[...] rumors, but that doesn’t stop them from circulating the net) that Intactivists are going to demonstrate at this baby’s funeral!  Of course, that’s lead to MANY people comparing Intactivists to those Westboro Baptist [...]

[...] constructive, y’all know that, right? Sorry, there’s just been so much Internet Drama lately, I’m hesitant to ask for feedback of any kind!) (Not to belittle any of the inciting [...]

[...] Inactivist Mommies, Circumsising and Uncircumsising moms, this breaks my heart? http://blogs.babble.com/strollerderby/20… [...]

[...] Inactivist Mommies, Circumsising and Uncircumsising moms, this breaks my heart? http://blogs.babble.com/strollerderby/20… [...]

These people need to leave the family alone. They are already grieving and feel the regret for their untimely decision.

OK, is this any more than rumor mongering? How about some facts? Who is supposedly organizing this protest? Are intactivists the new bogeyman?

I wish I believed in hell, because these people, the Westboro asshole church members and the Koran burners all need to go there.

Um, The WHOLE Network planned a protest outside the hospital, focusing on the questionable practice of performing a non-therapeutic surgery on a neonate who was already in crisis. The doctors should rightly be held accountable for any care that is unethical and not otherwise medically sound. At no point did anyone plan to protest the family or their private events surrounding the horrific loss of their son. Quite the opposite; I’ve seen a huge outpouring of sympathy for the family from the intactivist community.

First, my heart absolutely goes out to this family. I can’t imagine how painful this must be. Second, I AM an intactivist, but I would NEVER tell a grieving mother that she killed her baby! (Regardless of whether circumcision played a role in his passing.) It’s ridiculous and hurtful and I apologize if anyone has said something like that. I really doubt that anyone will be demonstrating at this baby’s funeral. I have a feeling it’s “trolls” in the guise of intactivists threatening to picket the funeral to get a rise out of people online. Many intactivists ARE parents who’ve had their son’s circumcised and have since changed their minds about the practice. No sane person would argue that a parent who chooses circumcision loves their child any less. As an intactivist and a military wife, I find being painted with the same brush as those Westboro Baptist idiots extremely disheartening. I am certainly not out their crucifying this poor woman and trying to cause heartache.

No one said anything about protesting at the funeral. You need to get your facts straight and stop spreading rumors.

@Fred – the report of a protest at Joshua’s funeral came from his mother, Jill, directly – as it says in the post.

Yes, peaceful protesters at a hospital belong right up with Westboro church nutjobs. They are out there, peacefully protesting against strapping infants down and having their genitals forcefully removed without owner’s consent. Those JERKS!

Don’t you know the definition of bigotry is assigning a value to an entire group based upon the value of a few members of the group? Saying that all intactivists are a$$holes is bigoted, even IF some of them are. I’m going to guess that you’re trying to stir the $#it pot because you love controversy, and not because you care about the victims of hate. Here’s an example of the type of attitude that I personally try to encourage in other intactivists. http://www.drmomma.org/2010/06/effective-intactivism.html I think it would behoove all blog readers to remember that you can’t believe everything you read, and that there are two raging sides to the genital integrity issue. All anyone has to do in a room full of gullible people is say “I represent the president” and take a crap on the floor. Suddenly, everyone hates the president, who wasn’t even in the room.

