Sunday, February 7, 2010

Circumcision is a Human Rights Violation

There are only 2 causes that I would ever hold a sign for in a protest - Pro-Life and Circumcision. In my mind, they have almost the same weight. They are definitely both human right violations!


a Quote from a blog:
We have banned all forms of genital cutting of baby girls in
the United States since the 1990s with our FGM Bill. This includes any
genital cutting done for religious reasons on a non-consenting person.
Don’t baby boys deserve the same protection? This is what our MGM Bill
would do http://www.mgmbill.or...g
Genital cutting and the amputation of a healthy, functioning body
organ from a non-consenting human being is a severe violation of human
rights. If we did such a thing to a dog, we would be charged with
animal abuse. And what we do to babies due to our own ignorance is
certainly more criminal than that.

Male circumcision as we know it, and female circumcision in the
United States actually share a VERY similar history. All the myths we
now toss around concerning MGM, we once held about FGM. http://www.drmomma.org/2009/09/history-of-female-circumcision-in.html

There are many reasons that a large percentage of the developed
world today has a ban on ALL forms of genital mutilation on
non-consenting persons – no matter the reason. No human being is less
valuable, or less deserving of basic human rights, simply because they
were born with a larger prepuce organ.
- from http://www.drcindyblog.com/they-dont-remember/2010/comment-page-1/#comment-254


My Personal thoughts: 
Some people have said to me, wow, you are really against circumcision - is it really that bad?
Like most people, I didn't know anything about circumcision until I started asking around and looking it up. I knew the thought of it made me feel uncomfortable, but I didn't know why. When I was in high school was when I first heard about female genital mutilation - at the age of puberty, they would cut girls so that they could not feel pleasure during sex. The injustice of it all made me cry. I remember this memory distinctly. As I researched the circumcision of males, I began to realize that there is not much difference between the two. Both are human rights violations.
In America, this is starting to become a class issue - poor uneducated people circumcise, while rich educated people do not. This is really sad, and even more reason why it should just be against the law period.
In Europe, circumcision has become a non-issue - less than 1% are circumcised. As moms unite in America, hopefully someday soon, we will also have the same statistics - maybe even better at 0%. What most of us would like to see is that any Human Rights Manifesto of any country would have genital cutting of any form to be included in that it goes against the basic human rights of any person, male or female.

 Female Genital Mutilation has been against the law since 1997 in the United States. There are many Third World countries though that still perform this act on girls so that girls will feel less or no pleasure during intercourse. Those in the Intact Movement would like to see that every country's Human Rights Manifesto contain a clause that outlaws both Female and Male Genital Mutilations, as both are human rights violations. If you think about it, doing something that permanent to a child without his or her consent is a violation of your basic human rights. Currently, there is a bill to make Male Genital Mutilation illegal as well. Please give it your support, and hopefully soon the United States will have a 1 percent or less circumcised rate - which all the other civilized countries proudly claim.

http://www.mgmbill.org/

Source(s):

http://www.mgmbill.org/
http://www.drmomma.org/2010/02/massachusetts-mgm-bill-public-hearing.html


Oh!  And some of the best campaigners for Intact boys I know were moms who were naive with their first sons and now spread the word fervently to as many moms as they can so they won't make the same mistake!


mgmbill.org
A Bill to End Male Genital Mutilation in the U.S.

Circumcised man sues hospital and wins case..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8szj1jFCWM

http://www.drmomma.org/2009/10/class-action-lawsuit-circumcised-men.html

MRI studies: The brain permanently altered from circumcision:
http://www.drmomma.org/2009/10/mri-studies-brain-permanently-altered.html

Out of 100 Circumcised boys:

75 will not readily breastfeed post-op

55 will have adverse reactions from the surgery... See More

35 will have post-op hemorrhaging to one degree or another

31 will develop meatal ulcers

10 will need to have the circumcision surgery repeated to fix prior surgical problems/error

8 will suffer infection at the surgical site

3 will develop post-operative phimosis

2 will have a more serious complication (seizure, heart attack, stroke, loss of penis, death)

1 will require additional immediate surgery and sutures to stop hemorrhage

1 will develop fibrosis

1 will develop phimosis

1 will be treated with antibiotics for a UTI (urinary tract infection)

1 will be treated with antibiotics for surgical site infection

Of those who do receive pain medication for the surgery (about 4% of those boys undergoing circumcision in the U.S.) some will have adverse reactions to the pain medication injected

Circumcision is Not recommended by any national health organization in the world, and many are actively against it.
http://www.drmomma.org/2010/02/new-meta-analysis-study-concludes.html

Here is a circumcision primer if you want more information:
http://www.drmomma.org/2010/02/male-circumcision-in-usa-human-rights.html

Circumcision Videos - http://www.asnatureintended.info/circumcision-videos.html

"A piece of skin the size of a quarter contains more than three million cells, 12 feet of nerves, 100 sweat glands, 50 nerve endings, and almost three feet of blood vessels. Circumcision removes a piece of skin almost equivalent to a 3 x 5 index card."

