OMV!, OB/GYNs, FACOGs & MGC: A Call for Consistency

by David Balashinsky

There are few things more offensive to one's sense of right and wrong than a double standard by which a harm is condemned in one case but a blind eye turned to a comparable (or worse) harm in another.  And there are few instances of such a double standard more flagrant than the outrage currently being directed at Vagisil for its new OMV! product line by several prominent OB/GYNs.

For those unacquainted with OMV! and the controversy surrounding it, OMV! is a "personal care" product manufactured by Vagisil.  The New York Times, The Washington Post and HuffPost have all reported on this within the past few weeks.  The criticism of products that are marketed to women as palliatives for the pathological condition of having a vulva is not new.  What is new is that Vagisil has recently launched a "feminine hygiene" product line - and an advertising campaign to promote it - that specifically targets teenagers.  This is also the cause of the particular outrage about this product.  As Dr. Jen Gunter (as quoted in WAPO) puts it,

Society's always looking for ways to make people with vaginas feel ashamed.  I hate that industry with a passion because it capitalizes on vaginal and vulvar shame.  But to see it marketed to teens?  Not on my watch.

The objections to OMV! all sound similar themes and I agree with every one of them.  "Feminine deodorant" wipes or sprays are unnecessary.  The vagina, as Dr. Gunter is fond of saying, is "like a self-cleaning oven."  (I love that simile, although I also think that anything that reinforces the link in people's minds between women, housework and especially kitchens is probably best avoided.)  They are potentially and likely harmful. They do not so much address a problem as invent one by pathologizing the vagina and the vulva.  In this respect, such products are the quintessential "solution in search of a problem" or (to put it more precisely) "cure in search of a disease."  Worse, by pathologizing female genitalia, these products contribute to a culture of body-shaming that undoubtedly adversely affects women's and young women's self-esteem.  There is even an argument to be made that such products represent an updated version of ancient, patriarchal notions of women as being essentially malignant and corrupting influences upon their male counterparts (think Eve and the apple).  This peculiar, bipartite and contradictory concept regards women as temptresses with bodies ideally suited to that purpose yet, at the same time, regards that part of women's bodies that is most female and most tempting as the mephitic wellspring of so much pollution and evil that have been unleashed upon mankind.  I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that products that exploit the concept of the vulva and the vagina as being inherently foul and malodorous are a contemporary manifestation of a very ancient, patriarchal view of women and of women's bodies, although this argument becomes a little harder (though not impossible) to make when the founders of two prominent companies that traffic in such garbage (Vagisil and Goop) are women.

So, whence my particular ire?  It is this.  In promoting an unnecessary product that shames female bodies and that has the potential to cause and in some cases does cause physical harm to female genitals, Vagisil is not doing anything worse than what the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has done and continues to do in endorsing an unnecessary genital surgery that shames male bodies and that causes physical harm to male genitals.  Yet four of the most vociferous critics of Vagisil's OMV!, including Jen Gunter, MD, Heather Irobunda, MD, Jennifer Lincoln, MD and Staci L. Tanouye, MD, are all Fellows of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology.  My question for these FACOGs (which I posed, in vain, to several of them on Twitter and Instagram) is this: Why the double standard?  I agree that vulvas don't need "fixing" in any way at all.  Why won't ACOG agree that neither do penises?

For context, here is some background.  Most neonatal circumcisions are performed by obstetricians (section 4.2, p. 22 in the linked United Nations report).  As for ACOG, it is a professional organization consisting of obstetricians and gynecologists (obstetricians are generally trained in gynecology and gynecologists are generally trained in obstetrics, hence the acronym OB/GYN).  ACOG has officially endorsed the American Academy of Pediatrics' 2012 Technical Report on neonatal male circumcision.  The AAP concedes that "existing scientific evidence is not sufficient to recommend routine circumcision" and that "the procedure is not essential to the child's current well-being. . . . "  Nevertheless (and possibly because neonatal circumcision generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue annually) the authors of the AAP's 2012 Technical Report argued that "it is legitimate for . . . parents to take into account their own cultural, religious and ethnic traditions, in addition to medical factors" when opting to subject their sons to circumcision (note that "medical factors" is listed last) and it concluded, therefore, that "the benefits of newborn male circumcision justify access to this procedure for those families who choose it." The Technical Report acknowledged, incidentally (or not so incidentally), that among the reasons often cited by parents in the U.S.A. for making this "choice" are "hygiene and cleanliness of the penis" and "[s]ocial concerns."  Hence, when they referred to the "benefits" of neonatal circumcision, the authors of the AAP Technical Report were not referring to medical benefits so much as to what they believed were benefits as broadly construed to include social benefits.  This distinction was further clarified in a commentary written by Andrew Freedman, MD (one of the members of the Task Force that prepared the AAP's Technical report) that was subsequently published in Pediatrics.  As Dr. Freedman explained,

