Circumcision overview with intaction.org : Find out how a baby born today can still be harmed from America’s past of prudish morality, racism, gullibility, scare tactics, and greed that reaches back over 100 years ! It’s the history of circumcision in America ! 1886: Dr. J.H. Kellogg, the inventor of corn flakes, advocated for circumcision to remove the sensitive foreskin from boys as a remedy for masturbation. He sadistically claimed by not using anesthesia the operation would make a good punishment for boys who masturbate.
The American Academy of Pediatrics doesn’t recommend routine circumcision of all newborns (though they do say that it’s medically necessary in some specific instances). When sorting through circumcision facts and myths, realize circumcision is not guaranteed to prevent any disease. Behavior and hygiene are always more important to health than circumcision. This American doctor group do not recommend circumcision, and all international medical societies do not recommend circumcision. Circumcision is extremely painful to the baby. This is definitely a disadvantage of circumcision. A study in Canada in 1997 set out to determine what anesthesia worked best in the prevention of pain, but the study was stopped midway through because they felt that the babies who were receiving no anesthesia (the control group) were in so much pain that it was unethical for the study to continue. Even in the United States where circumcision is most common, only 45% of doctors use anesthesia at all. There is no mandatory anesthesia or pain relief policy enforced in hospitals for this procedure. This is an important item to consider when discussing circumcision facts and myths.
Circumcision Prevalence: The practice varies geographically around the world. It is more common in the Middle East, the Muslim world, and Israel. Other areas where the practice is popular is in South Korea, parts of Southeast Asia, and some tribal areas in Africa. It was commonly practiced in the United States from 1940’s onwards, however here the practice started declining after 1980. By 2020, American rates for the surgery are retreating to 50%. Infant male circumcision is rare in Europe, Latin America, parts of Southern Africa and most of non-Muslim Asia. The rates are also low in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, especially since their respective medical associations rebuked the practice decades ago. Find even more details on circumcision.
Circumcision is often performed on infants without anesthetic or with a local anesthetic that is ineffective at substantially reducing pain (Lander et al., 1997). In a study by Lander and colleagues (1997), a control group of infants who received no anesthesia was used as a baseline to measure the effectiveness of different types of anesthesia during circumcision. The control group babies were in so much pain—some began choking and one even had a seizure—they decided it was unethical to continue. It is important to also consider the effects of post-operative pain in circumcised infants (regardless of whether anesthesia is used), which is described as “severe” and “persistent” (Howard et al., 1994). In addition to pain, there are other negative physical outcomes including possible infection and death (Van Howe, 1997, 2004).
Intaction is funded via private donations and volunteer assistance primarily by men and women that have been adversely affected by genital cutting. We promote the benefits of an intact body and the harm of genital cutting. We seek to achieve our goals through education, advocacy, and activism. We empower our members by providing them a constructive way to address the physical and emotional harm that was inflicted on them. Action is in our name. Foreskin is in our DNA. We accept the challenges of creating change, we meet our goals, and then chart new ones. We have no highly paid directors or staff like some big name popular causes. In fact, we are not paid at all. Our compensation is the satisfaction we receive from the many people whose lives we have touched. We help assure parents that keeping their son intact was the enlightened decision. We’ve helped many babies to stay intact. We help build body positive confidence in intact men so they can appreciate their own natural body. We’ve helped many cut men, essentially victims of genital cutting, to feel like they now have a voice, when as infants they didn’t have a choice. Find more details on https://intaction.org/.
