Sunday, June 18, 2017

AFRICA: PEPFAR Taking Advantage of Father's Day to Push Circumcision


It seems circumcision advocates will take any and every opportunity to graft circumcision into any and every conversation.

It's surprising the claim that bing circumcised "reduces the risk" of Ebola hasn't been made yet.

I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed when I run into this shit.





They took Father's Day and used it as an opportunity to promote circumcision.

The way male circumcision, perhaps even HIV, is mashed up with Father's Day seems rather forced and contrived, one thing not having to do with each other.

At its simplest reduction, the message is, Happy Father's Day, reduce HIV, get circumcised.

It's like oil and water.

It sounds like the people in charge of PEPFAR PR have run out of ways to bang the circumcision pot.

What does Father's Day have to do with HIV prevention?

And what does circumcision have to do with anything?

The message is as convoluted as you can get.

Good Fathers Get Tested and Circumcised Before Cheating
Fathers, who are assumed to be living with their families, have to "do their part" to prevent HIV transmission, by getting tested and getting circumcised.

Stay with me here.

Why would fathers need to do this, other than the assumption that fathers are expected to be promiscuous and unfaithful?

Possibly having sex with their children? (How else would fathers spread a sexually transmitted disease to their children?)

Happy Father's Day, you dirty slut.

Yay.

That ought to make fathers feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Accepting It's OK To Assume Fathers Will Be Promiscuous...
OK, now taking as a given that it's perfectly fine to assume fathers are going to sleep around and engage in risky sexual practices with their children, why circumcision?

Why the need to graft the far-removed subject male circumcision into the conversation?

I can only imagine what is going through the PEPFAR worker's mind.

Father's Day is as good time as any to talk about HIV prevention. (Because, again, what says "diligent father" than a man who goes out on his family and children to engage in risky sexual practices?)

And nothing prevents HIV transmission better than HIV (except maybe condoms and refraining from risky sexual practices, e.g., going out on your wife).

Ergo, Father's Day is ipso-facto a good day to promote male circumcision.

It makes perfect sense!

How Much Longer?
How long is this farce of pretending to be interested in HIV prevention and men's health when the real reason is to defend the forced genital cutting that goes on back in our own country going to go on?

When are other medical authorities around the world going to denounce the promotion of "mass circumcision campaigns" as the scientific profanity and crime against humanity that it is?

Male Circumcision Does Not, Cannot Prevent HIV Transmission
Even if the "research" held any water (it's replete with flaws), circumcision would only "reduce" the risk of HIV transmission from female to male by 60%.

What is the risk of a female getting HIV from an HIV positive man who has sex with her without a condom?

What power does she have to demand her man wear a condom, if her man believes he is "protected" by circumcision?

Circumcision as HIV prevention FAILS.

This is why circumcised men and their partners must be compelled to continue to use condoms.

A good father remains FAITHFUL to his wife, thereby preventing HIV transmission to her and/or any future children.

What kind of message does "going for circumcision" send?

That he intends to sleep around and possibly contract the disease?

And what further that it say?

That a father may infect his daughter somehow?

Circumcision does NOT BELONG in a message congratulating fathers on this day

 It tarnishes the message of PEPFAR, it tarnishes Father's Day.

How absolutely disgusting that circumcision advocates are taking this opportunity to promote a dubious, failed HIV prevention method.

In America, 80% of men are all circumcised. Yet, according to the CIA World Factbook, we have a higher HIV prevalence than 53 countries where circumcision is rare or not practiced.

If circumcision "reduces HIV transmission," this is not evident in America.

It's not evident in 10 out of 18 African countries, where HIV is more prevalent among the circumcised.

Why is PEPFAR pushing this?

What does promoting HIV prevention have to do with Father's Day?

What message does it send?

SHAME on PEPFAR.

Lately, president Trump has been canceling programs that don't put "America First."

I hope President Trump defunds this next.

Using millions if not billions of our tax dollars to push dubious forms of HIV prevention that have never worked, to push insulting and dangerous propaganda is a complete waste of money.

