Don't Retract Pack

4-Yr-Old Hospitalized after Circumcision Escape Attempt


It happens yet again.

This morning a friend was telling me that one of her acquaintances causally mentioned to her that their 9 year old son is finally recovering from his circumcision - an amputative surgery inflicted upon him this past summer.

Why was it done?

A right of passage into manhood.

No, not in some far off land. Right here in North America.

Surprised?

Well, we do prohibit genital cutting on our daughters at any age...but we do nothing to protect our sons from the willy-nilly cutting off of their body parts.

Too often people believe there are no risks associated with the surgical amputation of the prepuce organ.

Wrong.

There are many risks. And every time a baby dies or seizures or lapses into coma or has a heart attach, or a boy ends up in the hospital with 1/2 his penis gone, or an infant suffers from uncontrolled hemorrhaging, or a newborn refuses to breastfeed after being cut -- we see these consequences of circumcision and just how grave and how frequent they are. And these are only the outwardly visible physical impact of genital cutting. It does not even touch on the mental, emotional, social consequences of such mutilation.

This boy's story (below) is horrifying to me. I can almost feel his terror and pain as he wildly tries all he can to escape his attackers. The doctor stated they had to hold him 'like a wild dog'... let me ask you - if someone was attempting to cut off the most sensitive part of your clitoris/penis, would you do all YOU could to escape??

Children and newborn babies do the same.

A baby is just much easier to strap down and contain while he is being cut apart than a muscular little 4-year-old is. So while we don't worry much about an infant's fight to escape the knife, we typically knock out an older child (with general anesthesia). This boy (and those before him) were still fighting with their full sensation - all 70,000+ nerves ablaze.


For statistics on side effects (including death) due to circumcision see:

Cirp.Org/Library/Death

Increased Dangers of Circumcision Report (pdf) at DoctorsOpposingCircumcision.org

Circumstitions.com/Complications

NoHarmm.org/complicationsUS



A note before you read this article:

Circumcision is very rare in virtually every nation of the world except the United States (where it currently sits right at 49.5%). This includes New Zealand. However, due to the efforts of a few to 'circumcise the world' there are parents in some otherwise exclusively intact countries who think they "must" circumcise their sons. They are buying into the lies told that circumcision will protect their sons from contracting HIV when they become sexually active. Doctors profit by selling foreskins online to research firms or cosmetic corporations. It is a sad state of affairs what we are attempting to do... and what happens to the babies, boys (and men) on the other end of the scalpel.


Story below printed in The New Zealand Herald on 12/8/09

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A doctor who botched the circumcision of a wriggling four-year-old, severing an artery in the boy's penis, may face further disciplinary action, after a report by the Health and Disability Commissioner was released today.

The botched operation, which saw the boy require emergency hospitalization, was performed at an unnamed medical center in January by a general practitioner, assisted by a doctor unqualified to practice in New Zealand and the doctor's wife.


The commissioner's report recommended the doctor in charge of the operation review which patients he performed operations on - "giving particular consideration whether he should undertake circumcisions in boys aged older than six months".

"This case illustrates what can happen when a doctor is unfamiliar with, or chooses not to follow, recommended guidelines for a surgical procedure. It also highlights why patients (or their parents) need to be provided with adequate information so they can make an informed choice and give their informed consent."


The case was referred to the commissioners' director of proceedings, to decide whether action should be taken.
Copies of the report were also forwarded to the New Zealand Medical Council, which certifies doctors to practice, and the Ministry of Health.

On arriving at the medical center, the parents and the young patient were directed to the waiting room, with the doctor busy performing a circumcision on another patient, a 14-year-old boy. The family were concerned to hear the screams of the older boy.

The clinic's manager, and wife of the operating doctor, told them, although the 14-year-old had been given the maximum dose of morphine, he was "too sensitive and could not handle the pain", the report said.


The boy's mother told the commissioner the child was taken into the operating room, was given an injection, then cut into seconds later, before the painkiller had time to take effect.
Seeing her son in pain caused the mother to start crying, at which point she was ordered out of the room by the doctor, apparently for passing her anxiety onto the child and disturbing him.

About 10 minutes later, the boy's father was also ejected from the room.
"We could hear our son crying for help and begging us not to leave him there by himself. He kept asking them to let us in but they wouldn't listen," she said.

After about an hour, the boy's father walked in to the operating room to see the doctor apparently talking to another doctor on the phone about how he didn't know what was going on.

He saw the clinic manager and the unlicensed doctor were holding the boy "as if they were holding a wild animal", the report said.