To understand the recommendations, one has to acknowledge that when parents decide on circumcision, the health issues are only one small piece of the puzzle.  In much of the world, newborn circumcision is not primarily a medical decision.  Most circumcisions are done due to religious and cultural tradition.  In the West, although parents may use the conflicting medical literature to buttress their own beliefs and desires, for the most part parents choose what they want for a wide variety of nonmedical reasons.  There can be no doubt that religion, culture, aesthetic preference, familial identity, and personal experience all factor into their decision.  Few parents when really questioned are doing it solely to lower the risk of urinary tract infections or ulcerative sexually transmitted infections.  Given the role of the phallus in our culture, it is not illegitimate to consider these realms of a person's life in making this nontherapeutic, only partially medical decision.

The upshot of all this is that ACOG has formally adopted a position supporting a parent's right to subject her or his child to circumcision for cultural reasons, for aesthetic reasons, for religious reasons, for reasons of "hygiene" and "cleanliness," for any reason or for no reason.  In the United States, "just because" is a sufficient justification for performing an irreversible and medically-unnecessary genital surgery on an infant male.  ACOG Fellows are, of course, physicians who presumably have taken an oath to abide by a code of ethics.  Among other things, that code prohibits the use of surgery when less invasive, more conservative treatment options are available.  The Code of Professional Ethics of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also enshrines the principle of autonomy: the right of the individual to make informed choices about her or his own body.  Yet, with its endorsement of the 2012 AAP Technical Report on infant male circumcision, ACOG invites its Fellows to violate these same ethical guidelines.  That is why I have singled out the four FACOGs mentioned above.  While none of them performs non-therapeutic infant circumcisions as far as I am aware (Dr. Lincoln explicitly informed me on Twitter - before she blocked me - that she doesn't), all of them are dues-paying members of ACOG who proudly include FACOG among their post-nominal letters.  That (along with their failure to publicly and energetically repudiate ACOG's endorsement of unnecessary genital surgery) not only makes their implicit support for ACOG's position a reasonable inference but makes criticism of them for it valid.  More to the point, it makes their inconsistency - the double standard of criticizing OMV! while implicitly endorsing forced non-therapeutic circumcision - fair game.

The parallels between "feminine hygiene" products and non-therapeutic circumcision are several and striking, starting from the simple fact that both target genitals: female and male, respectively.  (It goes without saying that, throughout this essay, when I refer to "feminine hygiene" products, I am not referring to menstrual products but only to unnecessary "cleansing" and deodorant products such as OMV!.)  

Beyond this, one of the chief criticisms of OMV! and similar products is that they pathologize the vulva and the vagina.  In order to sell a cure or a treatment, after all, one must first identify a problem that needs to be cured or treated.  That is exactly what the medical profession (and others) did during the 19th century with the male prepuce (or foreskin).  It is well known that male circumcision was introduced and popularized as a "cure" for masturbation (and its inevitable sequela, "masturbatory insanity") as well as for numerous other ailments that were attributed at the time to the presence of the male prepuce.  The process by which the male foreskin became pathologized within the realms of medical practice and the culture at large (in England and in the United States) has been thoroughly documented.  A concise summary was written by Jessica Wapner and published in 2015 in Mosaic.  In The Troubled History of the Foreskin, Wapner writes, 

One day in 1870, a New York orthopaedic surgeon named Lewis Sayre was asked to examine a five-year-old boy suffering from parallysis of both legs. . . .  