Related Posts:
10 Years Later, UNAIDS Still Hell Bent on Circumcising Africa

 Related Posts:

Where Circumcision Doesn't Prevent HIV II

UNITED STATES: Infant Circumcision Fails as STI Prophylaxis
CIRCUMCISION "RESEARCH": Rehashed Findings and Misleading Headlines

MASS CIRCUMCISION CAMPAIGNS: The Emasculation and Harassment of Africa

Posts on how circumcision may actually be worsening the HIV problem:


Posts on underhanded circumcision "upscale strategies" BOTSWANA: Men Shunning Circumcision a "Mistery"


AFRICA: Creating Circumcision "Volunteers"
 
AFRICA: NGO's Taking Children from School to Circumcise Them Without Parents' Knowledge
MALAWI: USAID-Funded Program Kidnapping Children for Circumcision - Boy Loses Penis

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

FACEBOOK: Another Baby Fighting For His Life Post Circumcision


This was in my Facebook news feed today:

TRAGEDY IN AMERICA, A BABY BORN May 23rd, 2017, FIGHTING FOR HIS LIFE: "A beautiful boy, with a head full of gorgeous hair: Two weeks after his birth, during circumcision, strep passed the blood barrier and he became septic. He now has sepsis, pneumonia, and bacterial meningitis, with seizures. Neurology has put him on antiseizure meds. A feeding tube into his belly and breathing assistance from a ventilator." ~Mom's statements, current as of today, Tuesday, June 13, 2017
These keep happening. (See the list of other posts to similar stories down below.)

What else can I say?

The risks of circumcision include infection, partial or full ablation, hemorrhage and even death.

The risks are real, American medical organizations keep this information from parents.

Doctors and hospitals are not legally obligated to report adverse circumcision outcome, and guilty parents are complicit in keeping the death of their child who died from needless surgery under wraps.

American medical organizations often minimize the risks and complications of male infant circumcision, but who is actually counting?

Can we actually trust the numbers they give us, given that a great majority of their members profit from male infant circumcision, and their duty is to the well-being of their MEMBERS?

Given that doctors and hospitals are not required to report this information?

And even if the risks were as low as they say, how is anything above ZERO conscionable for elective, non-medical cosmetic surgery on a healthy, non-consenting child?

The risks are real, and here is the proof.

We don't hear about this because they hardly make the news, and they barely surface on social media like Facebook.

For the same reasons; people want to hide these.

Slide them under the carpet.

WHEN IS THIS GOING TO STOP???

ARE YOU LISTENING AAP?

ARE YOU LISTENING DOUGLAS DIEKEMA?


This child's blood is on YOUR HANDS.

When reports like these surface on Facebook etc. make them go VIRAL.

ENOUGH OF THIS.

Related Posts:
 
Complications that made the news and have surfaced on facebook
 

CIRCUMCISION BOTCHES: Colombia and Malaysia

CIRCUMCISION DEATH: This Time in Russia

FACEBOOK: KENTUCKY - Botched Circumcision Gives Newborn Severe UTI

FACEBOOK: Circumcision Sends Another Child to NICU - This Time in LA

GEORGIA: Circumcision Sends a Baby to the NICU

CIRCUMCISION DEATH: This Time in Italy

FACEBOOK NEWS FEED: A Complication and a Death

INTACTIVISTS: Why We Concern Ourselves

MALE INFANT CIRCUMCISION: Another Baby Boy Dies

CIRCUMCISION: Another Baby Dies

CIRCUMCISION DEATH: Yet Another One (I Hate Writing These)

Another Circumcision Death Comes to Light

CIRCUMCISION DEATH: Yes, Another One - This Time in Israel

FACEBOOK: Two Botches and a Death

CIRCUMCISION DEATH: Child Dies After Doctor Convinces Ontario Couple to Circumcise

