Comments on: Circumcision cuts hurt country people http://www.borderwatch.com.au/archives/2540 Regional newspaper serving Mount Gambier and the Limestone Coast Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:17:23 +0000 hourly 1 By: Editor http://www.borderwatch.com.au/archives/2540/comment-page-1#comment-4108 Editor Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:06:46 +0000 http://www.borderwatch.com.au/?p=2540#comment-4108 Discussion has been transferred to <a href="http://www.borderwatch.com.au/forum/read.php?3,917" rel="nofollow">the forum</a>. Discussion has been transferred to the forum.

]]> By: bob carveth http://www.borderwatch.com.au/archives/2540/comment-page-1#comment-4107 bob carveth Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:47:40 +0000 http://www.borderwatch.com.au/?p=2540#comment-4107 Most infections of the foreskin are actually caused by washing the foreskin with soap. The foreskin should be left alone and remember that it is free of any need for special washing. If this is practiced the child will be free from infection. The inference from this list about washing (implying that penises are dirty) will cause many uninformed parents and child carers to "Foreskin Fiddle" with their children, this is where they try to retract the child's foreskin for washing unaware that this can cause severe damage-tearing, bleeding and scarring. The intact penis is naturally clean. The common view of the penis or the foreskin as "dirty" is unscientific and irrational. The penis, however, does provide an entry point into the body, and it is exposed to foreign microbes every day, especially during sexual intercourse.The immunological functions of the foreskin and the self-cleansing functions of the penis protects the body from harm. Every time a genitally intact male urinates, the urine stream flushes out the uretha and foreskin of foreign microbes that may have strayed inside. In healthy individuals, urine is sterile and has a disenfectant quality. Researches have demonstrated that the swirling action of the urine as it rushes through the foreskin flushes it out effortlessly and naturally. This function is especially efficient when the foreskin is long and the preputial orifice is narrow. Though urine passes through the foreskin every day, the inner foreskin is remarkably free of urea, a by-product of liver metabolism that is secreted in the urine. Studies demonstrate that washings from the foreskin are rich in fructose, acid phosphatase, and mucin, but never urea. It appears that the the secretions of seminal vesicles, prostate, and urethral mucous glands,collectively or individually, keep the foreskin clear and clean as well. These self-cleansing functions of the penis are analogous to the self-cleansing function of the eye, which simillarly maintains its cleanliness through fluid washings(tears) and mucous secretion. Therefore, you never need to worry about the foreskin being "unclean" During the first few years of a male's life, the inside fold of his foreskin is attached to his glans, very much the way the eyelids of a newborn kitten are sealed closed. The tissue that connects these two surfaces dissolve naturally over time- a process that should never be hurried. The foreskin becomes retractable when its inside fold seperates from the glans and its opening widens.This usually happens by age eighteen.Even if the glans and foreskin separate by themselves in infancy, the foreskin may still be unready for retraction because the opening of a baby's foreskin may be only large enough to permit the passage of urine.This is normal,protective, and necessary. The first and only person to retract a child's foreskin should be the child himself. A very young boy usually pulls his foreskin outward. This is normal and natural and no cause for concern. It is harmless and pleasureable. Once a boy discovers that his foreskin is retractable (a wonderous discovery for an intact child), he can easily learn to care for himself. MOTHERS-further and fuller information on caring for intact children can be found by googling: only clean what is seen-reversing the epidemic of forceful retraction Most infections of the foreskin are actually caused by washing the foreskin with soap. The foreskin should be left alone and remember that it is free of any need for special washing. If this is practiced the child will be free from infection. The inference from this list about washing (implying that penises are dirty) will cause many uninformed parents and child carers to “Foreskin Fiddle” with their children, this is where they try to retract the child’s foreskin for washing unaware that this can cause severe damage-tearing, bleeding and scarring.
The intact penis is naturally clean. The common view of the penis or the foreskin as “dirty” is unscientific and irrational. The penis, however, does provide an entry point into the body, and it is exposed to foreign microbes every day, especially during sexual intercourse.The immunological functions of the foreskin and the self-cleansing functions of the penis protects the body from harm.
Every time a genitally intact male urinates, the urine stream flushes out the uretha and foreskin of foreign microbes that may have strayed inside. In healthy individuals, urine is sterile and has a disenfectant quality. Researches have demonstrated that the swirling action of the urine as it rushes through the foreskin flushes it out effortlessly and naturally. This function is especially efficient when the foreskin is long and the preputial orifice is narrow.
Though urine passes through the foreskin every day, the inner foreskin is remarkably free of urea, a by-product of liver metabolism that is secreted in the urine. Studies demonstrate that washings from the foreskin are rich in fructose, acid phosphatase, and mucin, but never urea. It appears that the the secretions of seminal vesicles, prostate, and urethral mucous glands,collectively or individually, keep the foreskin clear and clean as well. These self-cleansing functions of the penis are analogous to the self-cleansing function of the eye, which simillarly maintains its cleanliness through fluid washings(tears) and mucous secretion. Therefore, you never need to worry about the foreskin being “unclean“
During the first few years of a male’s life, the inside fold of his foreskin is attached to his glans, very much the way the eyelids of a newborn kitten are sealed closed. The tissue that connects these two surfaces dissolve naturally over time– a process that should never be hurried.
The foreskin becomes retractable when its inside fold seperates from the glans and its opening widens.This usually happens by age eighteen.Even if the glans and foreskin separate by themselves in infancy, the foreskin may still be unready for retraction because the opening of a baby’s foreskin may be only large enough to permit the passage of urine.This is normal,protective, and necessary.
The first and only person to retract a child’s foreskin should be the child himself.
A very young boy usually pulls his foreskin outward. This is normal and natural and no cause for concern. It is harmless and pleasureable. Once a boy discovers that his foreskin is retractable (a wonderous discovery for an intact child), he can easily learn to care for himself.
MOTHERS-further and fuller information on caring for intact children can be found by googling:
only clean what is seen-reversing the epidemic of forceful retraction