After the boy's sore genitals were pointed out by his nanny, Sayre removed the foreskin.  The boy recovered.  Believing he was on to something big, Sayre conducted more procedures.  His reputation was such that when he praised the benefits of circumcision . . . surgeons elsewhere followed suit.  Among other ailments, Sayre discussed patients whose foreskins were tightened and could not retract, a condition known as phimosis.  Sayre declared that the condition caused a general state of nervous irritation, and that circumcision was the cure.

His ideas found a receptive audience.  To Victorian minds, many health issues originated with the sexual organs and masturbation. . . .

The circumcised penis came be seen as more hygienic, and cleanliness was a sign of moral standards.  An 1890 journal identified smegma as "infectious material."  A few years later, a book for mothers . . . described the foreskin as a "mark of Satan."  Another author described parents who did not circumcise their sons at an early age as "almost criminally negligent."

By now, the circumcision torch had passed from Sayre to Peter Charles Remondino, a popular San Diego physician. . . .  Remondino described the foreskin as a "malign influence" that could weaken a man "physically, mentally and morally; to land him, perchance, in jail or even in a lunatic asylum."  Insurance companies, he advised, should classify uncircumcised men as "hazardous risks."

By the turn of the 20th century the Victorian fear of masturbation had waned, but by then circumcision had become a prudent precaution, and one increasingly implemented soon after birth. . . .  By 1940, around 70% of male babies in the United States were circumcised.

. . . By the 1970s . . . more than 90% of U.S. men were circumcised. . . .  The American foreskin had become a thing of the past.

Throughout its modern history, as one rationale after the other for neonatal circumcision has been discredited, one rationale after the other has arisen to take its place.  Thus has neonatal circumcision - like vaginal douches and "feminine hygiene products" - become the quintessential "cure in search of a disease."

What makes the "feminine-hygiene-products" industry so particularly objectionable is that it not only reflects a culture of body-shaming of people with vulvas and vaginas (recall Gunter's comments, above) but that it contributes to and perpetuates that culture.  But, here again, we see an identical phenomenon at work (except by proxy, because the social pressure is exerted on parents) with respect to non-therapeutic circumcision and penile anatomy.  Non-therapeutic circumcision is performed primarily for cultural and "aesthetic" reasons.  Social conformity - "so he will look like his father" and "so he won't be made fun of in the locker room" are among the most common rationalizations offered by parents for having their sons circumcised.  "So his future sex partners [who, of course, are always assumed to be women] won't be turned off,'" is another.  More broadly, because we live in a culture in which male genital cutting has been normalized, many if not a majority of Americans conceptualize a surgically-reduced penis as "normal."  Thus, they tend to regard a healthy, intact penis as abnormal, ergo, deformed.  It remains common, therefore, for intact boys and men to be mocked for the natural anatomical structure of their genitals (hence the concern about locker rooms).  No one should pretend that this body-shaming doesn't adversely affect the body-image and self-esteem of intact boys and men.  The problem, however, for such boys and men is not that their penises are intact but that their prepuces have been stigmatized by our society.  It is the very act of routine circumcision - the normalization of circumcised penises - that contributes to and perpetuates this culture in which intact penises are stigmatized.  As a result, every boy - whether circumcised or intact - grows up with the perception that he was born with a congenital deformity of his penis that either was "corrected" by circumcision or, if it wasn't, ought to have been.  And every time an OB/GYN performs a medically-unnecessary circumcision, she or he perpetuates this body-shaming culture, just as ACOG perpetuates it with its endorsement of non-therapeutic circumcision.

