An Open Letter to Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in Support of the Citizen Initiative to Establish 18 as the Minimum Age for Non-therapeutic Circumcision in Denmark

Dear Prime Minister Frederiksen,

Two years ago, in Denmark - a nation with strong democratic and progressive traditions and a proud history of defending Jewish Danes during the darkest days of the Holocaust - a Citizen Initiative passed the 50,000-signature threshold to impel the Folketing (parliament) to consider legislation that would establish 18 as the minimum age at which an individual could undergo non-therapeutic circumcision.  Such legislation, if passed, would provide all Danish boys (not just Jewish ones) with the same legal protection against genital cutting that girls in Denmark have had since 2003 and that girls in my own country, the U.S.A., have had since 1996.

In reference to this proposed legislation, you recently issued a statement in which you declared your opposition but in which you also reaffirmed Denmark's solemn promise not to permit persecution of its Jewish citizens ever again.  As for that reaffirmation, I welcome it, not only because I oppose antisemitism on principle but because I, myself, am Jewish.  Being a member, by birth, of this widely-dispersed ethnic group - one that has had to contend with more than its share of persecution - I have a profound sense of kinship with all other Jews.  Accordingly, I look upon an attack against Jews anywhere as an attack against me, personally. 
 
At the same time, that essential part of me that identifies as Jewish also believes that, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. declared, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."  As I understand him, what King meant by this is that, if society permits injustice in any one case, it forfeits its moral authority to oppose injustice in every other case.  Injustice then achieves a kind of legitimacy and, once it has established this beachhead, we are all threatened by its inevitable encroachment.  Every human being, therefore, has a personal stake in the existence of a single, universal standard of justice.  Likewise, every human being has a personal stake in combating injustice, wherever it occurs and to whomever it occurs.

I do not regard my Jewish identity and my commitment to the ideal of universal justice as being in any way in conflict.  On the contrary, each is intrinsic to the other.  I cannot separate the ethics and values that are the core of my Jewishness from my belief in universal justice.  Thus, it is not in spite of the fact that I am Jewish but because of it that I believe that every child - no matter who that child is - has a fundamental human right to bodily integrity.  That is why I am strongly in favor of legislation that would prohibit non-therapeutic circumcision of anyone below the age of 18. 

This brings me to your statement.  Though the sentiments expressed in it are noble, they are predicated on several false assumptions.  Chief among these is that all Jews practice infant circumcision.  That, simply, is not so.  Jews around the world - including in Israel - are rejecting forced circumcision in ever-increasing numbers.  In 2016, the cultural anthropologist, Leonard B. Glick, estimated that one out of every six Jewish boys born in the United States was being left intact.  If anything, this fraction has only increased since then.  While the absolute number of Jewish American parents who have rejected this practice may not seem large, when one considers that, at 5.7 million, there are nearly as many Jews living in the United Sates as there are in Israel (6.15 million), Glick's estimate, if even remotely accurate, is highly significant.

Nor is this development attributable merely to the phenomenon of lapsed religious observance.  Jews are consciously - and conscientiously - repudiating the practice of inflicting severe pain on their infant sons and irreparably damaging and scarring their penises.  But don't take my word for it.  Visit Beyond the Bris in order to read, in their own words, the statements of Jews who oppose forced circumcision.

This underscores an even more basic, mistaken assumption on your part; namely, that, whatever the current rate of Jewish circumcision and whatever form it may take in practice, there is something quintessentially Jewish about circumcision - as though Jewishness and circumcision are inseparable.  Yet Jews have opposed forced circumcision since it was imposed upon us by fanatical priests during the sixth century BCE (following the Babylonian exile and the Jews' return, 60 years later, from that exile), it was opposed by Hellenistic Jews who desperately tried to undo the damage that had been done to them by resorting to what is now known as "foreskin restoration," it was vigorously debated during the Jewish Enlightenment of the 19th century, and it has been a topic of controversy among Jews throughout the history of our diaspora.  As long as Jews have practiced ritual circumcision, there has been intense Jewish opposition to this practice.

You seem to take it for granted, however, that Jewish thought on the practice of male genital cutting is monolithic.  By perpetuating this myth in your statement, no matter how honorable your intentions were, you appear to have inadvertently engaged in a bit of Jewish stereotyping of your own: all Jews must think one way because they are Jews. 
 
At the same time, by failing to acknowledge the existence of a vibrant Jewish opposition to male genital cutting, your statement marginalizes and effectively silences those Jewish voices that have been and continue to be raised against the perpetuation of this harmful, inhumane and anachronistic human-rights violation.

It would not be fair, of course, to blame you for your mistaken assumptions.   They are understandable given the statements in opposition to this and similar proposed circumcision age-requirements by Jews themselves.  The Jewish Press, for example, reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel spoke directly with you in order to thank you for your "steadfast position in defense of the Jewish community and the ancient tradition of circumcision."  The Times of Israel quotes Henri Goldstein (president of the Jewish Community in Denmark) as describing the proposed age-requirement as "the worst threat [to Denmark's Jewish citizens] since World War II."  When an identical age-requirement was being considered by a committee of the Icelandic Alþingi two years ago, Jonathan A. Greenblatt, CEO and National Director of the ADL, submitted a letter to the committee in opposition to the proposed legislation.  (The ADL, or Anti-Defamation League, is an organization that I admire and support but which, unfortunately, has a moral blind spot with respect to male genital cutting.)  After falsely (and preposterously) claiming that ritual infant circumcision "is universally practiced by all families who identify as Jewish," Mr. Greenblatt asserted that "Such a ban would mean that no Jewish family could be raised in Iceland, and it is inconceivable that a Jewish community could remain in any country that prohibited brit milah."  (Brit milah - literally, the “covenant of circumcision” - is the religious circumcision ceremony.)