]]> By: Hugh7 http://www.borderwatch.com.au/archives/2540/comment-page-1#comment-4106 Hugh7 Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:29:11 +0000 http://www.borderwatch.com.au/?p=2540#comment-4106 H: Yes, there are worse things. There is always something worse, always some more worthy cause. That doesn't mean we should all ignore the less worse things, or nothing would ever be improved. Josephine: The foreskin is normally fused to the glans (by a membrane called the synechia) for the first several years of life, sometimes until puberty. "Pulling it back to wash" is one of the main _causes_ of repeated infections, and hence of circumcisions "necessary" at a later age. In Finland, where it's not customary and they know better than to meddle with it, the rate is less than one in 8000 lifelong, so "he might have to have it done later" is a crock. Gordon if some girls (you can't have asked them all) "much prefer a circumcised penis" let men who care what such girls think have the best part cut off their own penises when they're old enough to decide for themselves. (In passing, not by way of all-out comparison, one of the main ways female cutting is perpetuated is by circumcised women saying "men won't marry an uncircumcised woman". They also say it's healthier, easier to keep clean and doesn't impair sexuality.) If anything is fascistic, it is strapping a baby down and cutting the most sensitive part off him (or her), without regard to what he (or she) may ever want. It is a strange anomaly in the 21st century. H: Yes, there are worse things. There is always something worse, always some more worthy cause. That doesn’t mean we should all ignore the less worse things, or nothing would ever be improved.

Josephine: The foreskin is normally fused to the glans (by a membrane called the synechia) for the first several years of life, sometimes until puberty. “Pulling it back to wash” is one of the main _causes_ of repeated infections, and hence of circumcisions “necessary” at a later age. In Finland, where it’s not customary and they know better than to meddle with it, the rate is less than one in 8000 lifelong, so “he might have to have it done later” is a crock.

Gordon if some girls (you can’t have asked them all) “much prefer a circumcised penis” let men who care what such girls think have the best part cut off their own penises when they’re old enough to decide for themselves. (In passing, not by way of all-out comparison, one of the main ways female cutting is perpetuated is by circumcised women saying “men won’t marry an uncircumcised woman”. They also say it’s healthier, easier to keep clean and doesn’t impair sexuality.)

If anything is fascistic, it is strapping a baby down and cutting the most sensitive part off him (or her), without regard to what he (or she) may ever want. It is a strange anomaly in the 21st century.