The similarities do not end there.  It goes without saying that special "cleansers" for the vulva (and the vagina) are unnecessary.  And when washing the vulva is appropriate, water and maybe a mild soap are more than sufficient.   But it turns out that soap and water work just as well on intact penises as they do on vulvas.  Yet "improved hygiene" - "cleanliness of the penis"-  is not only frequently offered by parents as a reason to have their child circumcised, this reason is cited specifically in the AAP Technical Report.  To be sure, the AAP and ACOG do not themselves explicitly cite "hygiene" as a justification for circumcision.  But both organizations do endorse the right of parents to impose circumcision on their children even when their reasons for doing so have no basis in rational thought or medical science.  As noted, the AAP's Technical Report - endorsed by ACOG - asserts that it is perfectly "legitimate" for parents to take social, cultural and religious factors into consideration when deciding on whether to subject their male child to circumcision.  But what is the concept of the vulva as something that is intrinsically unclean if not a social and cultural (and, to some extent, a religious) construct?  What is the concept of the male foreskin as intrinsically unclean if not the same sort of social and cultural construct?  By the same token, if a special "feminine wash" is unnecessary as a method for keeping the vulva clean, isn't surgery even more unnecessary, by orders of magnitude, as a method for keeping the penis clean?

Still another criticism of OMV! and similar products is that they are not just potentially but positively harmful to the vulva and the vagina.  As the Times (which interviewed Dr. Tanouye and others for its coverage of this story) reports,

Any product that is scented can potentially damage the skin, Dr. Tanouye said.  And while not everyone may experience a reaction, or react immediately, experts said that certain health issues can emerge after prolonged use.  "Fragrance is the No. 1 cause of allergic contact dermatitis," Dr. Tanouye said, which is a condition in which the skin gets inflamed and becomes itchy, red and rashy after contact with an irritating substance.

HuffPost reports that "people who used these ["feminine hygiene"] products were up to three times more likely to get a vaginal infection."  Of course introducing an irritant to the vulva, let alone into the vagina, is likely to be harmful.  But what amount of willful blindness is required not to recognize that cutting off part of someone's genitals is even more harmful?  There is a cure, after all, for contact dermatitis.  In contrast, there is no cure for circumcision.  It's irreversible.

Lastly, OMV!'s critics cite the "predatory" nature of this and similar products.  They exist and are promoted for one reason: to make money.  And that, I submit, is precisely the motivation behind ACOG's endorsement of the 2012 AAP Technical Report on infant circumcision.  That hundreds of millions of dollars are spent annually on totally unnecessary "feminine hygiene" products is disgraceful.  That companies like Vagisil and Goop profit to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars annually by selling these products is unconscionable.  How is it any less disgraceful that hundreds of millions of healthcare dollars are misdirected annually into a medically-unnecessary genital surgery?  (This is money that could be spent on early childhood nutrition programs or providing access to the full range of reproductive healthcare services for uninsured or under-insured women, to offer just two examples.)  And how is it any less unconscionable that ACOG's members directly profit from the performance of this medically-unnecessary genital surgery?

Vagisil exists only to make money.  Its shareholders and most of its officers do not swear an oath of beneficence, nor are they obligated (even if we think they should be) to be guided by the precept primum non nocere.  Every member of ACOG, in contrast, does swear such an oath and is under such an obligation.  Subjecting unconsenting children (and the adults that they become) to a medically-unnecessary and irreversible genital surgery violates that oath and that obligation.  Thus, while I salute Doctors Gunter, Irobunda, Lincoln and Tanouye for their criticism of OMV!, I respectfully suggest that they should also put their own house in order.  Even though they, themselves, may not perform non-therapeutic circumcisions, they belong to an organization of OB/GYNs who do.  Vagisal will probably never abandon its business model in order to do the right thing.  Of ACOG, on the other hand, the public has a right to expect much, much more. 

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About me:  I am originally from New York City and now live near the Finger Lakes region of New York.  I write about bodily autonomy and human rights, gender, culture and politics.  I currently serve 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.
 

The Horseshoe

by David Balashinsky

Although the title of this story is The Horseshoe, it's really a story about cats.  It's also a story about loss and consolation and about bad luck and good luck, which is why I call it The Horseshoe.

The horseshoe of the title is a rusty and corroded relic that I happened to dig up while preparing to lay some stones for a patio.  It is so deeply pitted that it has to date from the nineteenth- or even the eighteenth century.  Undoubtedly, it was once worn by a horse whose bones lay buried not far from the spot behind the barn where I found it.

