Circumcision facts and myths : 1901: In the American Practitioner and News, Dr. Earnest G. Marks MD wrote, “An advantage of circumcision is the lessened liability to masturbation. A foreskin leads the child to touch it to produce pleasurable sensations from the extremely sensitive foreskin leading to masturbation” 1914: Dr. Abraham Wolbarst wrote Universal Circumcision as a Sanitary Measure, in the Journal of the American Medical Association, “It is a well known fact that the foreskin is a frequent factor in masturbation, not alone in children but in adults as well…Circumcision has become recognized as a most effective remedy.”
This is a big myth about circumcision that proponents cite to make circumcision seem trivial. The foreskin is not an extra bit skin–that is not correct. First, it’s not “extra”, in fact it’s a highly complex piece of tissue that includes mucus membranes, muscle fibers, and erogenous nerve endings. It’s an essential part of the penis, not something extra. And second, it’s not a “bit”. It’s as much as 15 square inches (when unfolded) in an adult of amazing specialized skin. The reality is that claiming circumcision is safe is a dubious claim. To say it’s harmless is just flat wrong. Removing the foreskin can have many complications, such as life threatening bleeding, infection, meatal stenosis, disfigurement, excessive scaring, and severe skin bridge adhesions. Some circumcised boys need more than one surgery to attempt to fix these manmade problems. As bad as that sounds, things can get worse.
There are essentially three stakeholders involved with the decision to circumcise an infant. The baby-patient, the parent-guardian, and the doctor. The physician is supposed to be bound by ethical principles of beneficence (serve the best interests of patients and their families) and non-maleficence (“first, do no harm”). The standard of “serving the interests of families” can be a slippery slope as doctors can be forced to do things against their better judgement to appease parents. Pro-circumcision or religious advocates typically want babies circumcised immediately because older children and adults would opt out if given the opportunity. Find additional information on circumcision.
The CDC fails to consider that many medical procedures, even those that are described as routine, are often experienced as traumatic by children and adolescents (Levine & Kline, 2007). These procedures like circumcision can cause psychological damage and harm. Circumcision clearly meets the clinical definition of trauma because it involves a violation of physical integrity. In fact, research has demonstrated that medical traumas in childhood and adolescence share many of the same psychological elements of childhood abuse, such as physical pain, fear, loss of control, and the perception that the event is a form of punishment (Nir, 1985; Shalev, 1993, Shopper, 1995).
Intaction was founded in 2010 out of the strong concern that the American “fee for service” medical and insurance business, its trade associations, PACS, and lobbyists, “the medical industry complex,” were intent on escalating their promotion of infant circumcision. Hospitals, insurance companies, and doctors profit from circumcisions. However Americans were starting to challenge the conventional wisdom of circumcising their sons. Seventeen states dropped Medicaid coverage for infant circumcision, deeming it unnecessary and cosmetic. The medical industry complex and its surrogates responded by launching a counterattack to prevent this threat to their income streams and maintain the status quo they built over many decades. (The most conspicuous evidence of this effort culminated in the 2012 AAP Circumcision Policy Statement – which blatantly stated three times, “Financing Newborn Male recommendation: newborn male circumcision warrant(s) third-party (insurance) reimbursement of the procedure.”) Find even more information on https://intaction.org/.