sexual sensation and eventual dysfunction deserved much
better from our birth professionals. Where were they?

Finally, are the birth professionals of 2006 committed to a better life for
their little charges-or merely co-opted by 19th century, pre-germ, tradition?
Will the men of 2030 remember you kindly?

John V. Geisheker, JD, LL.M.
Attorney-at-Law
Executive Director
General Counsel
Doctors Opposing Circumcision
DoctorsOpposingCircumcision.org
 
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#3 ·
Quote:
Arwyn My only problem with the above is "invented by British doctors in 1860".

Hello? Like circumcision in one form or another hadn't been practiced by some peoples for thousands of years?

Let's get some historical and cultural perspective here.
It should have the word "routine" stuck in there for sure. Otherwise a great letter!
 
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