I live in a rural part of Central New York, just beyond the city limits of Binghamton.  Until a few decades ago, this property was a working farm, complete with a red wooden barn that stands just a few hundred feet up the hill from the main house.  Although still impressive, with three stories, a hayloft on top and a porch in back, the barn is now decrepit.  Its foundation walls are caving in and it is ready to collapse at any moment.  The wood siding, consisting of vertically hung planks, is so weathered that the original red has turned several shades darker, in some sections blending imperceptibly into long black streaks of arrowhead-shaped drip patterns.  All the knots in the siding have come out, providing easy access for squirrels, and the planks are all warped from long exposure to the constant dampness of this climate.  

The barn can no longer be used for storage since it can't support any weight.  It serves only two purposes now.  One is as a monument to the agricultural history of this region and the other is as a shelter for wayfaring cats.  Some of these cats stay for just a day or two but others have moved in with the obvious intention of staying permanently.  When my wife and I bought the property, the deed included, at least informally, not just the house, the land and the barn but a reclusive black cat whom the previous owner had named Zorro and who made the barn his home.  (I believe that adverse possession, or squatter's rights, would be the appropriate legal term to describe Zorro's status).  It was partly our promise to provide Zorro with food and water every day that convinced the seller that we were worthy of becoming the new owners.  Although we were true to our word, eventually Zorro got tired of living in the barn and decided to move into the main house with us.  Still, since Zorro occupied it, the barn has seldom been without an occupant.   During the ten years or so that we have lived here (after moving up from Brooklyn with several New York City cats), one cat after the other has taken Zorro's place.  And, like Zorro, each cat in its turn, with one exception, has ended up living in the main house with us.

Our house, as I mentioned, is a few hundred feet down the hill from the barn.  The main entrance is through a veranda.  It is not a large veranda but it is large enough to accommodate a small round table for outdoor dining on those relatively rare occasions when the weather up here is pleasant.  On one side of the veranda is the railing and opposite that is the exterior wall of the house.  It was on this wall, just by the doorway through which one passes from the veranda into the kitchen, that I hung the horseshoe.  Unfortunately, I made the mistake of hanging the horseshoe upside down.  My error was pointed out to me by my now-late father-in-law, Joe.  We were sitting at the table on the veranda drinking beers when Joe glanced up at the horseshoe.  With a combination of disapproval and pity in his voice, and shaking his head from side to side, Joe made the following pronouncement: "All the good luck from that horseshoe is just running right into the ground."  He explained to me that, by hanging the horseshoe with its prongs pointing down, all the good luck that might accrue to this household and its inhabitants was simply pouring out and that the horseshoe needed to be hung with its prongs pointing up.  I had no idea about any of this.  I had originally placed the horseshoe where it was simply because I thought it would be a quaint decoration: one in keeping with the rustic character of the property, not unlike the barn itself.  I regarded both the barn and the horseshoe as belonging to the category of "things that were once functional but are now just ornamental."  As for its orientation, the internal concavity of the horseshoe - the arch of its "U" - had merely suggested itself as the obvious means by which to hang it on a screw that, conveniently, was already sticking out of the wall.  I was completely ignorant of the horseshoe's present-day function as an actual catcher and repository of good luck.  When Joe informed me of my mistake, I did, of course, exactly what I always do: I put his recommendation on my mental to-do list and then forgot all about it.

From this same spot on the veranda, under the horseshoe, I could sit and look up the hill at the old red barn that had housed so many animals over the years and would house so many cats in the years to come.  I was in this spot drinking my coffee early one August morning not long after my in-laws' visit when, looking in the direction of the barn, something caught my eye.  It was hard to make out because it was partly obscured by the goldenrod that blooms here in August - a harbinger of summer's soon coming to an end  - but its movements were unmistakably feline: the characteristic undulation of his head and sweeping of his paw as he cleaned just above his left ear could belong only to a cat.  Sure enough, it was a little black cat sitting on the back porch of the barn, grooming himself.  I went up to investigate but he ran down the hill, stopping so he could turn and watch me.  I got some cat food from the house and brought it up in a small bowl which I placed on the porch where I had seen him sitting and grooming himself.  Although the food did not immediately induce him to return to the spot where he seemed so much at home, I left it where it was in the hope that, eventually - after I was gone - he would return.  Whether feral or stray, he was probably already well on the way toward making himself at home in the barn, just as Zorro had done.  In fact, this cat seemed to me to be a Zorro, Jr., partly because of his coloring, which was so similar - jet black, from nose to tail.

