It breaks my heart every time I hear that yet another baby boy has succumbed to this needless surgery.
It had been a while since I've written one of these posts, though I'm sure many baby boys have died in the interim. However this one had been making the rounds on Facebook, and it kept showing up in my news feed, so I felt another circumcision death post was in order.
Four days ago, on the 23rd of this month, a baby who will go by the name of "Little Dave" bled to death through his circumcision wound. He was three days old.
Death is a Risk of Male Infant Circumcision
Circumcision advocacy groups try to downplay the risks of circumcision. The only ones most parents in this country will ever hear about, if physicians even bother mentioning them, are "pain and discomfort." Few will mention that circumcision could result in MRSA infection, a botched circumcision requiring future correction, partial or full ablation, and even death. Very few physicians will ever talk about death being a risk of circumcision.
It's sad, but this is what passes nowadays as "informed consent."
An estimated 117 deaths occur every year in the United States due to circumcision. This is a rough estimate, and more conservative than its predecessors; in the past, estimates have been as high as 200 or more deaths per year.
An accurate estimate on the number of deaths due to infant circumcision is admittedly difficult to pinpoint, because at least in America, hospitals are not required to release this information, and doctors often misattribute a child's death to secondary causes.
At 1.3 million circumcisions annually, circumcision is a money-maker for American medicine, and doctors have reputations and bankbooks to protect. Reporting adverse circumcision effects puts their yearly stipend in jeopardy, not to mention the disrepute it would bring to American medicine. With so much to lose, there is much incentive to hide the evidence and parents complicit in hiding their own guilt and shame will agree to mask the child's cause of death.
Reporting deaths from circumcision would open the floodgates to lawsuits by angry parents and angry men. Reporting deaths from circumcision means loss of revenue. Reporting deaths from circumcision means the "benefits" have to be reconsidered. Reporting deaths from circumcision means that American medical organizations are being irresponsible. Reporting deaths from circumcision means "culture and tradition" is put in danger.
For these reasons, we will never know for sure how many children die as a result of their circumcisions. There are reputations to protect, culture and tradition to safeguard, and malpractice lawsuit floodgates to keep sealed.
Death is a risk of male infant circumcision.
Let me repeat; Death is a risk of male infant circumcision.
Circumcision advocates try to minimize the risks and complications of circumcision. If they even mention death, they will say that the number of male children dying due to circumcision complications is "infinitesimally small."
But it must be asked, how is the death of even ONE healthy child conscionable, given that male infant circumcision is elective, non-medical surgery?
How is the death of even ONE healthy, non-consenting child conscionable, given that the so-called "benefits" of circumcision are already accessible by conventional, non-surgical means?
Little Dave bled to death at three days of age, and had he not been circumcised, he would have still been alive and well.
Let that sink in.
Death is a risk of male infant circumcision.
Are parents being informed of this risk?
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