A 9 week old baby boy in Britain died after circumcision.  According to an article in the Times, the baby boy underwent the surgery in a physician’s clinic (surgery) in Reading, England.  There have been 3 reported deaths from circumcision in Britain in the past 24 months.  Most people don’t realize that there is no blood testing done on infant boys before this amputation is done to see if they are hemophiliac.  It would be a simple matter to test the clotting ability of the infant’s blood but it’s just not done. 

It’s interesting to note that England is a non-circumcising culture and has been since an article appeared in a British medical journal in the late 1940s.  So, if a non-circumcising (cutting boys’ genitals is rare and limited to religious circumcision of Muslims and Jews) country (the UK) has public reports of 3 baby deaths in a 24 month period, there must be many more in a country like the USA where 56% of boys are still cut.  There is a curtain of secrecy around these tragic cases in the U.S.  The parents don’t talk because they are so embarrassed and in shock.  The hospital staff stonewall to protect each other from litigation.  

There are plans afoot right now to create a method whereby whistleblowers can contact the press without being identified.  This is how circumcision was taken off the Medical Plans right across Canada.  There is now no public funding of genital cutting in Canada.  16 U.S. states have cut funding but we still need to stop funding in all the rest.  In Canada, hospital workers started calling the press when a baby died from circumcision or when there were the inevitable “mixups” of boys.  Once it all came out in the open, the rates went down very quickly.

When adult hospital workers, parents, family members and others in the community start speaking up for baby boys who can’t speak for themselves, the U.S. rate of male genital mutilation will drop below 10% very quickly.  Please find the courage to speak up.

Gloria Lemay, Vancouver BC Canada �

