So, Do We Still Think It's Okay to Randomly Hack off Bits of Little Boys?

Okay, really, outside of religious obligations, why does the developed world still think routine circumcision is fine? From peaceful parenting:

Tuesday, December 08, 2009
4-Yr-Old Hospitalized after Circumcision Escape AttemptIt happens yet again.

This morning a friend was telling me that one of her acquaintances causally mentioned to her that their 9 year old son is finally recovering from his circumcision - an amputative surgery inflicted upon him this past summer.

Why was it done?

A right of passage into manhood.

No, not in some far off land. Right here in North America.

Surprised?

Well, we do prohibit genital cutting on our daughters at any age...but we do nothing to protect our sons from the willy-nilly cutting off of their body parts.

Too often people believe there are no risks associated with the surgical amputation of the prepuce organ.

Wrong.

There are many risks. And every time a baby dies or seizures or lapses into coma or has a heart attach, or a boy ends up in the hospital with 1/2 his penis gone, or an infant suffers from uncontrolled hemorrhaging, or a newborn refuses to breastfeed after being cut -- we see these consequences of circumcision and just how grave and how frequent they are. And these are only the outwardly visible physical impact of genital cutting. It does not even touch on the mental, emotional, social consequences of such mutilation.

The article goes on tell the story of the mutilation of a four year old in New Zealand.  Apparently, this was part of the movement to 'circumsize the world'.  It's frightening that there are people who have a pathological obsession with cutting up little boys... and we don't lock them up:

A doctor who botched the circumcision of a wriggling four-year-old, severing an artery in the boy's penis, may face further disciplinary action, after a report by the Health and Disability Commissioner was released today.

The botched operation, which saw the boy require emergency hospitalization, was performed at an unnamed medical center in January by a general practitioner, assisted by a doctor unqualified to practice in New Zealand and the doctor's wife.

...

On arriving at the medical center, the parents and the young patient were directed to the waiting room, with the doctor busy performing a circumcision on another patient, a 14-year-old boy. The family were concerned to hear the screams of the older boy.

...

The boy's mother told the commissioner the child was taken into the operating room, was given an injection, then cut into seconds later, before the painkiller had time to take effect. Seeing her son in pain caused the mother to start crying, at which point she was ordered out of the room by the doctor, apparently for passing her anxiety onto the child and disturbing him.

...

After about an hour, the boy's father walked in to the operating room to see the doctor apparently talking to another doctor on the phone about how he didn't know what was going on.

He saw the clinic manager and the unlicensed doctor were holding the boy "as if they were holding a wild animal", the report said.

About an hour-and-a-half after the boy went into the operating room, the doctors called an ambulance, due to uncontrollable bleeding. The doctor, however, said the boy was subdued and calm, while the father complained of dizzy spells and became pale, and was asked to leave the room, lest he collapse during the operation.

He did admit the child became "extremely difficult to handle" and, due to the strength of the four-year-old's pelvic muscles, enlisted the aid of two people to hold him still. "It's really difficult because the pelvic muscles are tough and the forearm muscles are not that strong," the doctor said.

If you live in the developed world, there is absolutely no valid reason for partaking in routine circumcision.  If you subject your son to this unnecessary and dangerous procedure, you wronged your child.  If you were duped by doctors into thinking it was the best course of action, I feel sorry for you and your son, but it was your responsibility to learn about circumcision.  These days, the information is available, and it is wrong to abdicate your parental responsibility to someone else, regardless of that person's title.