Very sad that this post is continuing to spread lies and misinformation about what has happened in the wake of this truly tragic situation. Unfortunately, unless the medical practitioners responsible for this malpractice are held responsible for their actions, this type of situation will continue to happen. Honestly, it doesn’t even matter what one’s personal opinion of circumcision happens to be. According to the mother’s blog posts, a child with a major congenital heart defect on aspirin therapy was exposed to an unnecessary elective surgery (if she really wanted him circ’d it could have been put off until his heart was repaired and stable. If the doctors truly told her it could not be, they lied and that is gross incompetence on their part). The surgery was also performed on a child who was on aspirin therapy so that his blood wouldn’t clot as quickly. The surgery was botched, nicking an artery. Nursing and medical staff were apparently so clueless as to an arterial bleed that they tried vastly inadequate measures for over 2-1/2 hours before getting a urologist involved who was able to repair the artery. All of this leads to the heart attempting to beat faster in order to compensate for the inevitable drop in blood pressure caused by the loss of blood. A child with hypoplastic left heart cannot compensate successfully. Yes, he died because his heart gave out. A major, huge, red-flag, UNNECESSARY contributing factor to his heart giving out is this needless surgery performed and treated incompetently. Stating these facts, based upon the mother’s posts, is not attacking anyone. If the facts of this case are as she presented them, the medical “professionals” involved are responsible for the events leading up to this child’s death. Would he have survived otherwise? We don’t know. And we will never have the chance to know. But he certainly couldn’t survive with that added burden.

I love Riley, I was also born with Hypo-plastic left heart syndrome. Riley took care of me and saved my life through having a heart transplant. After almost 20 years they still take good care of me. However, I think that whoever the doctor was who thought it would be okay to circumcise Joshua while he needs his blood is to blame. They needed to be as gentle with him as possible. I do not blame the parents at all for not knowing what could happen, thousands of babies have been circumcised and gone home healthy. But Joshua was not healthy to begin with. They are not doctors. I feel so extremely blessed to have been born when I was. Although I was one of the first babies to be diagnosed with hypo-plastic left before autopsy I was born in the very short amount of time when doctors were still doing new-born transplants. I feel as though if they still gave babies the chance for a transplant – maybe Joshua wouldn’t have had to wait as long as he did because of the norwood procedure – which isn’t affective in itself anymore. Kids who had the norwood when they were babies are having heart failure now. As much as Riley has done for me, i gotta say it was the doctor who was being an idiot.

And oh yeah – the clarifications in these comments are correct: the demonstration is to be at the HOSPITAL. This blog entry is false.

I am an intactivist, and I have many intactivist friends. None of us, would ever do this at a funeral to a grieving family. This is a rumor, and it is proven on the site mentioned above. I am disappointed in the proCIRC community for claiming such lies about passionate people who stand up for the rights of helpless infants in peaceful caring ways. Even if there was one intactivist that became hateful, ONE BAD EGG DOES NOT MEAN ALL THE EGGS ARE BAD!

What complete rubbish. Where are you getting this information from? No intactivist I know would protest an innocent child’s funeral. Just stop with the lies already! It’s not only belittling of us as PEACEFUL, informative intactivists but also of this grieving mother.

Someone is spreading rumors and it needs to stop! I have no doubt in my mind that PRO-CIRC crazies are falsely impersonating an intactivist to try and hurt the entire intactivist community as well as this family.

I have more compassion and respect for people than that, please check your facts and remove this false report. I find it very offensive that this site would report false information like so.

The idea that intactivists were going to protest the funeral is a godd*mn lie. It was going to be a candlelight vigil AT THE HOSPITAL, in SUPPORT of the mother.

Non-therapeutic infant circumcision is painful, harmful, and completely unnecessary. The doctor that didn’t fully inform the parents, that pushed the elective procedure on a sick baby, and that held the scalpel should be held responsible. I hope she’s contacted a lawyer. My heart goes out to the family.

“…doctors have assured Jill that his circumcision had nothing to do with her son’s death…” – Yes. The same doctors who circumcised the child. They are trying to avoid a lawsuit. Of COURSE they’ve “assured her” it wasn’t the circumcision, and of course she buys it. She doesn’t want to believe she made the wrong “decision.” But nobody’s blaming her; her doctors should have known better than to urge a circumcision on a struggling child. I believe she was ignorant and didn’t listen to us, but I don’t place the onus on her; her doctors should have known better. They are the professionals that went to med-school for 12 years or so, not that mother. The protest is at the HOSPITAL, NOT her son’s funeral. We would NEVER do that. This rumor needs to be corrected.

