Difference between revisions of "Ethical and factual issues with Circumcision: A Parent's Choice"
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===Reasons why parents may ''not'' choose circumcision=== | ===Reasons why parents may ''not'' choose circumcision=== | ||
| − | <b>Belief that circumcision should be a person's own choice.</b> This position is consistent with international [[human rights]] law, the medical ethics cardinal principle of ''autonomy'', and respect for human decency. The circumcision operation may be done at any age, so a boy may elect to be | + | <b>Belief that circumcision should be a person's own choice.</b> This position is consistent with international [[human rights]] law, the medical ethics cardinal principle of ''autonomy'', and respect for human decency. The [[adult circumcision| circumcision operation]] may be done at any age, so a boy may elect to be [[circumcised]] when he reaches the age of discretion or he may reject circumcision. |
| + | |||
| + | <b>Belief that if "it ain't broke, then why remove normal tissue?"<b> The [[foreskin]] evolved by "survival of the fittest" over hundreds of thousands of years. It is an essential part of the [[penis]] and necessary for optimum health, comfort, and normal sexual function. | ||
{{SEEALSO}} | {{SEEALSO}} | ||
Revision as of 16:48, 14 July 2025
Construction Site
This article is work in progress and not yet part of the free encyclopedia IntactiWiki.
The Healthy Children website is owned and controlled by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which is a medical trade association and not any kind of "academy". Medical trade associations advance and promote the business, financial, and legal interests of its physician members. The AAP uses the Healthy Children Website to promote additional business for its pediatrician members. Parents should always remember that doctors make money from doing circumcision and do not make money when circumcision is not done. This creates substantial bias in information about circumcision provided by doctors.
Contents
Ethical Issue
Violation of boy's right to Autonomy
When we visit Circumcision: A Parent's Choice,[1] we are immediately confronted with a violation of medical ethics in the very title of the article. The title suggests that parents should act as a surrogate to grant surrogate consent for non-therapeutic infant circumcision, which has no medical indication as boys are not born with a diseased penis. The AAP's own Committee on Bioethics limits the use of surrogate consent to diagnosis and treatment of disease when necessary to maintain health.[2] This is immediately seen as a shocking disregard for well established pediatric medical ethics, since it is a violation of any infant boy's right to autonomy.
The Committee on Bioethics (1995) elaborated:
Such providers have legal and ethical duties to their child patients to render competent medical care based on what the patient needs, not what someone else expresses. Although impasses regarding the interests of minors and the expressed wishes of their parents or guardians are rare, the pediatrician's responsibilities to his or her patient exist independent of parental desires or proxy consent.[2]
The Committee on Bioethics (2016) said:
Physicians have both a moral obligation and a legal responsibility to question and, if necessary, to contest both the surrogate’s and the patient’s medical decisions if they put the patient at significant risk of serious harm.[3]
Other ethical violations
Ethics of non-therapeutic child circumcision explains how circumcision of boys violates all cardinal and secondary principles of medical ethics.
Factual review
Circumcision: A Parent's Choice does not provide citations for its claims, however this review will provide citations.
What happens during a circumcision
The AAP has omitted informing parents that, should they grant consent for a circumcision, their infant son would be immobilized by being strapped a plastic restraint device called a circumstraint. The circumstraint has been compared to a "medieval torture device" by Dr. Michael S. Green.[4]
The analgesia used to subdue the pain of circumcision is only partially effective, so your son will still feel pain during the amputation. The main value of the analgesia may be to relieve the guilt that parent who elect circumcision feel. It does not do much for the boy.
The post-surgical pain from the amputation of his foreskin will persist for two to three weeks, during which time you may expect your baby to be fussy.
Reasons why parents may choose circumcision
Medical benefits. The claim that the "benefits outweigh the risks" was put forward in the 2012 Circumcision Policy Statement, but received so much criticism that the statement was allowed to expired in 2017. The benefits do not outweigh the risks and malefits. Circumcised boys have three times as many penile complaints compared with foreskinned boys.[5] Moreover, the circumcision amputative surgery puts boys at risk of infection, bleeding, and surgical mishap, including complete penile amputation and death.
HIV. The AAP falsely claims that there is "A markedly lower risk of acquiring HIV". This is based on outmoded and obsolete research from 2007. The HIV page provides numerous recent studies that show circumcision has no effect on the risk of contracting HIV infection.
Urinary tract infection. Circumcision promoter Thomas E. Wiswell, M.D., started the UTI scare in 1983. The story is fully told in The UTI Scare. The presence of the foreskin does not cause UTI. The opposite is true. The foreskin has immunological and protective functions that work to prevent all types of infection, including UTI. The AAP knows this. The incidence of post-circumcision UTI is very high in Israel. What we see here is the AAP doing what it was created to do — promote and increase the income of its members[6] — even though it harms boys.
Reasons why parents may not choose circumcision
Belief that circumcision should be a person's own choice. This position is consistent with international human rights law, the medical ethics cardinal principle of autonomy, and respect for human decency. The circumcision operation may be done at any age, so a boy may elect to be circumcised when he reaches the age of discretion or he may reject circumcision.
Belief that if "it ain't broke, then why remove normal tissue?" The foreskin evolved by "survival of the fittest" over hundreds of thousands of years. It is an essential part of the penis and necessary for optimum health, comfort, and normal sexual function.
See also
References
- ↑
(3 February 2025). Circumcision: A Parent's Choice
, Healthy Children. Retrieved 12 July 2025. - ↑ a b
AAP Committee on Bioethics. Informed Consent, Parental Permission, and Assent in Pediatric Practice. Pediatrics. February 1995; 95(2): 314-7. PMID. Retrieved 12 July 2025.
- ↑ Katz Al, Macauley RC, Mercurio MR, Moon MR, Okun AL, Opel DJ, Statter MB. Informed Consent in Decision-Making in Pediatric Practice. Pediatrics. August 2016; 138(2): e20161484. PMID. DOI. Retrieved 12 July 2025.
- ↑ Anonymous (21 March 2021).
Circumstraint
, IntactiWiki. Retrieved 13 July 2025. - ↑ Fendereski K, Horns JJ, Driggs N, Lau G, Shaeffer AJ. Comparing Penile Problems in Circumcised vs. Uncircumcised Boys: Insights From a Large Commercial Claims Database With a Focus on Provider Type Performing Circumcision. J Pediatr Surg. November 2024; 59(11): [161614]. PMID. PMC. DOI. Retrieved 13 July 2025.
- ↑ Bollinger, Dan (2012).
High Cost of Circumcision: $3.6 Billion Annually
, https://www.academia.edu, Academia. Retrieved 14 July 2025.
Quote:As the saying goes, follow the money. Now you know why neither the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, or the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists haven’t condemned this unnecessary surgery, and why their physician members are quick to recommend the procedure to expectant parents.