And here are the medical reasons (and God-given reasons) to be intact as God planned:

The foreskin has numerous protective, sensory, and sexual functions.

· Protection: Just as the eyelids protect the eyes, the foreskin protects the glans and keeps its surface soft, moist, and sensitive. It also maintains optimal warmth, pH balance, and cleanliness. The glans itself contains no sebaceous glands-glands that produce the sebum, or oil, that moisturizes our skin.11 The foreskin produces the sebum that maintains proper health of the surface of the glans.
· Immunological Defense: The mucous membranes that line all body orifices are the body's first line of immunological defense. Glands in the foreskin produce antibacterial and antiviral proteins such as lysozyme.12 Lysozyme is also found in tears and mother's milk. Specialized epithelial Langerhans cells, an immune system component, abound in the foreskin's outer surface.13 Plasma cells in the foreskin's mucosal lining secrete immunoglobulins, antibodies that defend against infection.14
· Erogenous Sensitivity: The foreskin is as sensitive as the fingertips or the lips of the mouth. It contains a richer variety and greater concentration of specialized nerve receptors than any other part of the penis.15 These specialized nerve endings can discern motion, subtle changes in temperature, and fine gradations of texture.16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23
· Coverage During Erection: As it becomes erect, the penile shaft becomes thicker and longer. The double-layered foreskin provides the skin necessary to accommodate the expanded organ and to allow the penile skin to glide freely, smoothly, and pleasurably over the shaft and glans.
· Self-Stimulating Sexual Functions: The foreskin's double-layered sheath enables the penile shaft skin to glide back and forth over the penile shaft. The foreskin can normally be slipped all the way, or almost all the way, back to the base of the penis, and also slipped forward beyond the glans. This wide range of motion is the mechanism by which the penis and the orgasmic triggers in the foreskin, frenulum, and glans are stimulated.
· Sexual Functions in Intercourse: One of the foreskin's functions is to facilitate smooth, gentle movement between the mucosal surfaces of the two partners during intercourse. The foreskin enables the penis to slip in and out of the vagina nonabrasively inside its own slick sheath of self-lubricating, movable skin. The female is thus stimulated by moving pressure rather than by friction only, as when the male's foreskin is missing.
· The foreskin fosters intimacy between the two partners by enveloping the glans and maintaining it as an internal organ. The sexual experience is enhanced when the foreskin slips back to allow the male's internal organ, the glans, to meet the female's internal organ, the cervix-a moment of supreme intimacy and beauty.












Here is a great new website:  As Nature Intended - http://www.asnatureintended.info 
 here are the links as posted on their site:
Circumcision Information and Resource Pages
http://cirp.org

Circumcision Resource Center

http://www.circumcision.org

Intact America

http://www.intactamerica.org

National
Organization to Halt the Abuse
and Routine Mutilation of Males

http://www.noharmm.org

The Circumcision Information Site
http://www.circinfosite.com
Mothers against Circumcisionhttp://www.mothersagainstcirc.org

Nurses against Circumcision
http://nurses.cirp.org

Doctors against Circumcision

http://www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org

Catholics against Circumcision

http://www.catholicsagainstcircumcision.org

Jewish against Circumcision
http://jewishcircumcision.org

 
               Students for Genital Integrity        http://www.studentsforgenitalintegrity.org
 Circumcision Videos - http://www.asnatureintended.info/circumcision-videos.html 



Here is a comment on a blog that I just love - what an interesting way of looking at it - the great American Foreskin Holocaust. 
http://attachedwithapaddle.blogspot.com/2010/05/hard-post-on-touchy-subject.html

Routine circumcision is a crime against nature that has deprived tens of millions of American males of the epicenter of the normal male sexual experience. Last century, something on the order of 100 million North American infant boys were routinely circumcised without any anesthesia whatsoever. This should have been criminal. Often, the parents were not consulted. This combined lack of anesthesia and parental consent, I call the American Foreskin Holocaust.

I am happy to say that this Holocaust is ebbing, as parents are now consulted, and local anesthesia is now good (albeit not yet standard) practice. But the slaughter of foreskin and frenulum persists, grounded in the inability of many American parents and sex researchers to understand the normal workings of human sexuality.

If there is one thing I stand for and believe, if there is one thing I am prepared to devote every bit of strength that God has allowed me to retain despite my advancing years, it is an end to that moral abomination that is routine infant circumcision in the United States of America. And what happened to your son is one of many facts underlying my determination.

So help me God.

"Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise." (Martin Luther)

I have been married for over 20 years and am raising daughters. My wife is the only person with whom I have been intimate. I am intact. - RD










Here is a great book on the history of Circumcision
:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for a most interesting and informative post. I'm one of five brothers and we were left to be natural(intact foreskin)by our parents. All of us are adults and we never had a medical problem with being natural. We can't imagine what it would be like to not be as nature intended - nor do we have any desire to find out.
I hope you realize that most of the world agrees with you.