]]> By: bob carveth http://www.borderwatch.com.au/archives/2540/comment-page-1#comment-4105 bob carveth Tue, 17 Mar 2009 09:28:25 +0000 http://www.borderwatch.com.au/?p=2540#comment-4105 In reply to Gordon At least children in China and North Korea are not sexually mutilated and girls do not prefer circumcised penises, modern parents warn their daughters about the problem when normal functioning tissue is removed, that sexual functioning is also altered. The thickerned,drier tissue covering the glans of the circumcised penis may necessitate the use of synthetic lubricants to facilitate nontraumatic sexual intercourse. Often, it is errroneously considered the womans lack of lubrication that makes intercourse painful rather than the lack of a foreskin on the male, which is more likely the cause. The foreskin(prepuce) of an intact penis has a ridged band just inside and encircling the preputial opening that contains Meissner's corpucles (like nerve recepters in the finger tips) This exquisitely sensitive band glides back and forth across the corona of the glans (head of the penis), with its concentration of neurovascular end organs. The glans and the prepuse stimulate each other. This is probably why men who are circumcised as adults say the difference is like seeing in black and white rather than seeing in colour. An intact penis is stimulated by both the vagina and the prepuse.The movements an intact man needs for stimulation are small. Circumcised men, however must stimulate whatever is left of the frenulum (the most sensitive part of the circumcised penis) to reach orgasm. The long strokes necessary to stimulate the frenulum remnant takes the male's body away from the woman's mons pubis, so her clitorus isn't stimulated. The movement necessary for a circumcised man to reach orgasm is not compatible with the movement a woman needs to reach orgasm. So the joke that goes, "Why do women fake orgasm?" with a punchline that says, "Because men fake foreplay," has the wrong answer. Women fake orgasm because men are circumcised. They fake orgasm so they won't be considered fridgid or so they won't hurt a man's feelings. The man, already insecure about his masculinity/sexuality, may know something's wrong, but he's relieved to hear her say "yes honey, I had an orgasm." No one talks about this potential cause for deep tension in relationships. It helps to understand that sexual mechanics are disturbed when genitals have been cut and movements during sexual relations must be adjusted to compensate for genital alterations, Laumann: Found that circumcised men had different sexual practices from genitally intact men. Circumcised men were more likely to masturbate, to engage in heterosexual anal and oral sex, and to engage in homosexual anal sex. The fundamental biological sex act becomes, for the circumcised male, simply satisfaction of an urge and not the refined sensory experience that it was meant to be." In reply to Gordon
At least children in China and North Korea are not sexually mutilated and girls do not prefer circumcised penises, modern parents warn their daughters about the problem when normal functioning tissue is removed, that sexual functioning is also altered.
The thickerned,drier tissue covering the glans of the circumcised penis may necessitate the use of synthetic lubricants to facilitate nontraumatic sexual intercourse. Often, it is errroneously considered the womans lack of lubrication that makes intercourse painful rather than the lack of a foreskin on the male, which is more likely the cause.
The foreskin(prepuce) of an intact penis has a ridged band just inside and encircling the preputial opening that contains Meissner’s corpucles (like nerve recepters in the finger tips)
This exquisitely sensitive band glides back and forth across the corona of the glans (head of the penis), with its concentration of neurovascular end organs. The glans and the prepuse stimulate each other.
This is probably why men who are circumcised as adults say the difference is like seeing in black and white rather than seeing in colour.
An intact penis is stimulated by both the vagina and the prepuse.The movements an intact man needs for stimulation are small.
Circumcised men, however must stimulate whatever is left of the frenulum (the most sensitive part of the circumcised penis) to reach orgasm.
The long strokes necessary to stimulate the frenulum remnant takes the male’s body away from the woman’s mons pubis, so her clitorus isn’t stimulated. The movement necessary for a circumcised man to reach orgasm is not compatible with the movement a woman needs to reach orgasm.
So the joke that goes, “Why do women fake orgasm?” with a punchline that says, “Because men fake foreplay,” has the wrong answer. Women fake orgasm because men are circumcised. They fake orgasm so they won’t be considered fridgid or so they won’t hurt a man’s feelings.
The man, already insecure about his masculinity/sexuality, may know something’s wrong, but he’s relieved to hear her say “yes honey, I had an orgasm.” No one talks about this potential cause for deep tension in relationships.
It helps to understand that sexual mechanics are disturbed when genitals have been cut and movements during sexual relations must be adjusted to compensate for genital alterations,
Laumann: Found that circumcised men had different sexual practices from genitally intact men. Circumcised men were more likely to masturbate, to engage in heterosexual anal and oral sex, and to engage in homosexual anal sex.
The fundamental biological sex act becomes, for the circumcised male, simply satisfaction of an urge and not the refined sensory experience that it was meant to be.”

]]> By: Gordon http://www.borderwatch.com.au/archives/2540/comment-page-1#comment-4103 Gordon Tue, 17 Mar 2009 07:21:24 +0000 http://www.borderwatch.com.au/?p=2540#comment-4103 Girls much prefer a circumcised penis, it's healthier and easier to keep clean. That's the truth. Don't let out modern day fascists (aka leftist public servant bureaucrats) tell you otherwise. They need to be hunted down and ejected from the public payroll sooner rather than later please - send them to China and Nth Korea post haste. Girls much prefer a circumcised penis, it’s healthier and easier to keep clean. That’s the truth. Don’t let out modern day fascists (aka leftist public servant bureaucrats) tell you otherwise. They need to be hunted down and ejected from the public payroll sooner rather than later please — send them to China and Nth Korea post haste.

