Attorneys for the Rights of the Child Newsletter

How I Became an Intactivist

(I had a misdiagnosed kidney infection that was properly sorted out by a small-town family doctor when I left the care of military physicians upon my father's retirement from the Navy.) While my young hospital experience was not fun, it has been one of my life blessings as it caused me to see the need to be an educated medical consumer. First harmed is the baby boy. In a threeto five-minute chat covering the sexual function and impact, the lack of equal protection, bodily integrity, and the...

Massachusetts's Senators and Representatives Must Protect Boys and Girls

No medical association that has issued a policy on MGC, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, has found sufficient "potential benefits" to justify the procedure. [...] the procedure causes serious harm and lacks medical justification.

A Bird's Eye View of the Hearing On the Massachusetts Bill to Outlaw Genital Mutilation

On March 2, 2010, the Judiciary Committee of the Massachusetts legislature held a public hearing on the "Massachusetts State Prohibition of Genital Mutilation Act". Laurie Evans, the Jewish director of New York's National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers (NOCIRC), told the Committee that under Jewish law, the son of a Jewish mother is Jewish, whether circumcised or not, and that despite great pressure she had kept her son intact.

1: Arc Letter to the Aap Committee Members

What truly is paradoxical is for the nation's leading organization of doctors treating children to weaken its opposition to a practice proven to cause substantial, irreparable, lifelong harm to children. [...] your proposed, seemingly innocent "ritual nick" almost certainly violates the Federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act, whose criminal provisions became effective in March 1997.

The Massachusetts Mgm Bill Public Hearing: A Day in Intactivist History

Based on some follow-up conversations and news posts, it appears that Senator Cynthia Creem, the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who happens to be Jewish, did some pretty intense behind-the-scenes maneuvering to kill the bill.

Academy Clarifies Position Denouncing All Forms of Female Genital Cutting

Public Retraction Issued By AAP Reaffirming its strong opposition to female genital cutting (FGC), the AAP Board of Directors retired a recent policy statement on FGC and replaced it with another statement clearly denouncing the practice.

4: Letter of Retraction Sent by Aap to Arc

The reputable UK newsmagazine The Economist, in its June 12 print issue, examines female genital cutting (FGC) in some detail with reference to the recent American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) position statements, which first (on May 1) condoned and then (on June 1) rejected the permissibility of minor forms of FGC.

Group Backs Ritual 'Nick' As Female Circumcision Option

Commentary In a controversial change to a longstanding policy concerning the practice of female circumcision in some African and Asian cultures, the American Academy of Pediatrics is suggesting that American doctors be given permission to perform a ceremonial pinprick or "nick" on girls from these cultures if it would keep their families from sending them overseas for the full circumcision. The academy's committee on bioethics, in a policy statement last week, said some pediatricians had sug...

Aap and Fgm

Female genital mutilation, even the "nick" that the AAP suggested, is prohibited by federal law, but this didn't stop the group from stepping onto the slippery slope of promoting genital cutting.

Aap Okays Some Forms of Fgc, Then Withdraws Approval Under a Firestorm of Criticism

The conflicts of interests between the doctor, the victim, the parents, and any prosecuting authority to characterize and define would create chaos and pain and suffering only the surgery itself could rival. [...] the whole concept of equality under the law is that exceptions to prohibitions against violating the rights of others are prohibited even where a whole community's cultural identity is at issue.

Open Letter to Task Force Members Says Failing to Give Same Protections to Boys and Girls Is 'Extraordinary Betrayal' of Medical Ethics, Human Rights

Chapin noted that even if these studies' results are valid for adults in poor countries with very high HIV prevalence, this has nothing to do with babies in the United States. Because a principle of bioethics requires medical necessity and informed consent to justify something as invasive as surgery - and because neither can be present in neonatal male circumcision -the AAP has a high hill to climb to answer a simple question; Chapin said: "If it's not right to cut the normal genitals of bab...

Thank You for Denouncing Fgc, but ...

The AAP gives as reasons for the revised statement that FGC is illegal under federal law, and that it is the AAP's goal to protect all young girls from the harms of FGC. [...] the AAP does not base its revised policy on any rights of girls to personal autonomy or bodily integrity.

Genital Integrity Awareness Week (Giaw), March 27, 2010

A proudly intact Puerto Rican guy from Brooklyn with his two intact teenage sons stopped by and gave us some very encouraging words - he took an IA brochure and plans to donate.

