There is a movement afoot to ban male circumcision in the United States. The question will be on the ballot in San Francisco this fall and may be on the ballot in Santa Monica in 2012. There has been a similar effort in Massachusetts over the past several years, although it has failed to gain any traction in the legislature.
I won’t question the motives of most of the people who support these measures, such as Jena Troutman, the woman quoted in the NYT article to which I linked. Ms. Troutman, “who has worked as a lactation educator and a doula,” says she is “just a mom trying to save the little babies.” Okay. But the movement’s leader, Matthew Hess (Hess? Really?), is another story. The NYT reports that he is the author of the on-line comic Foreskin Man, which, aside from its general absurdity and poor taste (e.g., Issue 2: ripped Aryan-looking director of the Museum of Genital Integrity leaves the “bat cave” to go party with bikini-clad women before rescuing a Jewish baby from the clutches of the father and the evil Monster Mohel and his goons and taking him and the mother away to live on a beach with bikers, where they light a bonfire that’s maybe in the shape of Foreskin Man’s coat of arms) uses what appears to me to be pretty blatantly anti-Semitic imagery and text (explicit: here, and all of Issue 2; more insidious: here: all the “well connected doctors and lawyers” of the “lobby” in favor of circumcision are keeping Foreskin Man and his Museum of Genital Integrity down).
My favorite comment on Hess’s Foreskin Man cartoon is from the Diary of a Wimpy Catholic blog:
A vigilant reader has informed me that I was entirely wrong in supposing that Foreskin Man, the comic put out by San Francisco circumcision opponents, was someone’s bad idea of meta-humor. The artist, Matthew Hess, is a real person of real German ancestry — not, as I had hoped, a Jewish prankster who named himself after a Nazi for a lark.
So true.
Hess obviously is aware of the religious implications of what he is proposing: his draft legislation says: “no account shall be taken of the effect on the person on whom the operation is to be performed of any belief on the part of that or any other person that the operation is required as a matter of custom or ritual.” And it patronizingly would require “re-education” of Jews and Muslims, requiring the government to:
Identify communities in the United States that practice genital mutilation, and design and carry out outreach activities to educate individuals in the communities on the physical and psychological effects of such practice. Such outreach activities shall be designed and implemented in collaboration with representatives of the ethnic groups practicing such mutilation and with representatives of organizations with expertise in preventing such practice.
The main problem with the proposed law is that it may not be unconstitutional. So if you say, “it can’t happen here”, think again! My main point: if you think that the right of parents to circumcise their sons for religious reasons is part of religious freedom in America, be prepared to phone your legislators and speak out against this bill when it comes up again in Massachusetts, as it no doubt will.
The Circumcision Man at U Chicago has been favoring this for years. The fact that the University has practiced genital mutilation on females who wanted the procedure for cultural reasons but in a clean environment is open to debate in my view. But male circumcision, particularly on babies, is not painful, does not permanently impair the patients sex drive or cause psychological harm down the road, does not increase the risk of infection or cervical cancer for one, and might have some health benefits as well. At the end of the day it seems that the benefits and downsides are nebulous at best on make circumcision, and it would put Rabbi’s and prospective Godfathers like Jerry Seinfeld out of work and more importantly infringe on religious freedom. Like headscarf bans I am generally against the government protecting people from their own beliefs, even if I find them somewhat irrational.
It seems that despite his futuristic plasma boots and his ubermensch-like good looks, Foreskin Man has lost a round in Santa Monica. Jena Troutman, the hapless lactation educator and doula, has withdrawn her measure, so it will not be considered.
Hess has acknowledged the controversy over his comic,tweeting: “Yes, there has been some internal criticism of the comic.” No doubt many of the well-meaning folks taken in by Hess are distressed to find out the company they’re keeping!