]]> By: Spacediver http://www.borderwatch.com.au/archives/2540/comment-page-1#comment-4102 Spacediver Tue, 17 Mar 2009 07:03:56 +0000 http://www.borderwatch.com.au/?p=2540#comment-4102 Josephine, by that reasoning, why not remove breast tissue at birth to reduce chances of breast cancer. Or remove part of the female vulva to reduce chances of cancer of the vulva? The answer, of course, is because most societies value these parts of the body, and such a choice should not be forced upon a baby girl. Most societies also happen to value the intact male penis, but for those who don't (out of prejudice and ignorance), it makes it much easier to rationalize the removal of this sexual tissue at birth. Are you aware that the inner foreskin contains thousands of nerve endings that are directly involved in sexual sensation and orgasm? Have you ever asked an intact male about his frenulum? If an adult male decides that he doesn't like the look of his penis, decides that he'd rather never wash, and decides that he wants to have unprotected sex with as many partners as possible, then by all means, he should be allowed to remove as much of his penis as he wants to. But it is plain wrong to do this to a nonconsenting child. It is fundamentally horrifying to remove sexual tissue from a human, female OR male, unless absolutely medically necessary. Josephine, by that reasoning, why not remove breast tissue at birth to reduce chances of breast cancer. Or remove part of the female vulva to reduce chances of cancer of the vulva?

The answer, of course, is because most societies value these parts of the body, and such a choice should not be forced upon a baby girl.

Most societies also happen to value the intact male penis, but for those who don’t (out of prejudice and ignorance), it makes it much easier to rationalize the removal of this sexual tissue at birth.

Are you aware that the inner foreskin contains thousands of nerve endings that are directly involved in sexual sensation and orgasm? Have you ever asked an intact male about his frenulum?

If an adult male decides that he doesn’t like the look of his penis, decides that he’d rather never wash, and decides that he wants to have unprotected sex with as many partners as possible, then by all means, he should be allowed to remove as much of his penis as he wants to.

But it is plain wrong to do this to a nonconsenting child.

It is fundamentally horrifying to remove sexual tissue from a human, female OR male, unless absolutely medically necessary.

]]> By: Josephine http://www.borderwatch.com.au/archives/2540/comment-page-1#comment-4101 Josephine Tue, 17 Mar 2009 06:28:16 +0000 http://www.borderwatch.com.au/?p=2540#comment-4101 When I saw the ad. in the paper, I anticipated an emotive response, and was not disappointed. This so called "barbaric" practice was routine for many years. Prevention is better than cure. Much kinder to remove the foreskin from a baby a few days old, than for an older child to have to go thru' a full blown operation due to repeated infections or the foreskin not being able to be pulled back to wash. In today's society, where there is so much sexual freedom, I would say there is even more reason for routine circumcision to be once again made the norm. When I saw the ad. in the paper, I anticipated an emotive response, and was not disappointed. This so called “barbaric” practice was routine for many years. Prevention is better than cure. Much kinder to remove the foreskin from a baby a few days old, than for an older child to have to go thru’ a full blown operation due to repeated infections or the foreskin not being able to be pulled back to wash. In today’s society, where there is so much sexual freedom, I would say there is even more reason for routine circumcision to be once again made the norm.

