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Would circumcision ever become a thing of the past? Not likely, but rates are down.
No matter where experts fall on the controversial topic of circumcising newborn boys, there is one thing they can now agree on. Circumcision rates are steadily declining in the United States.
According to a report last week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), routine hospital circumcisions of newborns have declined over the past 10 years. This news comes after more than a decade of consistent increase.
Which is worse: her pierced ears or her brothers circumcised penis?
In the never-ending disagreement about the morality of routinely cutting a newborn boys’ foreskin, many opposed to circumcision call the procedure barbaric and emotionally scarring. They compare it to female genital mutilation.
Those defending removal of the foreskin sometimes invoke ear-piercing. They say, if proposed bans against circumcision prevail, it follows that taking girls into Claire’s boutique for baby’s first gold posts should also be outlawed.
But that’s all pretty extreme. Weird, too. We’re fighting a penile one-upsmanship in a society where basically half the boys are intact, the other half permanently unsheathed. Continue reading »
Tools of a barbarian?
We all know Russell Crowe isn’t exactly the most level-headed guy in the world, but his recent anti-Semitic, anti-circumcision remarks on Twitter make his 2005 phone-throwing incident seem almost quaint. In response to a fan who asked if he would circumcize his newborn son, Crowe wrote in various tweets, “Circumcision is barbaric and stupid. Who are you to correct nature? I will always stand for the perfection of babies, i will always believe in God, not man’s interpretation of what God requires. Is it real that GOD requires a donation of foreskin?”
Then he “went on to single out the Jewish community,” Contact Music reports, by saying: Continue reading »
A mohel performs a ritual bris on an infant Jewish male
Should circumcision be illegal? That’s up to residents of San Francisco to decide in November when the question will appear on the ballot.
Opponents of the measure say it would be an outrage and a violation of their constitutional rights, particularly to Jews and Muslims who consider circumcision to be a sacred religious rite.
But the measure will still go before voters after a petition was returned to election officials with more than enough signatures to make it on the ballot.
Continue reading »
Jamaal Coleson Jr.
A toddler died in a New York City hospital after what was to be a routine circumcision.
The boy, Jamaal Coleson Jr, went to Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan on Tuesday for a circumcision. The boy was supposed to have the simple surgical procedure that required a local anesthetic, but for an unknown reason, he received general anesthesia and that is what doctors believe may have killed him.
Jamaal would have been two years old next month. Now his grieving family is searching for answers.
An Oregon mom performed a circumcision on her 3-month-old son with a box cutter and a pair of pliers.
A 29-year-old Oregon mom was arrested for first and second-degree assault and first-degree criminal mistreatment after attempting to perform a medical procedure on her infant son. After reading passages from the Old Testament, Keemonta Peterson decided the she wanted her 3-month-old boy to be circumcised. One problem. She knew the pediatricians at OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital wouldn’t circumcise a boy that old. So after watching a couple of circumcision videos she found on YouTube, Peterson decided to take matters into her own hands. And those hands held a box cutter (scalpel) along with a pair of pliers (tourniquet).
It didn’t go well.
Is circumcision genital mutilation?
I have to admit that when I’m finished with my own work, one of my favorite things to do is browse Babble and see what my colleagues have written. More often than not, there is a piece that reaffirms my parenting decisions in one way or another, which is exactly how I felt as I read Jennifer Margulis’ piece, The Uncircumcised Penis: One mother’s stance against infant circumcision.
In it, Margulis addresses all the common beliefs surrounding the procedure in a very straightforward way. As the mother of two older girls and a boy, I was very unfamiliar with the whole issue of circumcision when I was pregnant with my son, but as soon as my midwife told me he was a boy, the issue swirled around in my mind daily.
Should we have him circumcised or not?
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