ONTARIO CIRCUMCISION DEATH: The Plot Thickens

Joseph4GI: The Circumcision Blame Game

Phony Phimosis: How American Doctors Get Away With Medical Fraud

FACEBOOK: Two More Babies Nearly Succumb to Post Circumcision Hemorrhage

FACEBOOK: Another Circumcision Mishap - Baby Hemorrhaging After Circumcision

What Your Dr. Doesn't Know Could Hurt Your Child

FACEBOOK: Child in NICU After Lung Collapses During Circumcision

EMIRATES: Circumcision Claims Another Life

BabyCenter Keeping US Parents In the Dark About Circumcision

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Circumcision Claims Another Life

TEXAS: 'Nother Circumcision Botch


New York Herpes Circumcision Problem:
NYC: More Herpes Circumcision Cases Since de Blasio Lifted Metzitzah B'Peh Regulations

BUSTED: Agudath Israel of America's Antics Revealed

NEW STUDY: Ultra-Orthodox Mohels Don't Give Babies Herpes

NEW YORK: Two More Herpes Babies, One With HIV

NEW YORK: Metzitzah: Two mohelim stopped after babies get herpes

NEW YORK: Yet Another Herpes Baby

Rabbis Delay NYC's Metzitzah B'Peh Regulations - Meanwhile, in Israel...

While PACE Holds a Hearing on Circumcision, Another Baby Contracts Herpes in NYC

Israel Ahead of New York in Recommending Against Metzitzah B'Peh

New York: Oral Mohel Tests Positive for Herpes

Herpes Circumcision Babies: Another One? Geez!

Mohels Spreading Herpes: New York Looks the Other Way

Circumcision Indicted in Yet Another Death: Rabbis and Mohels are "Upset"

Friday, June 2, 2017

COURTROOM SHOWDOWN: Religious Freedom on Trial


If "religious freedom" and "parental choice" can be used as alibis to justify the forced genital cutting of healthy, non-consenting boys, can they be used to justify it in girls?

The world is about to find out.

There exists an inconsistent hypocrisy in this country when it comes to the forced genital cutting of minors.

We have a two-track system that says that forcibly cutting off the foreskin of a healthy, non-consenting male child is defensible under so-called "religious freedom," as well as so-called "parental choice," but it is "mutilation" to cut the genitals of a healthy, non-consenting female child in any way shape or form.

There is no exemption for parents who wish to have their daughters' genitals cut for "cultural" or "religious reasons," though with male circumcision, only "parental choice" suffices and a doctor can perform a circumcision in a male child with for no further reason than that a parent wanted it done.


In South-East Asian countries, girls are circumcised in infancy.


In different countries around the world, including regions of Africa and South-East Asia, girls are often circumcised in infancy in pretty much the same way as boys are in the US.

When media outlets present female genital cutting, it is often generalized that all of it takes place in the bush, performed by amateur tribal shamans with crude utensils such as rusty blades, tin can remnants and glass shards. (Which is funny, because male circumcision is often performed in these exact same settings in the exact same places where female circumcision is performed in this way.)

When you say "female circumcision," the default for most Americans is to correct you and say "no, it's mutilation," citing the above, and citing infibulation (AKA "pharaonic circumcision"), where the protruding part of the clitoris is excised, the outer and inner labia excised and the remnants sewn shut to leave but a small hole for menstruation.

While infibulation exists, this is actually the rarest form of FGM, constituting only about 15% of all female genital cutting.

Most FGM is not as severe.

"Severity" is not the issue here.

Yet there seems to be this unspoken rule that "the least severe of the practices is justifiable."


Most people in the West don't seem to be aware that infant girls can be circumcised in pretty much the same way as infant boys are, in the setting of a hospital, performed by a medical professional using pristine utensils, and excising only external, vestigial pieces of flesh, though in the Western mind, there is no acceptable amount of flesh that can be removed in a girl.

While the entire foreskin can be removed in a male for "religious" or "cultural" purposes in males, the removal of any amount of flesh in a female constitutes "mutilation" as is simply unacceptable.


Pictured here is the amount of flesh that was removed in a circumcision in South-East Asia.
The original blogger, the mother, claims it was the clitoris, which is barely visible on the blades.

 Pictured here is the freshly severed foreskin of a newborn infant in the US.