]]> By: bob carveth http://www.borderwatch.com.au/archives/2540/comment-page-1#comment-4096 bob carveth Tue, 17 Mar 2009 05:19:33 +0000 http://www.borderwatch.com.au/?p=2540#comment-4096 1. No National or international medical association in the modern industrialised world, or indeed anywhere in the world , endorses routine circumcision of healthy boys. 2. The Australian Association of Paediatric Surgeons do not endorse it. 3. It infringes their duty of care as doctor 4. It is their duty to talk (misinformed) parents out of it.Doctors must, in considering the best interests of the child remember that parents have a primary duty to the child to protect his body integrity. 5. It infringes United Nation Convention on the rights of a child Resolution 44/25 Nov. 1989 which Australia has ratified 6. It Causes long term psychological effects 7. It is putting the baby at severe risk (death) 8. It is sexually mutilating the boy 9. There is no medical or health reason for it to be done. 10. Given the serious harm caused by circumcision and the lack of medical justification, doctors should have profound reservations about performing destructive surgery that manifestly offends the Hippocratic Oath ("First Do No Harm") The Australian Association of Paediatric Surgeons concluded that there are no medical indications for neonatal circumcision, and that enforced circumcision is an offront to bodily integrity. Likewise, the Australian college of Paediatrics stated that routine circumcision may contravene human rights...because circumcision is performed on a minor and without proven medical benefit". The NSW Health Commission concluded that there is "no valid medical indication for circumcision in the neonatal period." 11.Although a number of Australian jurisdictions have acted to outlaw femal genital cutting, equal protection under law has not been afforded to unconsenting minors who happen to boys. (However There is action being undertaken to bring this disparity to light through the discrimination legislation) In the light of Marions case(Department of Health and Community Services V JWB and SMB (1992) 175 CLR 218), it is now evident that even parents cannot provide legal consent for an irreversable, non therapeutic circumcision, Moreover, there are no medical indications for neonatal circumcision (Australian Association of Paediatric Surgeons, Guidelines for circumcision(1996). Consequently, enforced or involuntary circumcision must now be considered as an assault causing grevious bodily harm (genital mutilation) Legal action is long overdue in Australia to protect the physical and sexual integrity of minors. The general rule in English criminal law, and reflecting in other common law jurisdictions, is that any application of force, no matter how slight, is a prima facie an assault. (Consent serves as a defence to assault that do not inflict actual bodily harm. Even in the absence of legislation specifically banning circumcision, those who assist in circumcision of a child without the patient's own fully informed consent are liable to prosecution. Accordingly to Price. "Lawyers in common law Jurisdictions (England, The United States, Canada and Australia) have expressed the view that....non-therapeutic circumcision is, or at the very least is prima facie, a criminal assault...there has been no rebbuttal of that view. In Queensland, the Queensland law reform Commission concluded that on a strict interpretation of the assault provisions of the Queensland criminal code, routine circumcision could be regarded as a criminal act. I believe that in other States this would be the same. The Nuffield Committee stated: Gratuitous injury, that is injury that is not undertaken in order to avoid destruction, damage or degradation, remains unaceptable. This point is sometimes blurred by an assumption that it is the therapeutic context which licences what would otherwise be injury. In fact it is more precisely the therapeutic intent rather than the therapeutic context that justifies the action that otherwise would be seen as injury...Gratuitous and in particular malicious injury of human beings, and specifically human tissue, will always be unnaceptable, especially when inflicted in a therapeutic context...Treatment given by those who are medical practicioners will be acceptable only if guided by a therapeutic intention.. Not withstanding this, some Australian medical doctors continue to benefit financially from Medicare's continued reimbursement of non-therapeutic genuital cutting. Some are demonstrably vehement about continuing mutilation, raising the questions as to their psychological motives. The practice of male circumcision creates two kinds of men, those who enjoy genital integrity and those who do not. Some of those men who do not enjoy genital integrity have various emotional issues relating to their deprivation of a whole penis by traumatic operation. Many circumcised doctors have an emotional need to defend their culture of origin and to rationalise their personal deprivation by the creation of medical literature asserting prophylactic benefits of circumcision. On the other hand , In my view their behaviour is rather suspiciously deviant. I can recall a friend saying that at the birth of his son the doctor advised him that he had a problem and he had to be circumcised. The only problem that child had was that he had a grubby doctor who was out to get every cent out of my friend as he could or he (the doctor) was under the misaprehension that a child's foreskin had to be retractable at birth. Many years ago when working on a large sheep station one of the station hand's wife was due to have a baby. Late at night there was a knock on my door and a tearful station hand was there and proceeded to tell me the child had died. He told me the doctor advised him that the child was born frail and did not survive. But the doctor told him that he won't charge him for the circumcision. It has taken this long for me to work out that the doctor murdered the child with an unnecessary painful operation especially since the child was fighting for its life.The only charging that should have taken place would have been having the doctor charged with murder. A friend wrote to me when I advise him of my recall of this event he said "I wonder if circumcision is ever put on the medical records as "cause of death". The doctors write the records and can ascribe a death to infection without mentioning that the circumcision wound was the point of entry. Also they can write "exsanguination" instead of bleeding to death from a circumcision wound. The baby Evans died in Cleveland during an operation to repair a botched circumcision. He died of reaction to the anesthesia. Now he would have not needed the corrective surgery and anesthetic if he had not been circumcised. But the hospital was adament to correct the "impression" that he died from circumcision. It was the a violent reaction to an anesthetic (and not during a circumcision) that killed him-not circumcision according to them." He added "the medical establishment is very good at covering their tracks. There are likely far more serious injuries and deaths from circumcisions than we hear about. We only hear about the cases that go to court. But doctors/hospitals can largely hush things up. Uninformed parents would have a very hard time getting good documentation from a hospital as to what went wrong. The guilty write the records, and professional courtesy does not allow a doctor to squeal or even pass judgment on another doctor." Another child has recently died from male circumcision in England - apparently the third such death in 25 months - and boys (from babies to teenagers) are being regularly treated in hospitals for serious injuries or infections Three in 25 months may not seem a lot but remember in England there are only a few circumcisions in a year, mostly Religious, but to each boy involved and his parents it is an overwhelming catastrophe. There are surely many more cases of serious injury short of death than ever is publicized. Imagine how much more mayhem there is where "routine" circumcision is in full sway, with hundreds done every day. Think of the United States and its high rate of mutilations. Someone should do a survey of premature deaths of boy babies in Australian hospitals and link that information to if the child had been circumcised. I believe the results could be rather shocking. I see no difference betwwen female and male circumcision, both are a sexual crippling operation and are unnecessary, It worries me that even today some Australians can be hoodwinked by the collective collusion of the communities perverts who promote circumcision to get their financial or sexual gratification. The only reason ever for circumcision is the one in 500,000 births where the child is born with a malformed penis, in that case a surgeon is required and the foreskin is actually used to repair the damage. Fleiss: The fact that there are tens of thousands of sensory nerves in the normal foreskin explains why foreskin amputation is so excruciatingly painful and why modern medicine has repeatedly failed to develop a technique of local anesthesia that is completely safe and effective. The message should be very clear: Any proceedure that causes that amount of pain to an innocent newborne babe is clearly a mistake. A baby's agonising and frenzied screams of pain are the only way he has to tell us to leave his penis alone and that he needs his foreskin to enjoy life as a complete male. The principles of medical ethics require that we protect our babies from pain and trauma. If it is illegal to subject laboratory animals to painful experiences, what does it say about society that would provide greater legal protection to lab rats than to its own children. Children have the full rights of any human being. They are not partial humans. They are our ultimate investment. We must teach them compassion, peace, and trust if we want them, in the future, to be able to take care of us and our world with responsibility, reason, and loving kindness. History has shown that it is best to avoid inflicting any degree of pain, trauma, or violence on our children. Our society would be greatly improved and enhanced if circumcision, along with other forms and degrees of injustice and violence against children, would stop. Studies consistently demonstrate that providing our infants and children with a home environment that is loving, safe, secure, compassionate, effectionate, nurturing, and orderly is the best way to ensure that our children grow up to be reverent, moral, responsible, independent, self-confident, self-disciplined, secure, successful, rational, compassionate, and emotionally, physically, and mentally healthy adults of good character. Protecting our sons from circumcision and ensuring that they enjoy the lifetime of natural benefits and protections that the intact human body can bring is part of the responsible parenting that produces responsible adults. The economic crisis is one of our best opportunities in a long time to reduce the rate of MGM in a bold stroke. Even take the right off doctors to perform such an operation on non consenting minors, it is not a simple operation and doctors do not have the skill to perform such a delicate operation and the complication rate is horrendous and additional surgery and treatment taxes the tax payer even more. 1. No National or international medical association in the modern industrialised world, or indeed anywhere in the world , endorses routine circumcision of healthy boys.