THE MOTHER is the one who is spreading these lies about intactivists. NONE of us would protest at an infants funeral. How awful would we have to be to do that? That’s horrendous and absolutely disgusting. Much like the circumcision procedures themselves.

The mother has deleted the post that she titled “I almost killed my baby” in which she went on at length about how the infant’s penis continued to bleed up to 7 hours after the procedure, with the urologist putting pressure to the would for 2.5 hours to try to stop the bleeding. When that didn’t work, it was discovered that an artery in his penis had been nicked and that was why he had unstoppable bleeding. He needed 1 stitch to end the bleeding.

Do you know how much it takes for an infant to bleed out die? 2.3 ounces. They need to lose only one ounce to be in a state of critical hemorrhage.

How much do you think this infant bled out during the 7 hours his artery was open from this botched circumcision? More importantly – and this is our point in protesting the hospital – why would it take 7 hours of bleeding for these doctors and specialists to figure out what was happening?

Many people replied to her “I almost killed my baby” post saying “yeah our doctor wouldn’t do a circumcision until after he had his Glen surgery”. The Glen Fontan surgery is described as this: main vein that routes oxygen-poor blood from the upper half of the body (superior vena cava) is connected to the pulmonary artery—which then routes blood to the lungs.

So there’s a reason to wait to have a circumcision after this procedure, as blood flow is poor in congenital heart defect patients.

This baby had Hypoplastic left heart syndrome, and for 7 weeks suffered severely for it. The days leading up to the circumcision, he was dehydrated, crashing, his o2 was in the 60s, etc. The day of the circumcision, the doctor said “he’s stable enough” to have it done.

In babies with HLHS, the aorta and left ventricle are very small, and the aortic and mitral valves are either too small to allow sufficient blood flow or are atretic (closed) altogether. As blood returns from the lungs to the left atrium, it must pass through an atrial septal defect to the right side of the heart.

If a baby with an already struggling heart loses a good amount of blood (like in this case), what is that going to do to his system? Especially with his oxygen level already in the 80s, if I recall the blog post correctly. His system will go into shock, his little damaged heart will be working even more to try to oxygenate the rest of his organs and try to repair the nicked artery in his penis, etc.

Sure, official cause of death will be cardiac arrest. It was too much stress on his body. And the mother made a few comments about “why did I do this to my son?” before he died. When it was just the bleeding issue.

Of course the doctors are going to reassure her that the circumcision didn’t cause his death. They know damn well that the baby was too weak to endure the stress, but they went ahead anyway because it’s a “common procedure” and thus people think there are no risks involved. And when this baby died, the doctors hurriedly assured the family that it wasn’t because of the circ – probably in fear of being sued. Doctors do that, guys. They don’t want to have to pay a huge amount to a family for a mistake, and they certainly don’t want their malpractice insurance to go up.

But I digress. It just be a huge coincidence that this baby died of cardiac arrest just hours after a botched circumcision. And we’re the ones who are wrong here. Yeah, that’s right.

The mother is not to blame. Certainly not. She’s a victim here, as well. The staff and doctors should have been prepared for a sick infant to have complications. We would never protest at the funeral. She may not have been properly informed of the real risks by her doctors. I would hate to think that after weeks of seeing her poor son suffer as he did, that if the doctor mentioned there could be a risk of bleeding out and dying, that she’d take that chance anyway. At least not until her son was stable and had proper blood flow.

We have banded together and started a fund for this family. We have been respectful. We are angry at the hospital staff. We are disappointed in the choices that were made. But in no way do we approve of these extremist ideas.