What Jewish opponents of the forced circumcision of unconsenting children want you to recognize, Prime Minister, is that Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Goldstein and Mr. Greenblatt do not speak for all Jews and they certainly do not speak for us.  As I have noted, there is a burgeoning movement within Jewry itself to bring about an end to the harmful and profoundly unethical practice of forced, infant circumcision.  The purpose of this open letter is to acquaint you with that movement and to explain why Jewish opposition to forced circumcision is every bit as authentically Jewish, every bit as fundamental to Jewish ethics and every bit as fundamental to the values, principles and meaning of Judaism itself as its defenders claim of brit milah.

This is who Jewish opponents of forced circumcision are and what we believe in:  We are men and women who come from different walks of life and different parts of the world but who have two things in common:  We identify as Jewish and we are unwavering in our opposition to forced genital cutting.  Some of us are secular Jews, identifying as Jewish ethnically and culturally, while some of us are religious Jews for whom Judaism is central to our beliefs and values.  Some of us have been subjected to genital cutting and others have not.  Some of us were subjected to genital cutting within the context of the brit milah while some of us - primarily those of us who are from the United States - were subjected to it merely because we happen to have been born into a time and place in which male genital cutting had become a medicalized, routine part of childbirth.  Those of us who have been subjected to genital cutting maintain not only that we were physically harmed by it but that, in being denied a choice regarding the very configuration of our own bodies, we were deprived of the fundamental human right of bodily autonomy.  We emphatically do not reject our Jewishness and those of us who are religious do not reject Judaism.  We reject one thing and one thing only: forced circumcision.

Jewish opposition to forced circumcision rests on a variety of ethical and religious bases:   

First and foremost is the simple fact that subjecting any child to any form of medically-unnecessary genital-modification surgery violates that child’s fundamental right of bodily integrity.  Every child - whether male, female or intersex - has an inalienable right to grow up with the genitals that he, she or they were born with.

Jewish opponents of genital cutting reject the implicit notion that forced circumcision is what makes one Jewish.  A Jewish girl is no less Jewish than her brother.  And a Jewish boy born to Jewish parents is no less Jewish by virtue of not having had the most sensitive part of his penis cut off.  Jewishness is a product of one's genes, one's heritage, one's family life and upbringing, one's values, one's traditions and one's culture. 

Jewish opponents of genital cutting also reject the claim that ritual circumcision is essential to the practice of Judaism.  More and more religious Jews are replacing the brit milah with the brit shalom (literally, “covenant of peace”), a religious ceremony that serves exactly the same spiritual and communal purposes as the brit milah but without the pain, without the harm, without the blood, without the trauma, without the permanent loss of erotogenic tissue and without the human rights violation.

Nor is genital cutting essential to the survival of Judaism as a cohesive religion.  Jewish women are not subjected to forced circumcision and they are no less spiritual - nor do they regard themselves as any less beloved by Him (or Her) whom they believe to be the Creator of the universe - than their Jewish fathers, brothers, husbands and sons who were.  There are also countless intact Jewish boys and men in the world today.  They, too, are neither less spiritual nor less devout than their Jewish brethren who were subjected to forced circumcision as neonates.  Judaism is the sublime manifestation of one's spirituality and religious beliefs.  To claim that it is ultimately reducible to nothing more than the size and shape of a penis is not just an affront to Judaism but an utter debasement of it.

My perspective on all this is that of a secular Jew, but I would also like to share with you with the perspective of a deeply religious Jewish woman who has written and lectured extensively on this topic.  In her essay, Circumcision: A Jewish Inquiry (Midstream; January 1992), Lisa Braver Moss articulates the many ways in which the brit milah is, in fact, in conflict with fundamental principles of Judaism itself.  Ms. Braver Moss notes that all of the arguments against forced circumcision “stem from Jewish principles.”

Concern about . . .  babies’ pain echoes the Jewish prohibition against the causing of pain to living things.  Opposition to bodily mutilation is based on the Torah’s denunciation of pagan practices such as tattooing and cutting the flesh.  Concern for medical risk, too, has roots in halacha (Jewish law): Any medical procedure that involves even the possibility of risk to life is halachically forbidden.  And the idea of protecting children’s rights brings to mind the Jewish principle that the poor and weak should be treated equally with the rich and mighty.

It goes without saying that Jewish opponents of forced circumcision reject the assertion that this practice is essential to the continued existence of the Jews as a people.  The Jewish people existed long before the advent of neonatal circumcision as a religious mandate, we existed longer still before forced circumcision was expanded into the radical prepucectomy (peri'ah) that is practiced today, and we will continue to exist long after forced circumcision has gone the way of other religious mandates that are no longer followed by the vast majority of Jews (such as post-menstrual ritual bathing), just as we have managed to exist without other now long-discarded and repudiated practices such as polygyny, death by stoning, and slavery.

Still, a recurring alarm sounded by Jewish opponents of this and similar proposed legislation reflects their anxiety that establishing a minimum age of 18 for non-therapeutic circumcision constitutes an existential threat to Judaism and to the Jewish people as a people.  Thus, we have hyperbolic statements by Mr. Goldstein that the proposed legislation amounts to “the worst threat since WWII.”  Yet, in contrast to this view, many Jewish opponents of genital cutting regard the continued practice of forced circumcision itself as constituting an even greater threat.  In my activities as an advocate of the right of bodily autonomy, more than once I have received comments from self-described "former Jews" who, owing entirely to their resentment about what was done to their genitals as infants without their consent, have rejected not just the brit milah but Judaism and even their own Jewishness.  Forced circumcision, far from binding these men to their religion and to their people, resulted ultimately in driving them away.