2. The Australian Association of Paediatric Surgeons do not endorse it.

3. It infringes their duty of care as doctor

4. It is their duty to talk (misinformed) parents out of it.Doctors must, in considering the best interests of the child remember that parents have a primary duty to the child to protect his body integrity.

5. It infringes United Nation Convention on the rights of a child Resolution 44/25 Nov. 1989 which Australia has ratified

6. It Causes long term psychological effects

7. It is putting the baby at severe risk (death)

8. It is sexually mutilating the boy

9. There is no medical or health reason for it to be done.

10. Given the serious harm caused by circumcision and the lack of medical justification, doctors should have profound reservations about performing destructive surgery that manifestly offends the Hippocratic Oath (“First Do No Harm”)

The Australian Association of Paediatric Surgeons concluded that there are no medical indications for neonatal circumcision, and that enforced circumcision is an offront to bodily integrity.

Likewise, the Australian college of Paediatrics stated that routine circumcision may contravene human rights…because circumcision is performed on a minor and without proven medical benefit”. The NSW Health Commission concluded that there is “no valid medical indication for circumcision in the neonatal period.”

11.Although a number of Australian jurisdictions have acted to outlaw femal genital cutting, equal protection under law has not been afforded to unconsenting minors who happen to boys. (However There is action being undertaken to bring this disparity to light through the discrimination legislation) In the light of Marions case(Department of Health and Community Services V JWB and SMB (1992) 175 CLR 218), it is now evident that even parents cannot provide legal consent for an irreversable, non therapeutic circumcision, Moreover, there are no medical indications for neonatal circumcision (Australian Association of Paediatric Surgeons, Guidelines for circumcision(1996).