My heart goes out to the family and the parents of the child. This is a tragic result of making the wrong choices. I believe that this could’ve happened to any one of us. These doctors can be very convincing in such cases. They’d tell parents anything to be allowed to do an unnecessary operation. I agree that more parents need to get more informed, however, if they do decide to make that decision, I’d say that it’d be due to great persuasion be a doctor who is supposed to have taken an oath of healing and not harming. This is a result of a Doctor’s gross abuse of hisher medical license for more money.

Just thought I would throw a thought out there…if his circumcision did indeed play a part in his death…then who is to say his next or first open heart surgery wouldn’t have cause the same issue? How do we know that a different surgery wouldn’t have caused the same thing?
Oh and Joseph4GI, I have had doctors save my life on more then one occasion, every single time it had to do with my heart. And I can tell you from first hand experience…it is not always a business. I currently have a fantastic cardiologist who attends every one of my tests, and sits down and goes over it with me every time and shows me exactly what he see and what he is talking about. And then will later sit with me in his office to discuss any and all questions I may have. And for your information, very few doctors do this.

Ugh. Your baby is DYING and you decide, hey, let’s mutilate his genitals while we’re at it? Horrific. Losing a baby is just the worst kind of hell, but chopping off his foreskin while he’s DYING? Who the hell does that? Seriously? WHO does that?

Hey, female “inactivists.” Worry about your own son’s penises. And male “inactivists.” Go whine to your mothers about your impotence. What a bunch of whiners. I didn’t circumcise my sons, but holy good god must your lives be empty to build a movement around this bullshit.

by the way why don’t u refer to her blog post that she conveniently deleted after his death (probably at the doctor’s request)…it was how long after she wrote this that he died?

I almost killed my baby

Warning: This post is not meant to be a debate. Please, do not leave me nasty comments about circumcision and how I don’t love God because we chose to have it done. After all we have been through, I don’t have the energy to listen to a debate that isn’t going to do any good at this point. Also, please don’t leave nasty comments about the doctors, nurses, hospital, etc. Hear me out, and if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything at all please. I know how much all of you love Joshua and just want what is best for him and I know you guys are just as upset as I am. Please be gentle with me tonight- I am feeling extremely fragile and guilty.

I talked to the doctor yesterday about getting Joshua circumcised. We have talked to them from the time of Joshua’s birth and told them that we wanted it done. He was originally going to have it done with the g-tube surgery a few weeks ago, but when the surgery didn’t happen, neither did the circ. They have told us over and over that the bigger the baby gets, the more likely they are to bleed. They are trying to get the circ’s done right after birth due to the bleeding risk.

The doctor came in this morning and asked if we wanted to get it done today. I said yes. I asked her about Joshua’s asprin dose and she assured me that enough time had passed since his last dose to not be a risk factor. I also asked the nurse and the nurse assured me that enough time had passed, but she also asked the doctor in front of me to give me that extra reassurance.

They brought in the consent form, I signed, and Joshua was circumcised at around 1:00pm. At 2 when they checked him, he was still bleeding quite a bit. They cleaned it off, put pressure on it, and then said they would check him again at 2:30. This continued on a few more times, and then the doctor became slightly concerned.

She finally decided to stand at Joshua’s bed for just about 2 1/2 hours holding his penis and putting pressure on it to try to get it to stop bleeding. They tried guaze, some sort of powder that was supposed to help it stop bleeding, pressure, and more powder. Nothing worked.

Finally the doctor called the urologist. He came over around 7:30. He said that Joshua needed a stitch or two to stop the bleeding. Apparently they knicked an arteri and that is why he wasn’t stopping.

Thankfully the urologist was able to stop the bleeding with just one stitch.

Right at this very moment, Joshua is now back on 85% oxygen through his nasal cannula, his sats are in the upper 60′s, he’s drugged, pale, and his crit levels are at 41. They are going to give him until midnight and run his crit levels again. If they have not risen, then he will receive yet another blood transfusion.

I should have known better. I should have said no. I had hoped that he would do well and that it wouldn’t be such a big deal. But instead, I almost killed my child by consenting.

