Circumcision To Be Or Not To Be

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To be or not To Be?

“Push! Push, I can see it crowning. Don’t stop keep pushing.” The doctor says in a deep but calming voice. “I can see it, I can see it! Here it comes!” says John with tears of excitement in his eyes, as he looks at his beautiful wife Nechelle, who is about to give birth to their first child, will it be a boy or a girl he wonders. “I see its head, one more push here it comes Oh my god it’s here, it’s a boy Yes it’s a boy! We will name him John Jr.”

John shows all the signs of a man who is completely excited about having a newborn son, but the truth is that in the back of his mind there is question, a dark scary question, that John still has no answer to. “ Should his son be circumcised?”

To be or not to be that is really and truly the question. Before John can make a wise, educated decision he must first understand what circumcision is, why it is done, how it is done, how it affects the natural functions of the penis, and what the alternatives are.

“Circumcision is a surgical procedure in which the skin covering the end of the penis (called the foreskin) is removed exposing the glans (head or tip of the penis)”(Love) The procedure is usually done on infants in the first few days of their life. A doctor does the procedure.

Circumcision is an ancient and widespread practice. Some cultures as wide spread as the aborigines of Australia, to the Kazakh of Russia circumcises their male children. “An Egyptian inscription from around 4000 BC refers to the procedure. Male mummies have been found to be circumcised.” (Encyclopedia of Human Sexuality 118) According to the Old Testament god commanded Abraham to circumcise all males of his household.

The religious, spiritual and emotional reasons for circumcision differ greatly from a pact with god, to showing your faithfulness to a tribe by having your son publicly undergo the procedure. But are there any medical justifications for circumcision? According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in 1971 ”There are no valid medical indications for circumcision in the neonatal period.” Recently however the AAP reconsidered its position. In 1989 it concluded that circumcised male infants have “ potential medical benefits and advantages, after all uncircumcised males have eleven times more urinary tract infections.

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