There is every reason to believe that this trend will not only continue but increase.  Forced circumcision has, for a long time, been on a collision course with modernity, especially as the world has progressed toward a more universal recognition of fundamental human rights.  We are now witnessing that collision and its unfortunate results unfolding in real time.  It is no longer possible to reconcile the brit milah with contemporary notions of autonomy and the inviolability of each person's physical boundaries.  It is inevitable, therefore, that more and more Jews will be driven away from Judaism and from Jewishness altogether if they are made to feel that their acceptance of forced genital cutting is a non-negotiable condition of remaining within the fold.

In the modern world, then, the risk is growing that the continued subjection of infant Jewish boys to genital cutting will function as a wedge, alienating the Jewish men that these infants become from their families and their communities.  At the same time, the social pressure on Jewish parents to subject their infant sons to genital cutting will increasingly function as a wedge between their duty as parents to protect their sons from harm and their sense of loyalty to their fellow Jews.  Time and again we learn of the extent to which it is the social pressure on behalf of forced circumcision that is brought to bear on new parents by their parents, relatives or others in their community that is chiefly and ultimately responsible for the perpetuation of this odious practice.  One can only guess how many new Jewish parents have been pressured - against their natural maternal and paternal instincts, against their inmost beliefs, and against their better judgment - into subjecting their sons to circumcision.  Ms. Braver Moss describes this conflict in recounting her own experience of reluctantly agreeing to having her two sons circumcised.

I had profound doubts about my decision.  But because open discussion of Brit Milah seems to be discouraged in the Jewish community, I experienced my doubts privately and without comfort.  (I had not yet begun a dialogue with other Jews who question Brit Milah.)  Thus, a rite intended to inspire feelings of Jewish unity evoked in me a sense of loss and alienation.  In my heart, I don’t believe God wanted me to feel this aloneness, and I don’t believe God wanted me to cause my babies pain.

The personal testimony of Ms. Braver Moss and of Jewish men who object to what was done to their bodies undermines the claims of our fellow Jews, such as Mr. Greenblatt of the ADL, that the effect of an 18-year age-requirement for non-therapeutic circumcision would be to make Jews personae non gratae in any nation that instituted such a reasonable restriction.  As I have noted above, when Iceland was considering similar legislation, Mr. Greenblatt claimed that “it is inconceivable that a Jewish community could remain in any country that prohibited brit milah." Yet this assertion completely discounts the thousands upon thousands of Jews who abhor the brit milah and who would gladly raise their families - and would raise them as proudly Jewish - in a country where the forced circumcision of any minor is prohibited by law.  The paradox is that, contrary to the supposition that an 18-year age-requirement for non-therapeutic circumcision must necessarily result in an exodus of Jews from Denmark (or from any other forward-thinking nation that institutes a similar restriction), such an age-requirement could just as likely have the opposite effect: an influx of Jews who would be only too happy to raise their families in a country where they are legally fortified in their rejection of any social pressure to subject their children to genital cutting.

If several of the arguments that I have just brought forward are negative arguments - explanations of how an age-requirement of 18 for non-therapeutic circumcision would not constitute the existential threat to Judaism and to the Jewish people that some would have you believe - there is also a powerful affirmative argument against forced circumcision that is intrinsic to Jewish ethics.  Jewish efforts to bring about the end of ritual circumcision and all non-therapeutic genital cutting are guided by the concept of tikkun olam (literally, “repairing the world”).  This concept, which goes back at least to the third century CE and appears in the Mishnah (a compendium of rabbinic teaching, law and other Jewish oral traditions that began to be set down in writing following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE) means, in essence, that Jews have an obligation to work for social- and universal justice.  That means that we are obligated to defend fundamental human rights.  And because there is no right that is more fundamental than the rights of bodily integrity and bodily autonomy, Jews who take seriously the moral imperative of tikkun olam must oppose any practice that entails the ritual or customary cutting, partial excision or scarring of any child's genitals.  That is why we oppose all forms of genital cutting, no matter who is subjected to it, and why we feel obligated to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.  This, of course, includes infant Jewish boys.  After all, how can we claim to support universal human rights while denying those rights to our own sons?  This is also why, as I observed about myself at the beginning of this letter, our active opposition to forced circumcision exists not in spite of our Jewish beliefs and values but because of them.

It is inevitable, of course, that proposals to establish a minimum age of 18 for non-therapeutic circumcision are met with the argument that such a restriction would constitute an intolerable abridgment of the freedom of individuals and minority communities to practice their religion.  However, the right to subject an infant or child to ritual genital cutting is most emphatically not a right that is encompassed by the right to practice one’s religion.  While the freedom to believe (or not to believe, for that matter) is fundamental and illimitable, it does not follow that the freedom to act is likewise illimitable.  It should be obvious that the freedom to practice one's religion does not include acts that harm others.  Even if the right to practice one's religion may be regarded as fundamental, that right is still circumscribed by every other person’s even-more-fundamental right not to be physically harmed.  Exceptions to this bedrock foundation of human rights should not be made for any religion, including ours.  Nor, in this day and age, should this be considered a radical or even a controversial position, let alone an antisemitic one.  On the contrary, this view of the balance between the religious freedom of one person and the bodily autonomy of another simply reflects contemporary norms regarding fundamental human rights and human dignity.  No one has a right to cut, maim, scar or mutilate any part of any child’s body for religious or cultural reasons.  The only person who has a right to cause his genitals to be permanently altered is the individual himself.

