Author: Richard Duncker

Two letters

In Germany the Court in Cologne issued a ruling [11] which stated that the religious circumcision of a boy “violated his rights” and caused “bodily harm.” Subsequently a flurry of articles have appeared in the press with the aim of preserving the status quo, namely that non-therapeutic male circumcision should be seen as a benign procedure.

The truth is very different, the evidence from the physical sciences is overwhelming, circumcision is a significant body modification.

Psychological evidence is limited and research is underfunded, we simply have no idea of the harm that might be being caused.

Demographers have found evidence of psycho-sexual dysfunction [12] in adult men that is associated with circumcision. The two letters that follow have not been published by the Sunday Times. They are included here because of their passion and reason.

From Dr John Warren
Minette Marrin tells her readers ‘Here’s one form of child abuse we simply have to live with’, referring to non-therapeutic circumcision of male children, and she is wrong.   My own body was mutilated by this abuse 70 years ago and it was 50 years before I dared to face ridicule and raise my lone voice against it.   By now I have been joined by more and more protesters, men and women, from all cultural and religious backgrounds, and we shall never be silent.   Our protests will only grow until this form of child abuse is ended in this realm.   I may not live to see it, but I can assure Ms Marrin that there will come a time when medical students will ask their professor of ethics in astonishment:  ‘Did doctors really do that to healthy babies in Britain in the 21st century?’

John Warren, Physician,
Chairman and Founder of NORM-UK

From Laura MacDonald
Dear Sir,
A few weeks ago you printed a story of a dentist’s offer to excise the clitoral hood of a Muslim girl, arousing nationwide outrage on her behalf. This weekend, Minette Marrin jauntily offers up the nerve-rich hoods of thousands of small defenceless boys as a trade for what she calls ‘religious harmony’.

Is it any wonder we can’t tackle FGM in any of its forms in this country when we suffer such bizarre doublethink?

A girl’s small foreskin is deemed so precious that we offer a sentence of up to 14 years in jail if someone takes it from her; a boy’s larger and more functional one is apparently so expendable it can be traded by someone he has never met, in return for her peace of mind.

Facts are also apparently expendable to Marrin. Far from having ‘tiny’ risks in the developed world, male infant circumcision is associated with life threatening harm: in Birmingham, where cultural circumcision is undertaken by the NHS, 11 boys were treated in paediatric intensive care with life threatening haemorrhage or infection in 2011 (in one hospital alone). In Oldham, the PCT has provided under Freedom of Information a report showing 9 babies suffered circumcision haemorrhage and shock over a period of five years – one bled to death. Evidence of long term urinary problems is also growing, with many Muslim and Jewish boys suffering a painful surgical procedure to open a urethra closed by scar tissue. And this is even without talking of surgical slips, of extreme pain and of the psychosexual feelings around loss of a mobile primary erogenous zone.

I expected better of the Sunday Times than this, and better of Marrin. Firstly, this debate should be based on facts not myths. Secondly, one doesn’t make trades with other people’s assets, least of all children’s private parts.

Yours sincerely
Laura MacDonald

Thanks
Men Do Complain is deeply grateful to all those who speak for the children who cannot protect themselves from the inappropriate activities of adults.

Bournemouth vigil

25th June 2012. Men Do Complain staged its annual vigil to remind the doctors attending the British Medical Association’s Annual Representative’s Meeting (doctors’ trade union) that cutting the genitals of healthy boys who cannot give personal informed consent is profoundly unethical.

Our mission was to support the doctors from the Secular Medical Forum who proposed motion 336; the motion called on the B.M.A. to debate the ethical, medical and financial issues surrounding the circumcision of non-consenting males.

Motion 336 proposed

“That this meeting:

(i) Demands that child safeguarding procedures must apply to all children without gender discrimination and irrespective of the beliefs or social status of the child’s parents or guardians;

(ii) Notes the increasing evidence of significant complications from childhood male circumcision, including meatal stenosis, bleeding, infection, scarring and adult psychosexual dysfunction;

(iii) Endorses the May 2010 position statement of the Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) which called non-therapeutic circumcision of male minors a violation of children’s rights to autonomy and physical integrity;

(iv) Notes  the GMC guidance in respect of the responsibilities of registered medical practitioners in the matter of female genital mutilation (FGM) (0-18 years: Guidance for all doctors; end notes reference 15) – and as set down in the 2003 FGM legislation;

(v) Insists on equality between GMC policies for doctors concerning females and males in respect of non-therapeutic genital surgery.

(vi) Calls for no further commissioning or funding of non-therapeutic circumcision of male minors in the NHS;”

Disappointingly motion 336 was not chosen to be debated. The reception that we received  in 2011 at the Cardiff meeting was slightly confrontational; this year those opposed only showed us the cold shoulder and there were more delegates supportive to our cause than last year. Thank you to all who turned up and to all who supported us behind the scenes.

No deaths

Circumcision never kills anyone; that is what the authorities would have you believe. In the U.K. if a child dies after a circumcision the inquest that follows will likely record the cause of death as loss of blood, septicaemia or sudden infant death syndrome (Hornsey Sept 2009 see photos).
The cause of death is never recorded as being due to circumcision. So there are no cases of death due to circumcision recorded in the literature therefore there is never a death caused by circumcision. A verdict that includes the words “following circumcision” is a verdict that satisfies all those who have standing at the inquest.

The deceased child’s parents who requested the circumcision and want to believe that the death was accidental are satisfied. The operator medically qualified or otherwise does not want to have his or her practice questioned. The authorities will never face up to the fact that if the boy in question had been allowed to remain intact his death would have been a most unlikely occurrence. The authorities fear the fuss that powerful lobby groups who have enjoyed tolerance of their practices would make if their community’s traditions were even questioned let alone altered.

When a child dies “following circumcision” the powerful ignore the few voices that would try to represent the interests of the deceased child, who of course cannot organise his own representation. The dead child can never ask the question “I had no disease, there was nothing wrong with me so why did you do this to me?” The legal system denies natural justice to the boys whose lives have been so cruelly and unnecessarily ended.

The interests of children who die after non-therapeutic circumcisions should, as a matter of course, be represented at inquests by the Official Solicitor, a guardian ad litem or other child protection agency. Until society takes the issues surrounding male circumcision as seriously as female circumcision boys will continue to suffer disfigurement, impaired sex lives and rarely, but most tragically, death.

£6 million wasted

Six million pounds, how did we arrive at that amount?
In the U.K. the number of circumcisions done for medical reasons is about 6% of the male population (F.O.I. requests are pending). The number of circumcisions in other North West European countries, performed for medical reasons is very small. A fair estimate is 1% of the male population [9].

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that in 2010 there were 398,500 male births in the U.K. 6% of 398,500 is 23,910 which is the probable number of boys circumcised by the N.H.S. for “medical reasons”.

If the cost of an individual procedure, including after care, is taken as £300 (the cost of a circumcision to the N.H.S may well be as high as £868) then the total cost comes to £7,173,000. Reducing the rate of circumcisions to 1% would save the N.H.S. £5,977,500 each year. This takes no account of possible damages awarded to victims of this misguided policy in the future as a result of likely legal actions.

Do boys in the U.K. really need circumcision “for medical reasons” at a rate that is six times greater than the rate seen in other N.W. European countries?