Later that day, when I got home from work, the first thing I did, even before changing my clothes, was go up to the barn in order to see if the food that I left had been eaten.  It had, but the little black cat was nowhere to be found.  The next day, again following work, I changed my clothes and set about attending to the daily household chores that never seem to end.  In addition to dealing with the kitty litter and feeding our Brooklyn cats (at the time, the only cats, besides Zorro, who were living with us), this included bringing our dogs up to a fenced-in dog-run that we created for them not far from the barn.  It also included feeding Zorro, who always refused to eat with our Brooklyn cats.  I should probably mention that Zorro was very standoffish with the others, and I could never decide whether this was because his ancestors came over on the Mayflower, in contrast to our own immigrant, Ellis Island cats - in which case Zorro might have harbored a sort of nativist contempt for them - or, quite the opposite, whether it was because Zorro considered himself "hardy country stock" in contrast to our Brooklyn cats whom he considered effete and pampered, and, thinking that it was they who looked down their noses on him, regarded them with churlish resentment.  Then, again, I'm probably just projecting.  Most likely, Zorro's aloofness was simply due to the fact that he was here first.  I'm sure Zorro regarded our Brooklyn cats as interlopers.

Its being summer, my daily chores also included any of a variety of outdoor projects to which I devoted as much time and energy as remained after working all day.  And so after attending to the dogs and cats, I gathered my tools and got to work.  At the time, I was immersed in the project of creating a drainage system.  This involved digging an extensive channel that ran about a hundred feet from the back of the house (where the water pooled and seeped into the basement) around to the side, which would lead the water away from the house, altogether.  Like most of the projects that I have taken on since buying this house, this proved to be much more involved, much more difficult and much more time-consuming than I anticipated.  Obviously, this was a project for which I ought to have rented a backhoe.  However, by the time I could admit this to myself, my work had progressed so far that I felt that changing strategies would be tantamount to admitting defeat.  By now, the ditch, near its origin at the house, was about six feet deep.  The digging of it was brutal and miserable work, the land here consisting of what is known as hardpan, which is what it sounds like.  Besides this, the area where I was digging that day also consisted of pools of mud and tons of rocks.  That day's labors, therefore, being no exception to the normal torture of this project, I found myself growing more and more exasperated, even cursing aloud with every swing of my pick-axe as it struck either rock, which sent painful shock waves through my body, or mud, which erupted in torrents that unerringly found their way into my hair, eyes and mouth.  

After not too much of this, as fatigue had already begun to set in, I paused to rest.  I stood up to my full height for the first time in perhaps fifteen minutes (ditch-digging is such laborious work because one must spend so much time hunched over).  I was within the trench so, although I was standing upright, my head and shoulders were just above ground level.  Happening at that moment to turn my head slightly to the right, I noticed the little black cat, sitting on his haunches, just twenty feet or so away, with his head cocked to one side, watching me.  I was both startled and touched that he took an interest in my work; he seemed to be wondering why I had been so angry about digging.  I climbed out of the ditch so I could get some more food for him and, when I returned, found him sitting not far from where I had left him moments before.  I tried to approach him with the food but he was not quite willing to take a chance on letting me get close.  So I placed the food down at my feet and backed away, a gesture that was intended to convey to him that I acknowledged his apprehension.  In order to earn his trust, I would have to give him his space while also remaining more or less present.  Bit by bit, a few steps at a time, he cautiously approached the dish of food.  Yet there was always a point beyond which he dared not go, and then I would have to reposition myself, by degrees, farther and farther away from the food as, by the same degrees, the little black cat moved closer and closer to it.  Eventually he reached the food and, once he had, I sat myself down on the ground about ten or fifteen feet away and watched him eat.  Altogether, this whole process -  his inching toward the food as I inched away from it - took a half hour or more.  I realized that I had developed a great affection for this cat and began to hope that we could formally adopt him and welcome him into our home, just as we had done with Zorro.