It is often claimed by female circumcision advocates that male infant circumcision as it is commonly performed in the United States is actually more severe than female circumcision is it is commonly performed in South-East Asian countries, and as readers can see for themselves, they wouldn't be exaggerating.

It is often claimed that the reason female circumcision is "more severe" in girls is supposedly because female circumcision removes the clitoris, and that without the clitoris sexual enjoyment and even orgasm aren't possible.

What is removed in female circumcision, if at all (not all FGM removes the clitoris), is the *tip* of the clitoris. Complete removal of the clitoris is actually impossible.




For this reason, even women who have undergone the most severe form of FGM can still enjoy sex and even experience orgasm, as documented by Johnsdotter and Catania.

FGM is not all the same. The WHO recognizes for different types, not all of which remove any part of the clitoris.

 FGM is not all one and the same.

For better or for worse, female infant circumcision is not seen as "mutilation" in the countries and cultures where it is performed.

In fact, it is often considered a religious requirement, known as "sunat" in South-East Asia.

Female circumcision is seen as a normal "non-issue" by South-East Asian parents, just as male circumcision is seen as a normal "non-issue" by American parents.

 If you ignore the fact that this is a South-East Asian parent talking about
circumcising her daughter, she would sound like any American parent on
a parenting forum like BabyCenter or BabyGaga.

We intactivists have always asked, if "religious freedom" and "parental choice" can be used to justify the forced genital cutting of healthy, non-consenting male children, why can't it be used to justify the forced genital cutting of healthy, non-consenting female children?

The question is often circumvented with assertions that "they are not the same," because "one is more severe than the other," not to mention "the potential medical benefits of which there are zero in female circumcision."

These may or may not be true, but true or not, they would be irrelevant conclusions to the question posed.

Either "religious freedom" or "parental choice" can be used to justify the cutting of flesh in healthy, non-consenting minors, or they cannot.

Actually, as shown here, female circumcision can be more severe than male circumcision, and removing the labia can prevent the accumulation of smegma in females, as removing the foreskin can in males.

The fact that we do not circumcise females is testament to the fact that surgery is not necessary for hygiene.

And here, before I go on any further, I'd like to point out how in the face of scrutiny, "religious freedom" and "parental choice" have to be abandoned as alibis.

These arguments are so weak and frail that after their demise, male infant circumcision advocates have to look elsewhere for recourse, in this case being "disease prevention," as if their concern for public health were genuine.

As with male infant circumcision advocates, female infant circumcision advocates are ready, complete with published "research" showing how female circumcision may be able to prevent this or that disease.

Again, because "religious freedom" and "parental choice" fail.

It's Here
Anti-FGM advocates have up until today sidelined and ignored anyone who dare ask the above question, hoping we go away, but I think that by now, they're realizing that they can only do that so much.

Today, that question is staring them directly in the face, and they have to make a decision.

America has to make a decision.

Very soon, doctors, lawyers, ethicists, members on committee boards of respected medical organizations, our entire justice system will be faced with the question; how far can "religious freedom" and "parental choice" justify the needless cutting of flesh in healthy, non-consenting minors?

How far can something be justified before it constitutes "abuse?"

Female genital cutting in any way shape or form has been illegal in the US since a federal ban against it was instituted in 1996.

No such ban exists for male genital cutting.

This insconsistency, this sexist two-track system is finally going to be challenged in a court of law.

The State of Affairs
The situation is as follows; a woman is facing charges for FGM performed in Detroit.

Not too long before that, an Ethiopian Man had been deported after serving a sentence for having her daughter circumcised.
According to Detroit News, Dr. Jumana Nagarwala of Northville is accused of mutilating the genitalia of two girls from Minnesota on Feb. 3 at a Livonia clinic owned by Dr. Fakhruddin Attar.

The Farmington Hills man has been indicted along with his wife, Farida Attar, who is accused of helping arrange the procedure and being in the examination room during the procedure.

Defense lawyers are saying the girls underwent a benign religious procedure, and that the government is overreaching. (E.g., it's not genital mutilation because it was religious.)