I understand the social context (and appreciate the good intentions) in which your opposition to the proposed legislation is engendered.  I assure you, Jews do not need to be reminded of the history of antisemitism and the persecution of our ancestors throughout so much of European history.  It is well known that that persecution manifested itself in circumcision prohibitions in generations past and that, when these earlier prohibitions were enacted, they were part of explicitly antisemitic government programs.  It is perfectly understandable, therefore, that one may hear - or think one hears - ominous echoes of Europe's dark antisemitic past in the current effort to prohibit the forced circumcision of minors.  This is especially the case given the alarming resurgence of nationalism, xenophobia and antisemitism that has occurred on both sides of the Atlantic during the past several years. 

But circumcision prohibitions from past centuries that were explicitly anti-Jewish in design are fundamentally different from the current worldwide effort to ban all involuntary genital cutting which, it cannot be emphasized too strongly, includes not only Jewish children but all children, and not only boys but also girls and intersex children.  The proposed 18-year circumcision age-requirement, therefore, should not be seen as an attack on Jews but simply as the inevitable and logical conclusion of increasingly universal standards regarding human rights and children's rights, particularly as articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (ratified by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948) and in the Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989 and ratified by Denmark in 1991) - and specifically as articulated in Article 37, part a of the latter which states that "No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." An 18-year non-therapeutic-circumcision age-restriction would merely constitute the long-overdue inclusion of boys - including Jewish ones - within the protective ambit of the already-existing legal framework under which female genital cutting has been banned in Denmark and throughout much of the world.

It should also be remembered that the object of the proposed legislation is not to prohibit circumcision.  It is to prohibit forced circumcision.  There is nothing in the proposed text of the legislation that would prevent anyone, once he is of an age at which he can make well-considered, volitional decisions about his own body, from choosing circumcision for himself for whatever reason he may have.  Any adult capable of exercising informed consent has a right, consistent with the principle of autonomy and self-determination, to have his body altered in accordance with his own beliefs and values, whether these beliefs have their origin in religion or anything else.  And this is exactly as it should be: it is his body and that is why it must be his choice.

I began this open letter by stating that one of my objectives was to acquaint you with the fact that there is a sizable and growing movement of Jews (and, thankfully, plenty of others) that seeks to end all forced genital cutting.  Another of my objectives was, of course, to add my own voice - as a Jewish man and as someone who was subjected to genital cutting without his consent - to the swell of opposition to the practice of forced circumcision.  

Above all, my purpose in this letter is to admonish you, with all due respect, that, no matter how noble your intentions were, because your statement was issued ostensibly to express your opposition to the eminently reasonable and commonsense 18-year age-requirement for non-therapeutic circumcision that the Folketing has now been charged with considering, it is not so much a statement of solidarity with the Jewish people as it is a statement in support of an anachronistic and harmful practice that is opposed by many Jews themselves.  By aligning yourself exclusively with those Jews who support forced circumcision, you are, at the same time, aligning yourself against the many Jews who oppose it.  And, it goes without saying, you are aligning yourself against those children - Jewish and non-Jewish, alike - who are victimized by it.

Sincerely,

David Balashinsky 

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David Balashinsky is originally from New York City and now lives near the Finger Lakes region of New York. He is a licensed physical therapist and writes about bodily autonomy and human rights, gender, culture, and politics.  He currently serves on the board of directors and as Director of Outreach for the Genital Autonomy Legal Defense & Education Fund, (GALDEF), he serves on the board of directors and advisors for Doctors Opposing Circumcision and serves on the leadership team for Bruchim.

 

Statement on Behalf of Jews Against Circumcision in Observance of the Worldwide Day of Genital Autonomy, 2020

by David Balashinsky

Grüß dich, and greetings from Binghamton, New York. 

My name is David Balashinsky and I'm proud to be speaking to you today on behalf of Jews Against Circumcision in observance of the Worldwide Day of Genital Autonomy, 2020. 

I'd like to begin by clarifying what we're for and what we're against, since the name "Jews Against Circumcision" is actually a misnomer.  It would be more accurate to call ourselves "Jews Against Forced Circumcision."   While it's fair to say that we don't approve of any medically-unnecessary genital surgery, we recognize that the same principle that gives people the right not to have their genitals cut or surgically altered without their consent also gives them the right to choose elective genital surgery for any reason they might have, provided they're adults and capable of exercising informed consent. 

There could be any number of reasons why people might willingly undergo cosmetic genital surgery.  One of them is undoubtedly nothing more than internalized self-hatred, because the natural anatomy of human genitalia - whether female, male or intersex - is so often stigmatized.  In the case of women, at least in the United States, this phenomenon, known as labiaplasty, actually seems to be increasing.  Another reason closely related to this is the pressure to conform to cultural norms.  Again, in the United States, several of the rationalizations for male genital cutting that are most frequently given fall into this category.  "So he won't be made fun of in the locker room," we are often told.  A man who has escaped forced circumcision at birth could still succumb to pressure like this in adulthood.  It's even possible that, after serious and mature reflection, an adult might want to undergo circumcision as an expression of his deeply-felt religious convictions.  What matters in all of these cases, though, is that in a society that respects fundamental, universal human rights, the decision to have part a person's genitals removed is a decision that belongs to that individual himself and no one else.   It's his body - his choice.

What matters equally is that performing any medical treatment when there is nothing to treat is considered malpractice and unethical.  And when the "treatment" is a surgery that permanently removes a functional part of a person's body, the harm is immeasurably greater because it is irreversible.  Amputating a perfectly healthy body part is a harm in and of itself.  It is not a "cure" but an assault.  And when infants and children are deprived of their right to refuse the permanent removal of a part of their genitals, that is when genital cutting, by any name you want to call it, is a human-rights violation.

