MEDICAL FRAUD and the criminal assault of boys
"Reasons for circumcision characterized as personal factors....not on any rational or statistical considerations of health and disease"...says medical doctor.
John G. Swadey M.D.
One of the many disadvantages of being an American M.D. in these days of malpractice crises, undercover zealotry, and plausible deniability is the necessity of dealing with colleagues who tend to feel that human knowledge begins and ends at the medical office door. Many well-conceived studies and much clinical experience demonstrates that American circumcision decisions are based not on any rational or statistical considerations of health and disease, but on a number of highly emotional influences, loosely characterized as personal factors.
NOVA, Mr. Meese, and statistical psychologists tell us that Freud and the unconscious mind are dead, but somehow, somewhere, staff-writers who assume the burden of public education, and American parents generally, are going to have to begin looking a little more deeply and honestly at the background and implications of newborn circumcision trauma. In an exhaustive legal treatise, Prof. William Briggman of the Institute of Family Law has authoritatively defined routine infant circumcision as child abuse and a constitutional violation.
The spread of circumcision in the U.S . in the XIX Century has been rather well studied in the sociological literature and linked to a phenomenon known as masturbation hysteria, which was based on an erroneous medical notion of loss of life energy as the cause of diseases arranging from tuberculosis to epilepsy and dyspepsia. It is not commonly realized nowadays that death certificates of institutionalized patients at the turn of the Century could be signed out with masturbation as cause of death, thereby covering both ignorance and neglect.
The second assertion of both anthropologists and sociologists is that circumcision served the function of dominance and control by a profession that was, essentially, at a loss for effective treatment of disease across the board. Many studies, both historical and current, point to the institution of tribal circumcision as a legitimizing tactic successively adopted by dominant factions to reinforce control of political nature. Probably the most searching study of this matter is contained in the work of Karen and Jeffrey Paige, The Politics of Reproductive Ritual, (U. of Cal., 1983).
Another historical fact that has not reached Americans, is that circumcision was introduced into English-speaking world not by way of Jewish ritual, but from Mother England and her military class, as a result of events during the XVIII Century Conquest of India. In addition to the effects of climate and water shortage, the British East Indian Company found circumcision to be required for dealing in diplomacy and intrigue with Mogul overlords. More dreaded and persuasive, however, were certain gruesome practices and rage unleashed on uncircumcised men either on the battlefield or as captives. Thus, again, as in the hostage crises, identification with the aggressor through terror.
Recent archaeological studies have clarified much concerning the origin of circumcision in the Near East, and its relation to ritual and military child sacrifice. Doubters and exclaimers should consult current issues of Biblical Archaeology Review for details of texts and representations.
The most satisfactory recent study of venereal disease transmission of non-gonococcal urethritis in circumcised men by a factor of 1.65, with no influence on gonorrhea rates, (Am. J. Public Health, April 1987). To suggest, in the current American scene, that circumcision offers any effective protection against AIDS, is most dangerous and irresponsible.
Dr. Thomas Wiswell, who carried out the studies in military hospitals showing a 1/100 vs. 1/000 incidence of urinary tract infection in uncircumcised vs. circumcised infants has formally recommended against circumcision at this time, based on over-all evaluation of negative vs. positive aspects.
In summary, universal ablative surgery of normal structures in non-consenting traumatized infants can no more be justified than universal mastectomy, hysterectomy, or removal of ears for prevention of sun-induced cancer. The problem lies in the fact the American medical literature has already lost credibility top a significant degree as a result of selective avoidances and suppressions related to the acrimony of the circumcision issue, and malpractice litigation more generally. For an accurate and meaningful account of the protective function of the foreskin in early life, you'll have to consult the British, and learn why they abandoned circumcision, and why you should too.
Dr. Swadey is a practicing physician in St. Petersburg Florida. He has thrown his support behind the many individuals who have struggled to bring an end to circumcision in America and Canada. His support is much appreciated. It is gratifying to know that there are still a few physicians with the moral and professional ethics to do only that which is medically necessary.
Among the effects of circumcision of newborn males, which bring up the question of violation of constitutional rights are the following:
1. exposure of unnecessary surgical intervention (body violation) with attendant risk to life and genital integrity without accepted medical benefit.
2. exposure of the glans penis to urinary burns, resulting in high incidence of meatitis and narrowing of the urethral orifice.
3. deprivation of normal preputial secretions which function as lubricants and determinants of sexual attraction and deterrence at instinctual level throughout the mammalian line (pheromones).
4. alteration of the normal relative positions of the generative organs, most notably in penile erection, such that the testes are drawn upward and forward toward the penile shaft. Although the long-term effects of intermittent small variations in the temperature of testicular germ plams are unknown at this time, sperm health and viability are know to require temperature lower than that of the body, for which reason the testes are external organs. Arbitrary alteration of normal anatomical relations of these structures is, at the present time, demonstrably imprudent.
5. exposure of the glans penis to the external environment, resulting in cornification and decreased sensitivity in a manner not intended by Nature or normal biological and genetic heritage.
6. frequent production of irregular scarring and anatomical defects requiring later revision.
7. both general and specific alteration of sexual physiological and functioning, which is irrevocable, and done without regard for the future choice of the individual, and in opposition to the current national and world wide trend towards abandonment of circumcision and action to stop genital mutilative practices of all types (World Health Organization, feminist groups and others).
It is now asserted in some quarters that circumcision is " the American way of life". More aptly, and accurately, it is regarded as a bad commentary of American medical practices, politics and venality on the international level, and by informed and ethical American physicians.
John G. Swadey M.D.