The quest to defund.

Many states within our nation have ended Medicaid funding of routine infant circumcision (RIC). I think that's great. I really don't want my tax dollars contributing to widespread human rights violations, and neither do a lot of other people. Plus, in these economic times, think about how much it saves to simply not pay for things that are not necessary! It's a huge budget savings in the states that have ended this funding. (FYI, one of those states is my home state, Florida! They defunded in July 2003. Go Florida! Another is Thak's home state, Minnesota. They stopped paying for it in something like 1995! Go Minnesota!)

It seems to be relatively easy to get states to end funding of RIC. Honestly, a simple letter writing campaign has gotten it done in two states this year alone. A lot of legislators have not thought of this, and it's a great way to trim spending from the budget, and that's a goal of most every state these days. A few hundred letters from aware parents, and it will go to a vote in most states' legislatures. That vote nearly always passes, and funding ends. It is very easy to get states to end Medicaid funding of RIC.

The newest campaign is to get Tricare (the federally funded insurance company which provides health coverage to all military members and dependents) to stop paying for it for military families. If the US's circumcision rate for newborns is 32.5% (and that's what it was in 2009), the military rate must be somewhere around 90%. I can only think of maybe three military families other than us, who have protected their sons' rights to bodily integrity. Surely there are more than that, but the circ rate in the military is scary high. Even a ton of Hispanic and Asian soldiers are doing it to their sons, which is truly shocking, because in the general population, these groups do not cut babies. The military has a long and ugly tradition of cutting.

The recent letter writing campaign to get Tricare to end it resulted in replies which consisted of them stating that it is parental choice, and while they don't endorse or recommend this procedure, they will pay for it because "guidance shows it may be beneficial". Really? Seriously, Tricare? First of all, nothing shows that it may be beneficial. Every single thing that has been spun that way is just that, spun. Plus, how's the rest of the world doing without hacking off parts of their little boys? They're doing better than us, that's for sure! What guidance has told you that it's beneficial? Some doctor who pockets an extra $400 for every human rights violation he commits? Consider the source. Of course the AAP takes a wishy washy stance on it. Their members make a fat profit off doing this every single day. No medical association in the world recommends it. It's illegal in Finland and South Africa. The Dutch Medical Association has released a strongly worded document imploring all their doctors to refuse to do this procedure. The World Health Organization recommends against it. So what guidance could possibly show that taking away a human being's right to keep the whole healthy body he was born with, could possibly ever be beneficial? You know, if we did it to little girls, we'd all go to jail, but when it's done to little boys, it's called "possibly beneficial" and "parental choice". Can you see the lack of logic in that?

So it's going to take a lot more to get Tricare to end funding of RIC, but in the meantime, every American needs to know that even if you live in a state that long ago ended Medicaid funding of RIC, your tax dollars are paying for thousands of little boys to receive cosmetic surgery without their consent, every single year. Pretty nasty, huh? I thought so, too. Somehow, Tricare must be fought and coerced, and halfway tricked, into paying some small portion of a homebirth, something which SAVES them tens of thousands of dollars compared to a hospital birth which they'd cover 100% of without question, YET this same company will not bat an eye at covering 100% of cosmetic surgery on a newborn baby. It is entirely unnecessary, could save millions of dollars a year if funding were cut for it, yet they pay without question. Disgusting.

Keep writing those letters to Tricare. This is the address for the head of the Military Health System:

Skyline 5, Suite 810, 5111 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, VA 22041-3206

Click here to see a map showing what states do not fund RIC, what states are currently voting on that, and what states currently are discussing it in the legislature. (Your state is probably in one of these categories! Most are! The entire US is getting wise to the unnecessary nature of this.) By the way, since this map came out, West Virginia and South Carolina also ceased funding of RIC.

When the state or the federal government doesn't pay, drastically fewer babies get cut. Know that we are the only country in the industrialized world with a circ rate above 10%. That is barbaric, and we can do better. Write letters, rattle Tricare's cage until they see that the American people know that there are better uses for their tax dollars than cutting babies. One day, the US will be like our allies, Great Britain, Germany, Spain, France, Australia, and well, the rest of the industrialized world, in that our sons will have the same consideration at birth as our daughters. Believe in equal opportunity? It starts at birth. Write letters. Tell them to stop paying for this archaic practice. If enough people do it, they will listen.