Posted on 11/10/2001 1:14:03 PM PST by intacto
Is that how you characterize the following quotes from national professional medical organizations? Please note that all of these professional medical organizations have taken a stand against routine or non-therapeutic infant male circumcision.
Australasian Association of Paediatric Surgeons Guidelines for Circumcision
"The Australasian Association of Paediatric Surgeons does not support the routine circumcision of male neonates, infants or children in Australia. It is considered to be inappropriate and unnecessary as a routine to remove the prepuce, based on the current evidence available."
"We do not support the removal of a normal part of the body, unless there are definite indications to justify the complications and risks which may arise. In particular, we are opposed to male children being subjected to a procedure, which had they been old enough to consider the advantages and disadvantages, may well have opted to reject the operation and retain their prepuce."
"Neonatal male circumcision has no medical indication. It is a traumatic procedure performed without anaesthesia to remove a normal functional and protective prepuce. At birth, the prepuce has not separated from the underlying glans and must be forcibly torn apart to deliver the glans, prior to removal of the prepuce distal to the coronal groove."
British Medical Association Circumcision of male infants - guidance for doctors
"Where conditions can effectively be treated conservatively, it is accepted good practice to do so. Even limited procedures should only be carried out where there is good reason, and then only after adequate conservative treatment. The BMA opposes unnecessarily invasive procedures being used where alternative, less invasive techniques, are equally efficient and available."
"Doctors have a duty to keep up to date with developments in medical practice. Therefore, to circumcise for therapeutic reasons where medical research has shown other techniques to be at least as effective and less invasive would be unethical and inappropriate."
"It is rarely necessary to circumcise an infant for medical reasons."
Canadian Paediatric Society Neonatal Circumcision Revisited
"Recommendation: Circumcision of newborns should not be routinely performed."
"The overall evidence of the benefits and harms of circumcision is so evenly balanced that it does not support recommending circumcision as a routine procedure for newborns. There is therefore no indication that the position taken by the CPS in 1982 should be changed."
Note: In 1982 the CPS took a stand against routine infant circumcision because "there are no valid medical indications for circumcision in the neonatal period." In February 2001 the CPS reaffirmed its 1996 position statement.
... click on the link below.
Circumcision Online News
The Circumcision Online News web page says:
Very few doctors or medical establishments recommend infant circumcision on a routine basis, but at the same time they recognize there are benefits and avantages as well as disadvantages and risks.
However Circumcision Online News fails to mention that professional medical organizations in Australia, Great Britain, and Canada have taken a stand against routine or non-therapeutic infant male circumcision. They quote the Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS) policy statement but do not mention the CPS recommendation "Circumcision of newborns should not be routinely performed."
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