Consequently, enforced or involuntary circumcision must now be considered as an assault causing grevious bodily harm (genital mutilation) Legal action is long overdue in Australia to protect the physical and sexual integrity of minors.

The general rule in English criminal law, and reflecting in other common law jurisdictions, is that any application of force, no matter how slight, is a prima facie an assault. (Consent serves as a defence to assault that do not inflict actual bodily harm.

Even in the absence of legislation specifically banning circumcision, those who assist in circumcision of a child without the patient’s own fully informed consent are liable to prosecution. Accordingly to Price.

“Lawyers in common law Jurisdictions (England, The United States, Canada and Australia) have expressed the view that.…non-therapeutic circumcision is, or at the very least is prima facie, a criminal assault…there has been no rebbuttal of that view.

In Queensland, the Queensland law reform Commission concluded that on a strict interpretation of the assault provisions of the Queensland criminal code, routine circumcision could be regarded as a criminal act. I believe that in other States this would be the same.

The Nuffield Committee stated:

Gratuitous injury, that is injury that is not undertaken in order to avoid destruction, damage or degradation, remains unaceptable. This point is sometimes blurred by an assumption that it is the therapeutic context which licences what would otherwise be injury. In fact it is more precisely the therapeutic intent rather than the therapeutic context that justifies the action that otherwise would be seen as injury…Gratuitous and in particular malicious injury of human beings, and specifically human tissue, will always be unnaceptable, especially when inflicted in a therapeutic context…Treatment given by those who are medical practicioners will be acceptable only if guided by a therapeutic intention..

Not withstanding this, some Australian medical doctors continue to benefit financially from Medicare’s continued reimbursement of non-therapeutic genuital cutting. Some are demonstrably vehement about continuing mutilation, raising the questions as to their psychological motives.

The practice of male circumcision creates two kinds of men, those who enjoy genital integrity and those who do not. Some of those men who do not enjoy genital integrity have various emotional issues relating to their deprivation of a whole penis by traumatic operation.

Many circumcised doctors have an emotional need to defend their culture of origin and to rationalise their personal deprivation by the creation of medical literature asserting prophylactic benefits of circumcision. On the other hand , In my view their behaviour is rather suspiciously deviant.

I can recall a friend saying that at the birth of his son the doctor advised him that he had a problem and he had to be circumcised. The only problem that child had was that he had a grubby doctor who was out to get every cent out of my friend as he could or he (the doctor) was under the misaprehension that a child’s foreskin had to be retractable at birth.

Many years ago when working on a large sheep station one of the station hand’s wife was due to have a baby. Late at night there was a knock on my door and a tearful station hand was there and proceeded to tell me the child had died. He told me the doctor advised him that the child was born frail and did not survive. But the doctor told him that he won’t charge him for the circumcision. It has taken this long for me to work out that the doctor murdered the child with an unnecessary painful operation especially since the child was fighting for its life.The only charging that should have taken place would have been having the doctor charged with murder.

A friend wrote to me when I advise him of my recall of this event he said “I wonder if circumcision is ever put on the medical records as “cause of death”. The doctors write the records and can ascribe a death to infection without mentioning that the circumcision wound was the point of entry. Also they can write “exsanguination” instead of bleeding to death from a circumcision wound.

The baby Evans died in Cleveland during an operation to repair a botched circumcision. He died of reaction to the anesthesia. Now he would have not needed the corrective surgery and anesthetic if he had not been circumcised. But the hospital was adament to correct the “impression” that he died from circumcision. It was the a violent reaction to an anesthetic (and not during a circumcision) that killed him-not circumcision according to them.” He added “the medical establishment is very good at covering their tracks. There are likely far more serious injuries and deaths from circumcisions than we hear about. We only hear about the cases that go to court. But doctors/hospitals can largely hush things up. Uninformed parents would have a very hard time getting good documentation from a hospital as to what went wrong. The guilty write the records, and professional courtesy does not allow a doctor to squeal or even pass judgment on another doctor.“
Another child has recently died from male circumcision in England — apparently the third such death in 25 months — and boys (from babies to teenagers) are being regularly treated in hospitals for serious injuries or infections
Three in 25 months may not seem a lot but remember in England there are only a few circumcisions in a year, mostly Religious, but to each boy involved and his parents it is an overwhelming catastrophe. There are surely many more cases of serious injury short of death than ever is publicized.
Imagine how much more mayhem there is where “routine” circumcision is in full sway, with hundreds done every day. Think of the United States and its high rate of mutilations.
Someone should do a survey of premature deaths of boy babies in Australian hospitals and link that information to if the child had been circumcised. I believe the results could be rather shocking.