Why can’t this poor baby catch a break? Why can’t he just have one thing go right for him? Why did I have to say yes?

I’m watching him sleep and I’m struggling with extreme guilt over all of this. I put him through it. Shane and I chose to have this done to him. It wasn’t necessary. Why did we do that? Why is this so freaking hard?

I’ve already recieved texts, emails, and messages from quite a few people who are pissed that this even happened. I don’t like it either, but please be gentle. I know you guys have good intentions, and nothing but love for Joshua, but please know I would have never said yes if I had known it would have turned out this way. Please be kind. -Jill- – - – -We have all been kind I even offered her my own personal condolences. NO ONE ever said anything about the funeral you need to retract.

I’d love to hear from fellow Intactivists (or anyone else, for that matter) on my blog post “A baby dies and the claws come out.” http://dailymomtra.com/?p=354

How CLEVER this mom would DELETE all of her incriminating blog posts where she blamed herself for what happened. One of her blogs was called “I almost killed my son”, where she spoke of the nonstop bleeding from the circumcision. Oh no, hemorrhaging doesn’t play any role on a small babies heart! Ridiculous! This was cosmetic surgery done on a already weak and suffering little boy for religious reasons and this mom is backstepping now because of being faced WITH THE TRUTH. I just can’t believe there are people dumb enough to believe the doctors when they say the blood loss/complications from the circumcision had no impact on his death. This is a mom who is in serious denial, maybe one day she will reflect back when she is of sane mind. So very tragic!!! I wish i had print screened her blog, i should have known she’d delete stuff, how phony.

Hey “Mistress_Scorpio.” How about we worry about the well-being of children, and you can go read a different article or blog about “non-bullshit?” A baby has died. His mother’s blog documents how he bleeds to death after his circumcision. Doctors are deliberately lying to cover their asses. And this is somehow not something to “whine” about? My life isn’t empty, but it would be much more enriched knowing doctors are taking the high ground and not putting children at risk for death for needless cosmetic surgery, thanks.

Intactivists…. holy crap. I blame the internet. WHO CARES?? I have asked about every man in my life what they think about circumcision being such a big issue and NONE of them understand it. Either you are or aren’t. Time to get a life and fight against a real problem like how many children die of hunger in the world or hell even lyme’s disease.

It is certanly insensitive to demonstrate anywhere near greiving family and friends. However, anyone that thinks the circumcision is not a factor in his death is being silly. This is serious trauma that they subjected the kid to. It was certainly a bad decision and a medical professional outrage. The parent is silly and misinfomred for wanting this. However, the doctor has done HARM, leading to death. Thios should never have been alowed in a medical setting. They did great harm to a fragil child.

How can anyone perpetrate genital mutilation, called circumcision, on a helpless infant—whether or not he’s ill? It should be as illegal to force circumcision on a male child as it is for female minors; genital mutilation is genital mutilation, regardless of the sex of the victim.
It is cruel, vile, barbaric and savage to mutilate anyone’s genitals without their consent.
Circumcision is neural and vascular damage to the penis. There are no standards for circumcision, so the damage varies wildly.

Parents cannot choose to mutilate a female minor’s genitals by circumcision, nor should they be able to choose to perpetrate it on a male child.

Circumcision is a fraud and a hoax.

A foreskin is not a birth defect; it is a birthright.

ERIC

Holly, for someone saying stop passing judgement; you sure are passing on a lot of your own judgement.
.
Maybe the mom didn’t want the baby to live subconsiously or the mom thought the baby was never going to live anyway. My MIL’s first son, she had circumcised because it was “tradition” but when her second son was born pre-term at 29 weeks she made the decision not to put his little body through more stress of a non-medical necessary surgical procedure. And I don’t think she was advised against it from a doctor or any other group with an agenda. And this lady had more than ample facts about the risk and she still made the choice to go forward. If it really was for religious reasons she could have waited until he had gained more strength, afterall circumsion can happen at any age.