 
So it is not genital surgery that Jews Against Circumcision is against but forced genital surgery.  It is not circumcision that we're against but forced circumcision. We're against it because, as Jews, we believe that every human being has a right to grow up with his genitals whole, intact, un-scarred and unharmed.  What we're against is the genital cutting that is imposed on those unable to exercise informed consent and unable to defend themselves from it: infants and children.  We oppose any and all medically-unnecessary genital surgery for all children, whether female, intersex or male.  We believe that the right of bodily self-ownership - which necessarily includes the right of genital autonomy - is a universal and fundamental human right that transcends every conceivable group identification.  The right not to have part of one's genitals cut off without consent is a right that belongs to every infant and every child, regardless of sex, race, ethnicity and nationality, and no matter what religion that child is born into: whether Judaism, Christianity, Islam or any other religion.   As Jews, we believe that the right of bodily self-ownership is the most basic and important human right there is. 

What's more, we're not just supporters of the right of genital autonomy but believe that we have a moral obligation to defend that right on behalf of those who can't defend it themselves.  As we see it, the moral obligation to actively oppose genital cutting is intrinsic to our self-concept of who we are as Jews. This obligation comes from the principle of tikkun olam, which is typically translated as "repairing the world." Although tikkun olam is originally a religious concept, it is also deeply ingrained in secular Jewish thought, philosophy, ethics and culture. It is a moral imperative that impels followers of Judaism and secular Jews, alike, to strive to leave the world better than we found it.  That is why the brit milah is increasingly being replaced by the brit shalom among religious Jews.  It is why so many secular Jews are actively working to end all forced genital cutting.  Jews Against Circumcision is against all forced genital cutting not in spite of our being Jewish but because we are Jewish. 

As many of you know, the Worldwide Day of Genital Autonomy commemorates the 2012 Cologne court ruling that recognized that forced circumcision constitutes a grievous bodily harm to the child who is subjected to it.  The notion that Genital Autonomy is a universal right is reflected in the fact that this commemoration is observed all over the world by those who value human rights and human dignity above all else.  It reflects the powerful idea that every child - no matter where that child is born, no matter who that child's parents are, no matter who or what that child's parents worship or pray to, no matter what tribe, ethno-linguistic group, clan, ethnicity, race, people, religion or nationality that child is born into - that child is first and foremost a human being: a member of the human race.  The fundamental rights that we recognize as human rights aren't adjuncts to being human but intrinsic to being human.  They aren't severable and they aren't conditional.  They don't belong to some but not to others.  They don't belong to infants and children of one sex but not to infants and children of another or indeterminate sex.  They belong to every infant, every child, every human being the world over.

Unfortunately, as history all too often demonstrates, the existence of a right is no guarantee that that right will be respected. At this moment, hundreds of millions of girls and women and a billion boys and men around the world are living with the scars and the damage of forced genital cutting. Who knows how many intersex individuals around the world are living with the trauma of having had binary sexual-assignment-surgery imposed on them without any need for it and without their wanting it.  That is why the Worldwide Day of Genital Autonomy exists.  Not to encourage parents, religious leaders, medical professionals and legislatures to grant the right of genital autonomy to every child - for how can one grant to children a right they're born with?  Rather, it's to demand respect for the right of genital autonomy that, by virtue of being human, every child already has. 

Here, again, in the worldwide campaign for genital autonomy, we see the same impulse as that of tikkun olam - "repairing the world."  This impulse, of course, isn't unique to Jews.  It motivates people of all cultures and religions and, of course, free-thinkers who recognize that freedom, dignity and self-determination are universal values and who feel themselves called to fight for universal human rights.  The right of bodily self-ownership and genital autonomy lies at the very heart of the ongoing struggle for basic human rights the world over.

The worldwide effort to secure the right of genital autonomy for every male, female and intersex individual, no matter how old or how young, is what the Worldwide Day of Genital Autonomy is all about.  That is why Jews Against Circumcision is proud to join our brothers, sisters and non-binary siblings of all faiths, all ethnicities and all nationalities in participating in this international event.  And that is why we encourage you, on this day - and every day - to defend that most basic and essential human right: the right of Genital Autonomy. 

Thank you.

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David Balashinsky is originally from New York City and now lives near the Finger Lakes region of New York. He writes about bodily autonomy and human rights, gender, culture and politics.
 

On Medically Unnecessary Genital Surgery and Human Rights: ACLU NorCal and the San Francisco Ballot Initiative to Protect Bodily Autonomy

by David Balashinsky

Nine years ago, supporters of a proposed, citizen-initiated city ordinance presented more than 12,000 signatures to the Department of Elections in San Francisco.  The ballot initiative that they hoped to place before the voters sought to accomplish one thing and one thing only: a ban on the forced circumcision of male minors when not medically necessary.  Shortly thereafter, attorneys from the ACLU of Northern California filed an amicus curiae brief with the Superior Court of California in San Francisco "urging the court to issue a writ of mandate restraining San Francisco's Director of Elections from placing [an] initiative criminalizing circumcision on San Francisco's November 8, 2011 ballot." 

To be clear, the proposed ballot initiative did not aim at "criminalizing circumcision."  It specifically did not include a prohibition against penile circumcision when medically necessary.  As the language of the ballot initiative stated, an exception to the (proposed) ban would exist in those cases in which circumcision is deemed "necessary to the physical health of the person on whom it is performed because of a clear, compelling, and immediate medical need with no less-destructive alternative treatment available."  

Nor did the petitioners seek a blanket prohibition of circumcision.  Penile circumcision practiced for religious reasons and cultural reasons (such as social conformity and socially-constructed "ideals" concerning the appearance of the human penis) all would continue to be perfectly legal.  Under the provisions of the ballot initiative, there would be nothing to prevent an adult male from choosing circumcision for himself for any reason he might have.  And that, of course, is as it should be: it's his body and it should be his choice.  The initiative simply sought to insure that any individual who undergoes circumcision has an opportunity to exercise informed consent and, more importantly, that he has an opportunity to make a personal choice about whether or not to have a major portion of erotogenic tissue permanently removed from his penis.  The most appropriate and effective way to accomplish this goal is to restrict the availability of this surgery to adults.  While 18 may seem an arbitrary age, the idea behind it is that, until an individual is mature enough to fully grasp the ramifications of his choice, society has an obligation to prevent him from making the wrong one.  This is particularly important in the case of an irreversible genital surgery.  

The other objective of the age restriction was to protect minors from undue influence or coercion by adults.  Whether we are speaking of girls, boys or intersex children, and whether we are speaking of female genital cutting (FGC), male genital cutting (MGC) or the binary, either-or sexual-assignment surgery to which intersex children frequently are subjected (IGC), medically unnecessary genital surgery (as opposed to gender-affirming treatment and surgery, which I am emphatically not including in this discussion) is something that no infant and few children ever ask for and to which no infant and few children ever meaningfully consent.  Rather, medically unnecessary genital surgery is something that adults impose on their children's bodies.  Given that minors can obtain cosmetic surgery with parental consent, there probably is no way to ascertain that a minor's choice to undergo genital surgery is, in fact, his choice.  The most effective way to safeguard the fundamental rights of the child, therefore, is by taking medically unnecessary genital surgery off the (operating) table altogether.  

For these reasons, then, the language of the proposed ballot initiative established 18 as the minimum age at which an individual could undergo medically unnecessary (non-therapeutic) circumcision.  To repeat, the rationales behind this were to insure that an individual's choice to undergo circumcision is, in fact, his choice and that his choice be an informed one.  

To this long-time supporter of the ACLU, the objectives and reasoning behind this ballot initiative seem not just equitable but incontrovertibly equitable.  It is self-evident that subjecting an infant or child to a surgery that is medically unnecessary, irreversible, and that removes an integral part of his penis without his consent violates his fundamental human rights.  It violates his right to bodily integrity (the right to keep one's body whole, unaltered and unscarred) and his right of bodily autonomy (the exclusive right of an individual to make decisions about his own body).  That is why it is baffling that ACLU NorCal not only did not support this ballot initiative but went out of its way to oppose it.  ACLU NorCal, after all, is an an affiliate of the national ACLU - an organization that, in the words on ACLU NorCal's website, "was founded . . . to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United  States."  In its own Mission Statement, ACLU NorCal describes itself as "an enduring guardian of justice, fairness, equality and freedom. . . ."

These principles -  justice, fairness, equality and freedom - are not adjuncts to ACLU NorCal's mission but lie at its very heart.  They guide the organization in every battle that it wages and in every cause that it champions.  Their centrality to ACLU NorCal's mission should have been reason enough for it to support this ballot initiative, to say nothing of not standing in its way.  This is what makes ACLU NorCal's position in this case so stunning.  It is not only diametrically opposite its own professed principles but diametrically opposite the positions that the ACLU has taken in virtually every other case in which it has defended bodily autonomy and fundamental human rights. 

On abortion rights, for example, ACLU NorCal proclaims, "The ACLU fights for Californians' bodily autonomy. . . ."  An action-alert email that I received from the ACLU in 2018 (as I  said, I am a long-time supporter) began with the words, "The right to make decisions about our own bodies and lives is in jeopardy."  Yet the ballot initiative that ACLU NorCal fought against in 2011 merely sought to codify this very right - the right of individuals to make decisions about their own bodies.  It would simply have guaranteed that right to minors with penises whose fundamental right not to be subjected to medically unnecessary genital surgery is, to this day, routinely violated.

When the issue was same-sex marriage, the ACLU went to court to compel Kim Davis, the county clerk from Rowan County, Kentucky, to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples which, "because of her personal, religious opposition to marriage for same-sex couples,"  she had refused to do.  Despite its long history as a stalwart defender of the first amendment, the ACLU recognized in this case that the freedom to practice one's religion ends where other persons' rights begin.  In other words, each person's fundamental right to act in accordance with her beliefs is circumscribed by every other person's even greater and even more fundamental right not to be harmed.  Contra- vening this important principle, and notwithstanding the fact that any medically unnecessary removal of a body part without consent is a harm in and of itself, the freedom to harm others as an expression of one's own religious belief is precisely what ACLU NorCal defended when it opposed the San Francisco ballot initiative.  As then managing attorney of ACLU Northern California Jory Steele explained in a press release after the citizen initiative was struck from the ballot, "This initiative would have undermined the right to religious liberty that we cherish in a pluralistic society."

It seems paradoxical that an ACLU NorCal attorney should invoke "religious liberty," the rallying cry of right-wing religious extremists.  After all, "religious liberty" has been claimed not just in defense of a "right" to deny same-sex couples their right to marry but as a justification for denying women access to reproductive health care and abortion, for denying equal accommodations and services to LGBTQ persons, and even for denying basic medical care to transgender persons.  Yet in each of these other cases, the ACLU recognized - as ACLU NorCal itself posted on its Facebook page (on November 6, 2019) - that "Freedom of religion is a fundamental right, but it cannot be used to harm others."  Unless, apparently, those others are persons with penises who are under the age of 18.

Perhaps nowhere is ACLU NorCal's inconsistency more glaring than in the double standard that it applies to MGC, on the one hand, and to IGC on the other.  To fully grasp the magnitude of this particular contradiction, consider the words of Elizabeth Gill, Senior Staff Attorney, which appear on ACLU NorCal's website under the heading "We Must Stop Forcing Conformity on Intersex Bodies":

A core aspect of human autonomy and dignity is to be able to make decisions about our own bodies. But each year, doctors around the country continue to perform medically unnecessary, harmful surgeries on intersex infants and children, just to “normalize” their bodies.  What this means is that doctors are forcing infants and young children to undergo medically unnecessary genital surgery simply to force their natural bodies to conform to traditional societal—and binary—views of “male” and “female” bod[i]es.