I see no difference betwwen female and male circumcision, both are a sexual crippling operation and are unnecessary,

It worries me that even today some Australians can be hoodwinked by the collective collusion of the communities perverts who promote circumcision to get their financial or sexual gratification.

The only reason ever for circumcision is the one in 500,000 births where the
child is born with a malformed penis, in that case a surgeon is required and
the foreskin is actually used to repair the damage.
Fleiss: The fact that there are tens of thousands of sensory nerves in the normal foreskin explains why foreskin amputation is so excruciatingly painful and why modern medicine has repeatedly failed to develop a technique of local anesthesia that is completely safe and effective. The message should be very clear: Any proceedure that causes that amount of pain to an innocent newborne babe is clearly a mistake. A baby’s agonising and frenzied screams of pain are the only way he has to tell us to leave his penis alone and that he needs his foreskin to enjoy life as a complete male. The principles of medical ethics require that we protect our babies from pain and trauma. If it is illegal to subject laboratory animals to painful experiences, what does it say about society that would provide greater legal protection to lab rats than to its own children.

Children have the full rights of any human being. They are not partial humans. They are our ultimate investment. We must teach them compassion, peace, and trust if we want them, in the future, to be able to take care of us and our world with responsibility, reason, and loving kindness. History has shown that it is best to avoid inflicting any degree of pain, trauma, or violence on our children. Our society would be greatly improved and enhanced if circumcision, along with other forms and degrees of injustice and violence against children, would stop.
Studies consistently demonstrate that providing our infants and children with a home environment that is loving, safe, secure, compassionate, effectionate, nurturing, and orderly is the best way to ensure that our children grow up to be reverent, moral, responsible, independent, self-confident, self-disciplined, secure, successful, rational, compassionate, and emotionally, physically, and mentally healthy adults of good character.
Protecting our sons from circumcision and ensuring that they enjoy the lifetime of natural benefits and protections that the intact human body can bring is part of the responsible parenting that produces responsible adults.
The economic crisis is one of our best opportunities in a long time to reduce the rate of MGM in a bold stroke.
Even take the right off doctors to perform such an operation on non consenting minors, it is not a simple operation and doctors do not have the skill to perform such a delicate operation and the complication rate is horrendous and additional surgery and treatment taxes the tax payer even more.

]]> By: H http://www.borderwatch.com.au/archives/2540/comment-page-1#comment-4095 H Tue, 17 Mar 2009 05:01:17 +0000 http://www.borderwatch.com.au/?p=2540#comment-4095 wow.. seriously.. the arguments that come up.. I was circumcised at birth and strangely enough.. Don't remember it! I don't feel abused, I don't feel animosity towards my parents for it... In fact, I think it looks neater and my wife agrees - she doesn't know how she'd feel if I'd not had it done! And it IS easier to keep clean... There are far more harmful practices by parents that go unpunished.. If we really wanted to consider this child abuse.. why don't we outlaw smoking? that's PROVEN to have far more harmful impact on kids, yet remains legal.. Seriously.. How on Earth did anyone grow up to be a functional citizen.. All these things now considered child abuse.. Is it any wonder we have issues like fighting in schools.. No parent is allowed to so much as tell their child off any more.. wow.. seriously.. the arguments that come up..

I was circumcised at birth and strangely enough.. Don’t remember it! I don’t feel abused, I don’t feel animosity towards my parents for it… In fact, I think it looks neater and my wife agrees — she doesn’t know how she’d feel if I’d not had it done! And it IS easier to keep clean…

There are far more harmful practices by parents that go unpunished.. If we really wanted to consider this child abuse.. why don’t we outlaw smoking? that’s PROVEN to have far more harmful impact on kids, yet remains legal..

Seriously.. How on Earth did anyone grow up to be a functional citizen.. All these things now considered child abuse.. Is it any wonder we have issues like fighting in schools.. No parent is allowed to so much as tell their child off any more..

]]> By: Spacediver http://www.borderwatch.com.au/archives/2540/comment-page-1#comment-4093 Spacediver Tue, 17 Mar 2009 04:35:49 +0000 http://www.borderwatch.com.au/?p=2540#comment-4093 disturbing yet fascinating insight into the mind of yet another one of the old guards of this harmful practice. I'm reminded of Edgar Schoen and Brian Morris. disturbing yet fascinating insight into the mind of yet another one of the old guards of this harmful practice. I’m reminded of Edgar Schoen and Brian Morris.

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