Giaw, March 27 - 30, 2010

The west lawn of the Capitol is rather expansive and the building itself is quite imposing, but the first thing that catches the eye of passersby is the word "PENIS" on a giant sign with a bunch of other giant words. Up close, with a beard, sunglasses, dreadlocks, a towering American flag hat, and a shirt with the word "IRCUMCISION" with a bloody C feilen below, there is a man who stands out even more than the word "PENIS" or his many signs:

Giaw, March 31, 2010

Anyhow, I bet this nice pediatric neurologist $100 that I, a college freshman/sophomore on leave from undergraduate studies since June, 1962, was going to teach him some human neuroanatomy about which he knew nothing. Someone wanting to have a conversation about religion goes to the religion table, conversations about medicine are held at the medicine table, anthropologists gravitate to the anthropology table, legal questions go to the law table, history buffs to the history table, activists...

Royal Dutch Medical Association Takes Important Step Forward

All non-therapeutic genital cutting violates child abuse statutes. [...] the Supreme Court has ruled that every person has a right under the U.S. Constitution to privacy, including bodily (and hence genital) integrity, to liberty or autonomy, and to equal protection of the laws.

American Medical Students Association: 2010 Convention Report

Consider, for instance how well our mission fits within the aims of AMSA, found on a T-shirt they sell members: "Reclaiming the Ethics of Medicine" "Removing Conflicts of Interest" "Restoring the Sanctity of the Patient/Physician relationship" We could not have said it better-and note that they put 'patient' in front of physician. 2 Having something - anything -sensible for students to do upon arrival at the booth is important. [...] I'd like to thank the staff at Intact America for their wo...

Executive Director's Message

Thanks to our numerous generous contributors, we had an opportunity to explore a few timely issues in depth - the recent flurry of statements on female genital cutting (FGC) by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), Genital Integrity Awareness Week 2010, and the hearing on the Massachusetts legislation to outlaw male and female genital cutting. [...] I look forward to seeing many of you at the symposium.

Tortured Doctrines, Tortured Bodies: How Legal Fictions Help Justify and Perpetuate Male Circumcision and Other Inhumane Practices

Program: The 11th International Symposium On Circumcision, Genital Integrity and Human Rights

Nocirc Symposium Schedule

Project MK-ULTRA and the CIA's Circumcision Research Frederick M. Hodges 11:30-12:00 Genital Stretching Among the Venda Ethnic Group in South Africa Erika Dionisio, Pia Grassivaro Gallo, Franco Viviani 12:00-12:30 Women from Timan Adde (Merka-Somalia) Pray to Allah in Order to be Freed from Pharaonic Circumcision/ Infibulation Pia Grassivaro Gallo and Prof. Maria Chiara Turrini 12:30-1:00 Possession Ritual and Somalian Pharaonic Circumcision Culture Steffania Gazzea, Pia Grassivaro Gallo, Ant...

$10m for Circum-Slicing

Circumcision Campaigns Are Rolling Out in Africa to Prevent Hiv Infections

Doctors Refuse to Perform Circumcisions

April 29, 2010 www.thelocal.se Doctors in western Sweden are refusing to carry out the circumcision of boys, despite clearance by elected officials to carry out the procedure for nonmedical reasons.

Parents Fined for Having Son Circumcised-Operating Rabbi Did Not Anaesthetize Child

According to specialist doctor Harry Lindahl, who was heard as an expert witness, complications could have been avoided if the procedure had been performed in a hospital setting.

No Reason for Ultimate Unkindly Cut

At one time or another, it has acted as a tribal marker, rite of manhood, disease prevention and even a humiliating punishment. According to a 2006 study by the Public Health Agency of Canada, that rate was 44.3 percent, versus a national average of 31.9.

Circumcision Health Benefit Virtually Nil, Study Finds

[...] they noted penile cancer is extremely rare and seemingly unrelated to the presence of a prepuce. According to the study, the only medical justification for circumcision is to treat boys or men with penile abnormalities.

Study: Adult Circumcision Minimally Effective at Controlling U.S. Hiv Transmission

The proposal anticipated that the next generation will include more uncircumcised males than the current generation. [...] more Hispanics and African Americans are choosing not to have their make babies circumcised; studies indicate that those populations are harder hit by HIV and AIDS than are Caucasians.

The Case for Female Circumcision

People have so many compelling arguments for male circumcision, that I can't help but wonder why girls can't enjoy the same benefits! I'm not talking about sewing up the vagina or removing the clitoris or anything, but a little snip-snip could surely tidy things up! Why aren't more women going all mama bear on people's asses for this?! Why aren't more men standing up and demanding the rights and protection they and their sons deserve?! The public would be in an absolute uproar if a parent wa...

Feminism and Male Circumcision

If one of our rallying cries is bodily autonomy and we'd raise all hell when AAP briefly decided to allow "nicking" of female newborn genitals, does being against male circumcision become a feminist issue on the grounds of bodily autonomy or is it the universal right of a parent to SONS to do with their child's genitals as they please?