The protest is abhorrent, but let’s make it clear: so is neonatal circumcision. It is horrible and it has NOtHING to do with Christ!!! Christ AND his disciples repeatedly spoke out against circumcision. It is barbaric & reprehensible & medically irresponsible. It should be banned at once from N/PICUs. It is unChristian. I weep for this family but Christians cannot claim to circumcize for religious reasons.

My son, Jonah was born with HLHS, and we had him circumsised when he was 8 days old, and there was not any trouble at all. Since Jill’s son’s doctors assured her this was not cause of his death, please leave this family alone! They made the decisions they felt best for their child. Blessings to you Jill and family.

I have two boys that are BOTH circ’ed one of which Had a congenital birth defect not HLHS but just as deadly. Its one thing to have opinions but its another to infringe your opinion on a grieving family. They have a facebook page and This little boys name Is plastered ALL OVER IT and they dont have any regard for the family or the baby involved. They disregarded the facts of the HLHS and DO ASK for help in pushing a criminal investigation. Go check it out for yourself W.I.N. Whole Indiana Newborns. DOnt take my word for it read it with your own eyes. A peaceful gathering at a funeral yeah a plee to push for an investigation yeah. They claim no protest was ever planned ok.
I could go on but it makes me to mad that these people are dragging this family through the mud at an ALREADY horrible enough time in there lives. FOR GODS SAKES they lost there baby LEAVE THEM ALONE PROTEST OR “PEACEFULLY GATHER” at a REAL situation like oh I dont know a real problem and not a religious practice which mind you has been around ALOT LONGER than any of the “inactivists”

The fact that people are protesting at a funeral in general is, in my opinion, despicable. The fact that people are protesting at the funeral of an INFANT over something UNRELATED TO THE CHILD’S DEATH is, in my opinion, HORRIBLE. People should be allowed to greive. I’m sure that when an “inactivist’s” baby, or child, or teen, or parent dies, they’ll want to have space to greive without being disrupted by protests. Leave the family alone. Losing a person in a family, especially a young person or infant, is EXTREME emotional baggage. They will have to carry memories of this day for the rest of their lives. The family deserves for their boy to go out of the world in a respectful environment. That means that if you have a problem with what his parents did to a private part of his body, then you leave the greiving family alone in the saddest 24 hours of their lifetime. I think that everyone and anyone deserves respect- especially at a funeral. Circumcize your son. Don’t circumcize your son. There is no health issues either way. The only person who may have a problem is his future girlfriend or wife. Please, if you have a problem with something, express it without hurting others.

Babble, I’ve got to agree. It looks overwhelmingly like the “funeral protest” was never going to happen. Change the title, update the article. That being said, leave that poor woman the hell alone. She’s GRIEVING. Yes, she is inviting people into her life through the blog but that doesn’t mean that you need to behave like an animal and savage her for being human. Also, please note, she has a husband, so if you *must* continue to place blame, don’t forget him.

WIN, a legitimate group, was planning a protest AT the hospital and AGAINST the hospital, not the mother.

As far as I am aware, the protest was planned to take place days or weeks after the funeral.

WIN, a legitimate group, was planning a protest AT the hospital and AGAINST the hospital, not the mother.

As far as I am aware, the protest was planned to take place days or weeks after the funeral.

It was never a protest, it was just to raise awareness and distribute information. So this doesn’t happen again -because whether you believe circumcision contributed to his death or not, this family didn’t need the trauma of 6.5 hours of unstopped bleeding, additional stitches, and this baby didn’t need the pain from circumcision/recovery and from having pressure applied to the area for 2 1/2 hours. And certainly I’m sure its not what they wanted to be doing his last day on earth.

A funeral protest was NEVER planned. I am a member of all major intactivist groups online, and I never saw ANY mention of it on any of them. The “funeral protest” story is a vicious rumor/lie started by someone, NOT by intactivists.