Nagarwala’s lawyer Shannon Smith said the doctor merely removed mucous membrane from the girls’ genitalia, placed the material on gauze pads and gave it to their families for burial. (There is a federal ban against any form of FGM regardless.)

All three are members of the Dawoodi Bohra community, a religious and cultural community based in India where FGM is practiced.

They are being held without bond pending a trial in federal court in Detroit on October 10th this year.

Fakhruddin Attar, 52, and Nagarwala, 44, face up to life in prison if convicted of conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

Farida Attar, 50, faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of conspiring to obstruct the investigation.

The trio is accused of committing female genital mutilation, trying to cover up the crime and conspiring to cut girls as part of a procedure practiced by the Dawoodi Bohra.

Top Laywers on the Case
Famed constitutional law scholar and attorney Alan Dershowitz and prominent Birmingham defense attorney Mayer Morganroth were hired about three weeks ago by the Dawat-e-Hadiyah, an international religious organization overseeing a small sect of Shia Muslim mosques around the world.

According to Morganroth, they were hired "to protect the people charged and to represent the religious organization."

Morganroth has represented numerous high-profile clients, including ex-Detroit Mayor Coleman A. Young, auto executive John DeLorean and Jack Kevorkian.

Dershowitz is a retired Harvard Law School professor and lawyer who defended celebrity clients in some of the country's highest profile criminal cases. His client list includes O.J. Simpson, Mike Tyson and British socialite Claus von Bulow.

Conflicts of Interest
It looks like Alan Dershowitz is Orthodox Jewish. I couldn't find much on Morganroth, except that Morganroth is a Jewish surname.

Why is this important?

Male infant circumcision is seen as divine commandment in Judaism.

They have personal stake in this case, because if the federal government wins this landmark case against a physician performing genital cutting on children at the request of religious parents, then the legality of Jewish circumcision would be put in question.

A Delicate Dance
So much hangs in the balance in this case.

The defense lawyers have a delicate dance to perform; the dance around the candle that FGM activists and male infant circumcision advocates have been struggling to perform for decades, only now, it's being performed in federal court.

On the one hand, a landmark win is a win for "religious freedom," and the legality of Jewish circumcision will remain unquestioned.

It also means, however, that this may result in the Federal FGM Ban of 1996 to be lifted, opening the door for other forms of FGM, and possibly other abusive practices, to be legally performed in the US.
 

For the Holy Day of Ashura, parents cut the tops of childrens' heads.
Harmless, really...

In some cultures, children marry early.
It's religiously sanctioned of course...

 In some cultures, children's faces are scarified.
Some belief the scars provide religious protection. Does that count?

 What if I want to tattoo my faith on my child?

What if, instead of taking my child to the doctor, I insist on praying for him?
Because I believe only god can and should heal my child from diseases?

 Where does it end?
What if I invent a new religion that says that all children
must have their ears modified to look like Princess Zelda?

On the other hand, a landmark loss means the legality of Jewish circumcision would be put in question.

This also means, however, that parents can't just do abusive things to their children and get away with it under "religious freedom."

So these lawyers have to decide what's more important: protecting the most basic human rights of healthy, non-consenting minors, or sacrificing them on the altar of "religious freedom."

You can't have it both ways.
Choose wisely.

While it seems like it's a lose-lose for them, I can't help but seeing it as a win-win for basic human rights.

As a human rights activist, I want the judge uphold the federal ban on FGM to rule in favor of basic human rights, and to condemn the actions of the people involved.

On the other, a rule in favor of "religious freedom" is a tacit admission that genital cutting is the same issue, male or female.

Actually, male circumcision and female circumcision will be legally recognized as being parallel, and neither FGM activists nor circumcision advocates will be able to deny it.

The firewall between the forced genital cutting of males and females will have been officially broken down.

Normalizing and even legalizing FGM will force the public to take a closer look at the issue, and to recognize that male and female circumcision are both one and the same, for they violate the exact same principles and are defended on the exact same grounds.

In either case, I see nothing but progress in the fight for basic human rights.