Warning to Gentle Readers: This is kinda graphic. If you’re liable to blenching and fainting, read on at your own risk.
Dear Mr Sherman
I am writing to express my horror at your offer of “Holistic Circumcision” to non-Jewish families. I am a freelance writer who recently studied the topic of circumcision in some depth for an article on bioethics, and I find the information presented on holisticircumcision.com dishonest and disturbing.
You use words like “discomfort” to describe the pain a child endures during the process. My studies have shown this to be a gross understatement. The Brady-Fryer study “Pain relief for neonatal circumcision” has demonstrated that no method of pain relief during circumcision is effective, and that sugar water is particularly ineffective. Your site presents the shortened time of “holistic” circumcision as a positive; however, the duration of hospital circumcisions is usually due to administering pain relief such as a nerve block - more effective than sugar water. While some babies do not cry during the procedure, this is not due to a lack of pain but due to the infant lapsing into shock or a near-coma from the treatment (see the Gunner et al paper “Coping with Aversive Stimulation in the Neonatal Period: Quiet Sleep and Plasma Cortisol Levels during Recovery from Circumcision”); and that the neurological effects are long-lasting is demonstrated by the fact that circumcised infants show a greater pain response during vaccinations. I notice your site also glosses over exactly how the procedure is performed; but given the nature of penile anatomy the salient techniques of circumcision - severing the adhesions between the foreskin and the penis and clamping/cutting the foreskin - are presumably employed, and (as testified by men circumcised later in life) incredibly painful. Studies now show that newborns feel pain more intensely than adults, not less. “Discomfort” is hardly the word to use here.
Your site correctly states that much Internet information on circumcision is “virulent” and “anti-circumcision”, with which I agree; but that it is calculated to “frighten and misinform” is an unsubstantiated slander. It is rather designed to illuminate and educate; to counteract the myths of circumcision perpetrated by a deeply sick culture which believes it is permissible to cut into the healthy, functional genital tissue of non-consenting minors. Surely you must be aware that the bioethical and medical objections to circumcision do not rest solely or even largely in the fact that circumcision is routinely performed in a “non-holistic” hospital environment! Your paragraph smoothly implies that because your procedure is “holistic”, the objections of anti-circ advocates are answered; but this is not the case. To refresh your memory, some of the principal objections are:
- the violation of the bioethical principles of autonomy, beneficence and non-maleficence by performing a damaging, medically unnecessary procedure on a non-consenting individual
- the sexual dysfunction caused both intrinsically by the act of circumcision (loss of sensitivity through keratinisation, loss of the gliding action during sex facilitated by the foreskin, loss of the specialised nerves in the foreskin and frenulum) and in some cases circumstantially due to circumcision complications (penoscrotal webbing, hairy shaft, painful erections, buried or trapped penis, phimosis, meatal stenosis). See the Sorrels and Snyder paper “Fine-touch pressure threshholds in the adult penis”
- the further risks of more serious injury resulting from the operation, such as amputation, gangrene and death
- the sexual dysfunction between partners which often arises due to the mechanics of sex with a circumcised man (see the Gillian Bensley/Gregory Boyle study which links circumcision to female arousal disorder and vaginal dryness)
- the psychological problems which arise in some men as a result of their circumcisions (see the article by DaiSik, Kim and Myung-Geol, Pang, as well as the testimonies of many circumcised men)
- the misperception RIC promotes that the foreskin is a “disposable”, unnecessary organ, which leads some practitioners to overprescribe circumcision as a remedy for minor problems rather than treating them (for instance, UTIs)
- psychological problems which occasionally arise in intact men due to a culture which views surgically altered genitals as the norm and normal genitals as “dirty” or “weird”
- the adverse effects cicumcision has on bonding and breastfeeding establishment (see La Leche League International’s statement on circumcision)
- the tendency of the medical profession to overstate the medical benefits of circumcision and minimise the harm, either for financial reasons or reasons of tradition
As you can see, the manner in which the circumcision is performed is irrelevant to these objections, and your site does not engage with them. As such, parents who choose your services will not be making an informed choice based on the information provided. While your “Post-Circumcision Advice” page briefly mentions “bleeding, infection, changes in appearance and sensitivity and/or damage”, this is neither a comprehensive nor adequate explanation of the effects of circumcision. For example, it is common among men circumcised during adulthood to label sexual satisfaction before circumcision at a rating of 10, and after circumcision at 3. Parents simply reading “changes in sensitivity” will not be informed of the magnitude of the sexual dysfunction caused. You also cite studies demonstrating a link between circumcision and the reduction of AIDS transmission, even though it is commonly accepted in medical circles that these studies are flawed and problematic.
Perhaps most disturbing, however, is your use of terms such as “holistic” to describe the procedure. Infant circumcision is “holistic” only in that it damages the child physically, psychologically and emotionally. While the testimonials on the site certainly seem to indicate the parents involved found the ceremony moving and spiritual, the fact remains that you were causing irreversible sexual damage to their helpless babies. There is no way to make this fact palatable. If the ceremony in question involved a moving, spiritual, “gentle” ceremony in which the baby’s fingers were amputated you would rightly be prosecuted; and it is only a severe intellectual dissonance on the part of American society which allows this particular surgery to be condoned.
All that being said, while I am still no fan of Jewish circumcision for Jewish babies for the above reasons, I do recognise the strength of the Jewish belief that circumcision is divinely commanded. I can even see how that fact would outweigh all other ethical considerations. However, to my knowledge there is nothing in Jewish teachings or law which considers circumcision necessary for non-Jewish babies. I know Jewish women who have circumcised their own children for religious reasons while remaining adamantly opposed to circumcision for any other reason (barring extreme medical circumstances, obviously). They argue that without the divine command, circumcision is nothing more than a mutilation that should not be practiced - just as, while it was moral for Abraham to be willing to sacrifice Isaac due to divine command, it would have been immoral for him to recommend son-slaying to all his friends!
In short, I ask you to reconsider offering circumcision to non-Jewish babies. I ask you to consider the information I have provided above; to question it, to look at the studies I have cited and engage with the arguments presented, rather than simply writing them off as “anti-circumcision”. They are anti-circumcision; but people are anti-circumcision for very good reasons.
Sincerely
Sarah Tennant.
myrick Says: