Using letters and emails received over the last 20 years David Smith presents testimony from men sent to the charity NORM-UK now known as 15 Square. His presentation concentrates on the psychological aspects of the harm caused by the non-therapeutic circumcision of male children.
Three arrests in Nottingham “illegal” circumcision case
Three people have been arrested by police investigating the circumcision of a three-month-old boy.
A 61-year-old man, believed to be the doctor who carried out the procedure, has been arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm with intent.
BBC News
Three arrested over boy’s circumcision in Nottingham
News of the arrests has brought a lot of traffic to the MDC website, and resulted in us receiving some specific reports of three past tragedies.
Suicide
The first story concerned the suicide of a young man. At inquests, circumcision is usually ruled out as anything more than a possible contributory factor; other problems and issues are deemed more significant. The tragedy reported to MDC yesterday came from a mother who had had extensive conversations with her son concerning his resentment and anger about his circumcision before he took his own life. She was in no doubt that non-therapeutic circumcision in childhood was the reason her son took his own life. The mother’s regret at going along with poor medical advice is a continuing legacy of a needless act.
Forced retraction
Poor medical practice used to involve the forced retraction of a tight foreskin. Today, that practice has been largely abandoned because of the trauma involved. MDC has been told about a child who was diagnosed with phimosis (tight foreskin) and referred for circumcision. After a while the boy was returned to the mother while lashing out at the medical staff around him and screaming. The mother was told “we didn’t have to do a circumcision we just did some stretching”. The mother had to sit with the boy on the hospital steps for twenty minutes before she felt her son was calm enough to be in the car with her for the drive home. It is now recommended that the only person to try to retract a boy’s foreskin is the boy himself, as he will stop before any pain and damage occurs. The foreskin will usually separate of its own accord from the glans (head of the penis), to which it is naturally attached in infancy. This separation can sometimes occur even after puberty. As a result of his experience, the child in this incident has grown up suspicious of the medical profession.
Spite circumcision
MDC was also told of another example, similar to the Nottingham case, of one parent unilaterally circumcising a boy against the wishes of the other parent. Sadly this is a lot more common than you might think, though in recent years, family courts have tended to take the position that, if the circumcision hasn’t yet happened and the parents are conflicted, the matter should be left until the child is able to give informed consent.
Click here to view the BBC article about the arrests in Nottingham.
Non-therapeutic circumcision in the Netherlands
Gert van Dijk describes the current ethical position of the KNMG (Royal Dutch Medical Association) on non-therapeutic male circumcision. The Netherland’s policy is currently one of “active deterrence”. If the policy were to be reviewed the position might well change to a total ban.
Health related and sexual consequences of non-therapeutic male circumcision in childhood
This video was recorded at the World Association for Sexual Health Congress in Prague on the 29th of May 2017. Dr Morten Frisch is from Denmark and has been researching this subject in the Danish population.
January 2020.
Dr Frisch sent us the following clarification:–
Regrettably, I’ve overstated the noise-to-signal ratio in the qualitative synthesis paper by Shabanzadeh et al (discussed around 14:30-16:25 in my presentation):
Of the 38 included studies, six (not five) studies (i.e., 16%, not 13%) actually dealt with male circumcision performed in infancy or childhood. Consequently, the noise-to-signal ratio was 84% noise vs 16% signal, and not 87% noise vs 13% signal.
I apologize for this inaccuracy.
Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision
This is Jutta Reisinger’s first hand account of how the Voluntary Medical Male Circumcison programme is being implemented on the ground in Kenya. The video contains some distressing images, it was recorded in Cologne on the 5th Worldwide Day of Genital Autonomy (7th May 2017). We are grateful to Simon ten Kate from “Intact Nederland” (Facebook group) for his help with the interview.