Thanks again M Scorp for your dose of sanity.

Givengrace: Our society needs bell ringers to bring attention to evils perpetrated against others. This is exactly what intactivists do. However, not all will listen and that is at their own peril. Apparently, this mother decided to ignore the bell ringers warning about the perils of infant circumcision. Certainly, she paid a horrible price for that refusal to listen and her son paid an even worse price.

This is not uncommon or rare. This topic is frequently brought up on discussion boards and is often ignored. People just don’t think this horror can happen to them but it can. Apparently this mother went this route. Infant circumcision is characterized as “the snip” apparently indicating that it is very minor and ultimately safe. That is simply not the case. Any surgery has attendant risks including death. Even in older children, there are deaths. In South African tribes, circumcision is typically done in the teen years. Despite the South African government banning these circumcisions, they continue and the result is between 40 and more than 100 deaths per year. This past year, there were 119 deaths if I remember correctly. EVERYONE there knows about these deaths yet the circumcisions go on and on. EVERY YEAR, hundreds of boys are hospitalized and many permanently lose their ability to father children.

Writing The AAP is not likely to do any good. The AAP is a trade organization that is in existence to do what is best for their members. Infant circumcision produces almost $1 BILLION a year for it’s members. Until Lawsuits exeeed the revenues of the procedure, nothing is likely to happen. The AAP is most interested in what will increase revenues for it’s membership and infant circumcision is among the most profitable procedures they perform. They are well aware of these deaths and choose to continue to try to take a neutral stance on the issue. They have recieved literally thousands of letters asking them to take a more pro-active stance and they have steadfastly refused. It appears they don’t want to kill the goose that is laying the golden eggs.

It’s telling that OB/GYNs perform 80% of infant circumcisions and also that their professional association (ACOG, The American College of Gynecologists) has the weakest stance on the subject. They are the ones making the most money on the procedure! Of course they’re not going to kill it!

The AAP is well aware of the controversy and of the deaths. In almost 40 years since their first policy statement, they have shown no inclination of changing their statement. In fact, they have packed their committee on infant circumcision with known circumcision promoters. Some of these are among the most rabid and radical circumciison promoters on earth.

These deaths are not rare. Google some of these names and you will see: Jacob Christian Holliday, Demetretus Manneker, Ryleigh McWillis. They have all died of their circumcision procedure. Apparently, The AAP doesn’t know how to use Google to search “circumciison deaths” or they choose to ignore them. I suspect the later.

As I said in a previous post, there are attorneys and even groups of attorneys (Attorneys for the Rights of the Child) who make a very good living exclusively pursuing wrongful circumcision cases. This is probably this mothers best route to get her just rewards for her son’s death Those who kill children should be made to pay for those deaths and stop doing what is killing children. “Intactivists” are simply the bell ringers calliing attention to the deaths. That is their moral position in our society. Apparently they are upholding their moral responsibility well and those who choose not to listen do so at their own peril as it appears this mother did.

LOL, M Scorp FTW!

“they [intactivists] have already called our local newspaper who called me today for an interview.”
Does anyone else think that newspaper has something to answer for?

I understand this family doesn’t need to be badgered. And clearly this is just a hoax to undermine the Intactivist message. No true Intactivist would ever int erupt a babies funeral.

It goes to show the lengths that pro-mutilation people will sink to discredit Intactivists. And of course look at all the sheep who actually believe it. Show me one person who admits to be going to protest this funeral! You can’t. Because it’s not happening.

This is yellow journalism at it’s worst.

I can’t believe the doctors would even think of doing such a thing to a neonate in precarious health, so I blame them, not the mom. The pro-cutting crowd is quickly loosing their ground are angry about it, which is why they have created this story to link intactivists to the religious nuts who protest at military funerals.