About an hour-and-a-half after the boy went into the operating room, the doctors called an ambulance, due to uncontrollable bleeding.
The doctor, however, said the boy was subdued and calm, while the father complained of dizzy spells and became pale, and was asked to leave the room, lest he collapse during the operation.

He did admit the child became "extremely difficult to handle" and, due to the strength of the four-year-old's pelvic muscles, enlisted the aid of two people to hold him still.
"It's really difficult because the pelvic muscles are tough and the forearm muscles are not that strong," the doctor said.

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To protect you intact son from unnecessary genital cutting, see the links on this page.


For more on circumcision, pain and related side effects see:

ALL pain studies conducted on circumcision in the US and Canada have come to an early end as a result of infant trauma.

The Brain Altered by Circumcision Study

Babies Remember Circumcision Pain Study

Infant Pain Impacts Adult Sensitivity


Boys cut at birth move their bodies differently

Circumcision: How Much Does it Hurt?

A plastibell circumcision (the type used in Patti Ramos' photo essay on circumcision) - the company likes to claim genital cutting does not hurt as much when plastic clamps are used rather than metal clamps

Reports from mothers who observed son's circumcision


Reports from a father who observed his son's circumcision: Stop MGM and Will You Make the Cut?

Men on this site tell their stories of how circumcision impacted them.

Babies "voice their opinion" [video clip of common newborn reactions]

A mother of 2 circumcised sons researches it before her 3rd is born

Another plastibell circumcision is video taped here

For more on HIV and Circumcision:

Dr. Dean Edell discusses HIV, Africa, and Circumcision

HIV Increases in Africa Where Men Circumcised

The Truth About Circumcision and HIV

The Nuts & Bolts of HIV in the USA and Why Circumcision Won't Protect Men

Public Health Policy

Here We Go Again: HIV & Circumcision

Penn & Teller Discuss the Latest

The myths in the history of circumcision of girls in the United States is the same as those which surround the myths of male circumcision.

25 comments:

  1. that is SO disturbing! that man is a monster! torturing and mutilating boys! if i came into a doctor's office and heard a child SCREAMING whether they're 14 yrs old or not, I'd leave! If they tried to eject me from the room, I'd knock the "doctor" in the head and take my poor boy outta there!
    damn, now i'm all upset, those poor poor boys! god, i can HEAR them screaming!

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  2. Maybe he was wiggling in protest to an inhumane procedure. They should have listened to him. :(

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  3. I think I'm gonna go throw up now...

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  4. :( .....poor baby :(

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  5. Remember this happens to millions of boys in Africa in the middle east. It doesn't count in America "because the boys are too young to remember." :-(

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  6. Joe, why is it performed in Africa on older boys? for religious reasons? please forgive my ignorance. -blush- i'm trying to learn!

    i don't know, but i think more and more medical procedures are being done without adequate pain relief or anesthesia. i've had injections in my neck (four at the same time) and believe me, i did not have adequate pain relief. i was given versed before the procedure, but that's it! they went deep, too, to the facet joints while using fluoroscopy. it's also possible they were doing a medial branch block, i don't know which. all i know is that i was badly bruised and pretty much traumatized from the whole thing. it caused me a lot of anxiety! i told the doc about the inadequate pain relief when i needed injections in my lower back, but he just ignored my request and pretty much told me, in other words, that i needed to toughen up. he said he'd had an abdominal procedure done under only local because he was too cheap to pay the anesthesiologist. he said he could feel the doc stitching him up. i think that doc is into S&M, myself. ain't going there again!

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  7. The reason is the same as always, to control the sexuality of the victims, to diminish sex and punish them for the sins of their parents.

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  8. how awful! i can't imagine my children being punished for something i'd done. oh dear God. :(

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  9. People don't want to realize it or look further into it, and I think they do so knowing what they would find if they did; that we as a nation aren't that much different than Africa.

    The reasons for circumcising a man are exactly the same for circumcising a woman; it is viewed as a "rite of passage" and an initiation into "society."

    It also depends on the group of people and religion; in Africa it makes you more "manly," just as FGM makes you "more of a "woman." In Islamic faiths, boys are circumcised because it is seen as a requirement for Islam. In some Islamic sects, it is also seen as a requirement for women (sunnah).

    Regarding medical procedures, I think more than "pain relief," the question of whether or not something is medically justified comes first. If a doctor is performing FEMALE circumcision, does it really matter whether or not he uses "pain relief?"

    People are quick to say "well, if those boys were circumcised as babies... or if they had used proper anesthetic..." but does that work for girls? Why? Why not?"

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  10. Trust me people you dont get aids not is sex worst with out the surgery, my husband is not circumcized he does not have aids nor do i not get pleased... This is torturing your OWN kids, have a heart....

