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Van Lewis continued protesting [[circumcision ]] for most of his life. One of his achievements was to get Medicaid in Florida to stop covering routine infant circumcisions. Unfortunately an insurance overhaul in Florida open the path for private programs to offer infant circumcision as an extended service from 2013.

}}</ref> [https://www.saint-john.org/ St. John's Episcopal Church ] was packed full for his memorial service. [[J. Steven Svoboda]] spoke.

“Many years ago, I witnessed an infant [[circumcision ]] in person at the invitation of a mutilator. He invited me to attend, to prove to me that there is nothing wrong with mutilating babies. He also decided and told me that he would not do a complete circumcision, just a little dorsal slit, to minimize [[trauma]], damage, [[injury]], and blood loss. “I will cut on the center line. There are no blood vessels there.” (Right.)

I decided to go. White mutilator, black baby, southern USA, 1972 or so. With the first probe under the [[Foreskin| foreskin]] the baby screams a blood curdling scream and keeps screaming. With the crushing of the center line of the top of the [[foreskin ]] with the hemostat the baby’s screaming and thrashing ratchet WAY up (he was restrained by tie-downs, put in place in preparation for this human hurricane they already knew from long experience was coming) and when the clamp comes off and the dorsal cut is made the baby begins to vomit—projectile vomiting—the most violent vomiting I have ever witnessed from any human being. Blood from the baby’s penis spurts everywhere. The vomiting interrupts the screaming and the screaming interrupts the vomiting. The mutilator takes out his sewing kit and starts sewing. With every puncture of the needle a new blood-curdling scream comes rushing out, with every pulling of the thread through the foreskin the baby turns bluer and screams louder and harder and finally, when I think the police are going to arrive, or the baby is going to die, or God is going to strike us all dead on the spot—the [[Shock| baby goes totally silent and completely limp]]. He passes out, knocked cold by the [[trauma]] of the mutilating. [Ed. Some babies dissociate and this may be what Mr. Lewis observed] The mutilator can now work in peace.

I have since learned from a reformed circumciser, who did scores of circumcisions, that he didn’t hear the babies he [[circumcised]] screaming. He was so intent on doing his work “correctly” that he literally, as hard as it is to believe, did not hear the screaming. Then, one day why, he didn’t know—he know — he heard it. He heard the baby and knew what the screaming meant. He was injuring the baby, deeply. He’s never done another one.”

[[Category:Male]]stall