Linda, you are ALL judgment and NO empathy. How dare you question the mental stability of a mother who just lost her child! Simply because the family has decided to open the blog to donations doesn’t mean she’s engaging in “odd attention seeking” or is some sort of money-hungry nut case. Imagine the medical bills she’s facing on top of everything else. Of course, with baseless, ignorant and heartless comments like that, one would never expect you to give of yourself to help someone out of the goodness of your heart BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO GOODNESS IN YOUR HEART. Clearly you are too shallow to ever understand how hard this would be on a mother. Of all the disgusting comments I’ve seen directed at her, yours is by far the worst. You should be ashamed of yourself. Oh, I’m sorry, is that too judgmental for you? There’s a dose of your own medicine, ASSHOLE.

ANYONE attacking this mother in her darkest hour and using her dead baby to further their agenda is a sorry excuse for a human being. LEAVE HER ALONE.

Linda, I don’t know where you get the idea that she belongs to a fundamentalist church or that she is being misled by them, but clearly you have a problem with people of faith and lump anyone who leans on God instead of human understanding in the “crazy” category. So there’s no point in arguing with you about anything because you already came in with all all the preconceptions and ammo you need to tear her down instead of offer love and support, which I would think as a mother who also lost a newborn (as you claim) would understand. And when I said ANYONE who attacks her, I meant ANYONE with an agenda, not just you. Get over yourself.

“Would all these ignorant people be calling foul on a group of people who wish to protest FGM if a little girl had died from having her genitals mutilated?”

Of course they wouldn’t – they’d be just as upset as intactivists are about Baby Joshua’s needless death.

Unfortunately, there is no lack of double-standards and ignorance when it comes to the issue of male genital mutilation.

And infant males suffer as a result.

Shame on people for turning a blind eye to the brutality that is inflicted upon male children in America.

OK so now several weeks have gone by, and it is clear that the information in this article, even the headline, is entirely inaccurate and without any references to back it up. If you know anything at all about journalism, you will have possibly heard of this word before: RETRACTION. Any respectable journalist would have made one long ago. I’m not holding my breath, but… I think a retraction is overwhelmingly overdue.

I’m with Amy. This article was a joke regarding its reliability. Yes, the Haskins family deserves our sympathy; losing a child is beyond my comprehension. BUT just because Jill “said she was told someone heard about a funeral protest” is even beyond hearsay. You should be ashamed of keeping the rumor mill going!!!!!!

So, not only did this baby have to suffer through illness, he had his genitalia mutilated and butchered as well? The mother should be tied up and shot regardless of whether the baby died. Americans are, by far, the most brainless people on earth…and I am American.

Intactivists have a point to share- but they are such an angry group! If any change is to come about from their message, it has to come from a place of love. Education is much more effective than finger pointing. It takes time for culture to change. Goddess bless that little baby and his mother who is undoubtedly still grieving. My heart goes out to them both.

“Education is much more effective than finger pointing.”

We tried to educate her. Many of us posted warnings on her blog when she talked about contemplating the unnecessary genital surgery. We attempted to tell her of the very real risks involved, especially because of how frail the child was. She *refused* to listen to us by responding that she was going to cut baby Joshua anyway. When the procedure happened and the baby was in distress because the doctor had nicked an artery and the child had bled for 6-7 hours (it only takes about 2 ounces of blood loss to kill a baby – and this poor child couldn’t take the strain on his frail heart), she then posted a blog entry that she’d “almost killed” her baby. Then she wailed about her choice to cut him and even admitted that it was an unnecessary procedure. When the baby died she pretended that she’d never known about the risks involved (NOT true) and she proceeded to completely erase every blog entry where she had referred to the infant’s circumcision (covering her tracks). But screenshots of her self-implicating statements were saved. She’s been trying to re-write history ever since, but her own words reveal the truth of what really happened, no matter how much she tries to pretend otherwise.

I asked the members of this group aboyt protesting. They said they never had anything to do with a supposed protest. The group dies exist though.