San Fransisco Circumcision Ban... GENIUS!

If you haven't heard about San Fransisco's proposed circumcision ban, read this.

I think this idea is genius. I know there's not a chance in the world that it will pass and become a law, but just proposing it is brilliant because it's got people talking about an issue that's so important, and so overlooked most of the time. It is also flushing out a lot of ignorance that's really rampant in our society, and allowing the myths to be debunked on a national stage.

I know as well as anyone what a confusing topic this can be. When I was pregnant with Erin, I had to make this decision just in case the ultrasound was wrong and she turned out to be a boy. At first when my midwife asked me if I wanted to circ if the baby was a boy, I said, "Um, I guess? I don't know. Do I really have to make a decision right now?" and she said no, but I needed to make a final decision before 38 weeks. Fair enough. I knew NOTHING about this topic, beyond that a lot of people do it, so I assumed it couldn't be harmful, although I wasn't sure why people did it. Funny enough, just a week later, my aunt called and asked out of the blue, if this baby turned out to be a boy, would I circ. I said I didn't know. She told me it's totally unnecessary, that she never did it to her son and it was never a problem, and that I seriously needed to do my homework before making a decision. Fair enough! I googled, and googled, and googled some more. I read the World Health Organization's publications on it, the British Journal of Medicine, the American Academy of Pediatrics' wishy-washy crap, and NOCIRC.org, among many others. I'm not sure at what point I stopped researching as a way to make my decision, and continued out of morbid curiosity, but by the end of a couple weeks, I knew it was wrong to cut babies, and I'd never do that to any child of mine. Erin was, in fact, born a girl, so it didn't become an issue that time. I still like knowing that even if she had been a boy, she would have been spared. I can't tell you how many moms I know who circ'd their oldest out of ignorance because they learned better too late for him. I feel lucky that that wouldn't have been me, no matter what, although it was a pretty close call.

Having been through that, I know that it's confusing for parents. I also think the American Academy of Pediatrics is idiotic for giving parents absolutely zero guidance on this thing. No medical association in the entire world recommends it, but ours goes and takes a wishy-washy stance that literally says "parents should decide what they want for their son", and people end up cutting babies for the dumbest reasons ever.

Since the article I linked above might even be confusing, I want to do my part in expanding this national stage to my corner of the world, and debunk some myths and commonly held misconceptions (those in the article, and others I hear a lot):

-Circumcision does not prevent the transmission of any STD, including AIDS. Condoms do. Relying on circumcision for STD prevention is like relying on Mountain Dew for birth control. If you want your kids to be safe from that stuff, teaching them about safe sex will be a whole lot more effective than hacking off a body part.

-Complications for intact boys are rare, and many things are perceived to be complications that are actually a normal part of the natural separation process in which the foreskin becomes retractable. Cutting it off isn't the solution. Proper care (which usually amounts to "leave it alone") is. It is very important to find an intact-friendly pediatrician, and especially to avoid forced retraction at all costs.

-It doesn't matter if a boy looks like his father in that way. A lot of guys don't even remember if their dad is/was intact or not. In the rare case that a son will notice the difference, it's really easy to explain that people used to think it was good to cut part of it off, and now we know better. Every person I know of who's ever had this conversation with their son has said he has thanked them for not cutting him. Plus, seriously, of all the ways a father and son can be alike, why would you want to focus on a way in which nobody will ever compare them? Buy them matching football jerseys or something. Cutting a baby is not the answer.

-His future wife will NOT thank you for having him circumcised. (Can I just say, it nearly makes me gag when people say this?) I'm sorry, people, but I'm going there. What woman would actually thank someone for hacking a piece of her husband's penis off without his consent? I mean, doesn't that kind of go against everything we know about common sense?

-He will not be made fun of in the locker room. I know some grown up intact guys who come from a tiny town with a 100% circ rate minus them. Both of these guys played every varsity sport imaginable, so they spent more time in the locker room than your average person. Would you like to know how many times they were both made fun of for being intact? None. For being the only non-white students in town, they were made fun of a lot, but never once for being intact. If it didn't happen in that backward place, in the 80's and 90's, then it is surely not a worry today. Plus, with circ rates falling every year, intact boys will be the majority in most places by the time our sons hit school. In fact where I live, in El Paso, nobody circ's other than military people (I say Tricare needs to stop paying for it just like Medicaid has in a lot of states, and a lot of private insurance companies, too.) A circumcised boy in a place like El Paso, or San Fransisco, or LA, or Portland, or Miami, will be the odd one out in the locker room. He won't be made fun of, but he will be the odd one out. Cutting for conformity does not work when the majority are not cutting.



The bottom line is that this is not a good thing to do to babies. It's purely cosmetic, and a baby can't consent to it. Would you give your newborn a nose job? Of course not. So why would anyone do this? It's irreversible, unnecessary, and painful. If your religion calls for it, why not let your son figure out for himself if he even wants to be of that religion before cutting off a piece of his body in the name of a faith he did not choose? Even Jews are catching onto this, with many now performing a Bris Shalom, which is a naming party with no cutting. It's going out of style to cut babies, and for good reason. There's no reason why our sons should not have the same rights as their sisters, to keep the whole perfect body they were born with. He can always choose to cut as an adult, but he can't choose to put it back on if you take the choice away from him by cutting him as a baby.

I always say, if I did it to my daughter, I would go to jail. If I did it to my dog in the same manner as it is done to little boys in US hospitals (Strapped to a board, no or very inadequate pain relief) I would go to jail. Yet if I did it to my son, people would call it parental choice. Why do we staunchly guard little girls, and even animals, but see little boys as fair game? It's not ok. Parental choice? What about the person who owns the body? What about his choice? My son's body does not belong to me. It belongs ONLY to him. I protect HIS rights by keeping him whole. My right to choose ends with his body. Babies are full fledged human beings with a full quota of human rights. How did so many in our country forget that?


Thanks, San Fransisco intactivists, for bringing something so important, a human rights violation dismissed as parental choice, to a national stage. If just one parent decides to learn more, and spare their son this injustice, it's all been worthwhile to that one. Somehow, I think that a lot more than one has been spared by now, though. Keep spreading the word. Information is the cure.