These irreversible surgeries are increasingly considered a violation of human rights and can lead to a lifetime of trauma, physical pain, loss of genital sensitivity, incontinence, scarring, sterilization, or incorrect gender assignment.  Yet they are often justified solely by the adult fear of the child being stigmatized by a perceived nonconforming body.

Instead of forcing conformity, we should celebrate our differences. October 26th marks Intersex Awareness Day. On this day—and every other day of the year—the ACLU stands with intersex people and allies throughout the country and world to protect and advance the fundamental human rights and civil liberties of intersex people.

Virtually everything that Gill asserts about forced sexual-assignment surgery is equally true of forced penile circumcision.  (Try re-reading Gill's comments while mentally substituting "intersex" with "male.")  It is medically unnecessary and it is performed primarily for reasons of social conformity ("so he will look like his father") and "normalization" ("so he won't be made fun of in the locker room").  Just as forced sexual-assignment surgery is "increasingly considered a violation of human rights," so, too, is forced, non-therapeutic penile circumcision.  Just as forced sexual-assignment surgery can entail numerous complications and adverse sequelae, including loss of sensation, so, too, does forced, non-therapeutic penile circumcision.  (The many problems associated with neonatal circumcision are discussed here.)  It can even result in "incorrect gender assignment." 

I also happen to agree with everything in Gill's statement as it pertains to the rights of intersex individuals.  I just wonder why it hasn't yet occurred to Gill and to ACLU NorCal to advocate for "human autonomy and dignity" for all humans, including those born with penises.  If they did, I could imagine their issuing a position statement that might go something like this:

On this day - and every other day of the year - ACLU NorCal stands with girls, boys, women, men and intersex people throughout the country and throughout the world to protect and advance the fundamental human rights and civil liberties of all human beings.

 

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David Balashinsky is originally from New York City and now lives near the Finger Lakes region of New York. He writes about bodily autonomy and human rights, gender, culture and politics.  He currently serves on the board of directors for the Genital Autonomy Legal Defense & Education Fund, (GALDEF), the board of directors and advisors for Doctors Opposing Circumcision and the leadership team for Bruchim.
 

 

On Bodily Self-Ownership: An Open Letter to Cheryl Axelrod, M.D., F.A.C.O.G.

by David Balashinsky

Dear Dr. Axelrod,

You may recall that I wrote you a little over two years ago after I received an email from you and NARAL Pro-Choice America.  I was on NARAL's mailing list because I support abortion rights and have donated to this organization in the past.  When I wrote you, NARAL had recently embarked on a campaign of encouraging women who had had abortions to "come out" and tell their stories.  The point of the campaign was to humanize the reality of abortion, since terminating a pregnancy is among the most significant and personal decisions a woman can make about her health, her body and her life.  If politicians - most of whom are men - have succeeded in passing laws that regulate women's bodies, one of the reasons for their success is that abortion typically is represented as something abstract.  Conversely, abortion is also frequently misrepresented in the most lurid terms, as is happening now * with "late-term abortion" bans and "fetal heartbeat" laws.  In either case, putting a human face to the reality of abortion was one way, as Kate Thomas (digital director of NARAL) wrote in the email, to "de-stigmatize what is a very common medical procedure."  As an OB/GYN and as a woman who had made the difficult choice to terminate a pregnancy, you were in a position of particular moral authority to speak out in support of a woman's right to choose. You did this by sharing your personal story.   I hope you will recall that, when I wrote you, it was partly to express my admiration not just for your courage in sharing it but for your doing so on behalf of such an important cause.

On the other hand, if you prefer not to recall my letter to you in 2017, perhaps it is because my other reason for writing it was to call your attention to what I felt was a glaring double standard with respect to your idea of bodily autonomy.  This is because, in your appeal on behalf of NARAL and in support of abortion rights, you wrote, "It's our body and our decision."  You wrote these words even as in your professional practice  -  perhaps that very day - you were depriving male neonates (and the men that they will become) of the right of bodily autonomy (and of much more, besides) by subjecting them to non-therapeutic penile circumcision, or male genital cutting (MGC).  Frankly, I was stunned by the contradiction between your claim of bodily autonomy for women like yourself and your denial of that same right to men like me.

Before going any further, I should explain why I am under the impression that you perform non-therapeutic circumcisions.

To begin with, when I visited your clinic's website in 2017, under your name was a list of "services performed" and one of these was circumcision.  I use the quotation marks around "services performed" because an individual who has had a major portion of erotogenic tissue cut away from his penis without his consent and in the absence of a medical indication is unlikely to regard himself as having been the recipient of a "service."

Now, to be fair, your website did not specify whether the circumcisions you perform are medically indicated or performed for non-therapeutic reasons, the chief one of which is that MGC has become a deeply entrenched cultural practice in the United States.  However, the reality is that, currently, in the United States, the overwhelming majority of neonatal penile circumcisions are performed without a diagnosis, hence, without a rational or sufficient medical justification for performing them.  (And, of course, 100% of them are performed without consent.)  Given that circumcision is, in fact, medically indicated for between 0.8% and 1.6% of pre-pubescent boys while the incidence of MGG is currently in the neighborhood of 50%, that makes it much more likely than not that most of the penile circumcisions that you have performed (like most circumcisions performed by most medical practitioners) were non-therapeutic.