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  11. I've become annoyed now by the comments I've received in real life regarding this article.

    So here is my response:

    Raping a baby is considered worse than raping an adult.

    Circumcising a baby is worse than this article. So take those bad feelings you just expressed to me, multiply times 10000 and apply them to all the defenseless, voiceless, innocent babies who are experiencing this right now.

    Get it right in your head, people!
    ~guggie

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  12. Oh my god. I couldn't even read the article. Just seeing the pictures was enough. That poor, POOR child.

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  13. And the pictures included in this posting are not even from the news article - they are from a Turkish ritual circumcision with an older and semi-consenting/brainwashed victim. Imagine a horror much worse as the doctor severed the poor child's penile artery and almost let him bleed out. Imagine screaming for your parents to save you from three adults who held you down to cut your most sensitive tissue.

    This is a huge wake up call, parents. Put down the knives and clamps, stop reciting Victorian hysteria and apologias, and prosecute the "doctors" who think it's ethically sound to cut the genitals of children without genuine medical need.

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  14. The "Dr" needs to be charged with criminal assault and stopped from practising. The child needs to be removed from the parents and given a safe home with sane people. The parents need psychiatric attention.

    Circumcision is barbaric at any age, but without anesthetic is just simply child abuse. Abhorrent, reprehensible and shocking!

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  15. I don't blame the parents they are brainwashed too, but hopefully they share their pain about the damage that they unnecessarily caused to their child and increase awareness and social disgust for this horrible operation.

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    1. The parents expressing their pain to their boy, may well be scoffed upon for his pain was physical torture accentuated all the more by parents abandoning him when he needed them most. Sure to result PTSD which is multitudes worse because this involved authority figures, close emotionally and not. The parents let all this happen and didn’t care to share his pain. Irreparable harm. And I fear for him by my own experience of necessarily unavoidable extreme Testicular pain caused by a single act of withdrawing drainage tube, which took 20 years to not shy from touch.

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  16. I can hardly stand this!!!!!!!!!

    I don't even have words to express what I'm feeling!!! I am super anti-circ and have 3 intact sons. One happens to be 4, and I can not fathom this happening to him! I also can not fathom circing tiny, brand new babies!!!

    Humans are as wicked as ever to torture their own children!!!!!!!!!

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  17. Articles like this show me that we were right in our decision to leave our son intact regardless of what our friends and family have said to us over the years.

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  18. T.S. O'Neill--Pinoy Tuli Information CenterAugust 27, 2010 11:40 PM

    Although I am pleased to hear of the steady reduction of MGM in the United States, I am sad to report that this is a deeply ingrained practice in the Philippines, where it is considered a "rite of passage to manhood" done on children as young as 7 years of age), and those Filipino boys who choose to remain intact are incessantly teased by their sexually mutilated peers until they give in. I am a missionary to the Philippines, and as a "silent" intactivist for many years, when I learned about this horrible practice being done (largely because of american influence), I was absolutely horrified. Now, when I go on my missions trips to that beautiful country, I am no longer silent, but there is much work to be done to reverse this trend of ritual sexual abuse. Although the Philippines is a third-world nation, and severe poverty is rampant (a study found that 100,000 children die every year from treatable and preventable illnesses), local governments, businesses, organizations, and private individuals donate large amounts of money and time to make sure that every Filipino boy has part of his penis amputated--drawing much needed money and manhours away from the basics that the people need such as safe drinking water, nutritional needs such as vitamins, and feeding programs for the poor. That, in my humble and informed opinion, is a terrible sin. Word about the truth regarding circumcision--and its harmful physical and psychological effects--needs to be spread to the Filipino-american community, so they can spread the word to their relatives and friends back home.

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  19. Reading this story made me physically sick to my stomach. It's bad enough to perform a circumcision on an infant, but to perform it on a 4 yr old without putting him under anesthetic is simply barbaric and sadistic. That poor little boy will never forget his experience.

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  20. Congratulations, parents. You stood there and let a doctor rape and mutilate you son - who WILL remember it. And by "let" I mean "paid". I don't know how they can live with themselves. Sick bastards.

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  21. This SERIOUSLY makes me want to vomit, and become VERY VIOLENT with anyone that would do this to another HUMAN BEING!!!!!

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  22. I'm sorry, but I can't really blame the "doctor", no matter how inept he was. It was the parents who took their boys to him to be mutilated. We need to stop blaming the doctors. Without patients, they wouldn't be able to perform botched or any kind of circumcisions. Totally disgusting, this whole thing. To think of leaving my crying son on an operating table alone to fend of an attack? They would have to carry me out unconscious (or dead).

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