There are other circumstances that tended to confirm my impression.  First, the fact that the initials "F.A.C.O.G." follow your name.  This means that you are a fellow of The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.  This is an organization that has endorsed the American Academy of Pediatrics' 2012 Technical Report on nonconsensual penile circumcision which, in its own words, "emphasizes the primacy of parental decision-making."  To put that in plain English, the AAP believes that a parent's right to order the removal of normal, healthy erotogenic tissue from a child's penis for religious reasons, for cultural reasons, for cosmetic reasons, for any reason or for no reason outweighs that child's right to live his life with his genitals whole and intact. ACOG happily and profitably endorses this view.  It is not an unreasonable inference on my part, therefore, that, because you are a member of ACOG (like the majority of physicians in your clinic), you support ACOG's pro-male-genital-cutting policy. 

Added to all this is the fact that, at some point after I reached out to you in 2017, the wording on your website was changed.  It now no longer states that you offer "circumcision" but, rather, "surgical procedures."  It is hard to avoid the suspicion that this is a euphemism, the use of which represents your clinic's tacit acknowledgement that routine, non-therapeutic circumcision is a discredited practice that has been rejected by professional medical organizations around the world and that is increasingly being condemned as the human rights violation that it is.  For example, in 2016, the Danish Medical Association issued a statement declaring non-therapeutic circumcision "ethically unacceptable."  Lise Moller, the chairwoman of the DMA, was quoted as follows: "To be circumcised should be an informed, personal choice.  It is most consistent with the individual's right to self-determination that parents not be allowed to make this decision but that it is left up to the individual when he has come of age."

There are two important ways that all this ties together.  By "all this," I mean the right to obtain a timely, safe and legal abortion (on which we both agree), the right not to be subjected to genital cutting (on which apparently we do not agree), and the power of personal narrative.

To take up this last thread first, I want to emphasize that I was not only moved by your abortion story but gratified to see such powerful, first-person advocacy on behalf of the right of women to own and control their own bodies - a right I have long supported.  (I was out in the streets demonstrating in support of a woman's right to choose probably while you were still in elementary school - possibly before you were born.)  Above and beyond all this, your story inspired me.  It brought home to me the power of personal narrative.  Law, social policy, culture itself can be unyielding.  Progress in all of these domains can be glacially slow.  Sometimes, the best way to reach hearts and minds and to effect change is by speaking one's truth not to the ether but directly to one's fellow human beings.

Here  is my truth and I am speaking it to you: Involuntary circumcision deprived me of the right of bodily autonomy.  It deprived me of the right of bodily integrity and the right to experience the full range of my innate human sexuality.  I cannot imagine that I would ever willingly have chosen to have such an important part of my penis cut off but, even if I would have made that choice, the fact that this "choice" was made "for" me, without my consent, means that I was denied my right to choose.

This brings me to the other major thread of this letter: the principle of bodily autonomy or, as I prefer to express it, bodily self-ownership.  In the case of your own abortion, you explain that the fetus you were carrying had developed severe abnormalities and would not have survived past delivery.  This factored crucially in your  decision to terminate the pregnancy.  Equally crucial to the abortion-rights debate is the fact that legislation being passed now by anti-choice legislators would ban abortions during the second trimester, which, as you point out, "often involve medical complications."  Although I acknowledge that abortion is a valid and sometimes necessary medical procedure, my support of abortion rights transcends any specific medical justifications for abortion.  I believe that girls and women have a right to choose abortion because I believe that they own their own bodies.  It's that simple.  The right to obtain an abortion does not need to be justified on the basis of severe developmental abnormalities of the fetus or on the basis of medical necessity for the girl or woman.  It is sufficient that, because it is her body, it is a pregnant person's right to terminate her pregnancy.  It does not follow from this that every abortion is ethical, nor that every reason for abortion is morally valid (such as in the case of sex-selection abortion, which I find morally abhorrent).  Yet the right to terminate a pregnancy is as fundamental to basic human rights as any other right that is predicated on the principle of bodily self-ownership. 

That principle - bodily self-ownership - applies no less to males and to male bodies and to intersex bodies than it does to females and to female bodies.  It applies no less to bodies with penises than it does to bodies with uteruses.  And it applies no less to the practice of nonconsensual penile circumcision, which is incompatible with it, than it does to abortion rights, which are supported by it.  As you, yourself, wrote in NARAL's email:  "It's our body and our decision."

One of the goals of personal narrative - coming-out stories, like yours - is to foster constructive and civil dialogue.  I see this personal narrative - this open letter to you - as a way for me to extend a hand in order to help you across what I believe to be the cultural chasm that divides us.  On your side of the chasm, nonconsensual penile circumcision is a normalized, entrenched cultural practice that has been gilded with counterfeit legitimacy through decades of medicalization.  On my side, nonconsensual penile circumcision is a human rights violation.  This is why:  Because it is medically unnecessary.  Because it causes needless pain and trauma.  Because it is a theft from an individual of a body part that he has a fundamental right to keep.  Because it removes densely innervated erogenous tissue, the loss of which necessarily impairs sexual function, sensation, intimacy and  satisfaction.  Above all, because it deprives people with penises of their right to choose.

If you believe, as your clinic's website led me to assume you do, that nonconsensual penile circumcision is a legitimate and ethical practice, you and I remain light years apart on this issue.  If, on the other hand, you believe, as I'm sure you do, that bodily self-ownership is a fundamental human right, you are one small step away from recognizing that the right to obtain an abortion and the right not to be subjected to genital cutting stand on the same moral foundation.  

*Update: Since this open letter was published, the Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade.  See my post on the significance of the Dobbs decision here.

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David Balashinsky is originally from New York City and now lives near the Finger Lakes region of New York. He is a licensed physical therapist and writes about bodily autonomy and human rights, gender, culture, and politics.  He currently serves on the board of directors and as Director of Outreach for the Genital Autonomy Legal Defense & Education Fund, (GALDEF), he serves on the board of directors and advisors for Doctors Opposing Circumcision and serves on the leadership team for Bruchim.