The little black cat became, if not an obsession, at least a preoccupation of mine.  I found myself looking out of the window from my bedroom up toward the barn at every opportunity, awaiting his return.  He was not only ever-present in my thoughts but became a frequent subject of conversation between my wife and me.  It was during one such conversation that I saw him making his way down the hill above the barn, where he had just emerged from the woods.  I ran downstairs to get him some food and offered it to him in the usual manner.  Once again, I stayed and watched him eat.  Throughout this process, my wife watched from the bedroom window.  When he finished eating, the little black cat began to move in stages closer and closer to the house, stopping to sit for a few minutes at a time.  By now, my wife - who has a way with animals that is positively preternatural (and in comparison to which mine is that of the bumbling amateur) - had decided that it was time for her to get involved.  It was just a matter of minutes, therefore, before the little black cat was cradled in her arms.

We have a side porch - as dilapidated and rundown as the barn - that we seldom use.  Its sole function is as a halfway house where we temporarily quarantine stray cats during their transition from feral cat to house cat.  Although airy and cheerful in its way, the porch is entirely screened in, so that a cat might be confined there without risk of its getting loose.  It was this porch that had served as Zorro's temporary quarters when he began the transition from barn cat to house cat.  Our plan, then, was to shelter the little black cat here for the short period during which we could have him tested for FIV and FeLV and get him vaccinated.  In order to access this porch, one has to walk through the house first, from one end to the other.  Thus, as my wife carried him through the house and through a gauntlet of astonished dogs and cats, I prepared the way by opening doors before them as they approached and closing doors after them as they passed, and otherwise assisted by getting blankets and other necessities.  But this cat was no Zorro, Jr. in one crucial respect.  Unlike Zorro, who welcomed the change in his circumstances when we brought him indoors, the little black cat could not abide confinement, even in a fairly spacious, screened-in porch.  He was truly feral.  His sole preoccupation was to try every possible avenue of escape, including climbing the screens.  He had not been in the porch ten minutes before he found a small opening in one of the segments of wire mesh that had been installed at some point to keep domestic animals in and raccoons out.  He darted through the opening, then turned and paused for a few moments looking back at us, panting.  He let out a long, mournful meow which cut me to the quick, sounding as it did like a reproach.  I imagined that he was saying, "How could you betray my trust like that?"  That was the only time he ever spoke to me - and off he ran.

We were heartbroken.  We were worried, of course, for his safety, but also stung by the frustration of having had him slip through our fingers.   All we could do was hope that he would return. We were afraid that he would no longer trust us enough to allow for any possibility of rescuing him.  I did see him again the next evening, but it was much farther away from the house, toward the far end of our property, an area of woods, shrubs, and tall grass that I refer to as the Eastern Provinces because it is so remote; it is the part of our property that is farthest from our house and we never go there.  It might be an encouraging sign that I spotted him at all, but his new avoidance of us was equally discouraging, for he now seemed to harbor a fear of us born of experience, rather than of an innate cautiousness, and this would be even harder to overcome.

It now became a race against time. We live on a busy road and, in spite of the fact that this area is rural - or because of it - people tend to speed on the two-lane artery that leads from the City of Binghamton to Pennsylvania and that passes right in front of our house.  With every day that passed with this cat living on his own outdoors, the odds of his meeting an untimely and violent end would increase.  We resigned ourselves to hoping for the best and, in the meantime, decided to name him Blackberry.  Curiously, my wife and I had come up with that name independently of one another.  The name did seem to fit him but we also foolishly indulged the notion that our both having thought of it augured well for Blackberry's eventual adoption into our family.

It was not to be.  The very next morning, as my wife was driving to work, she found poor Blackberry dead in the road down by the Eastern Provinces.  He had been run over the night before.  Our grief was immense.  We felt his loss and the tragedy of his death so much more keenly, having had him within our grasp for a few brief moments.  I had been planning on doing some planting that day; I wanted to transplant a large shrub from one location on our property to another.  It occurred to me that I could best honor Blackberry by giving him a proper burial and a decent final resting place on our property, so I dug a deep grave for him and buried him below the spot where I then planted the shrub.  My wife observed that ever after we would refer to that shrub as our Blackberry Bush, and she later placed a single flower on his grave, resting it on the cedar mulch that I had scattered over the ground beneath which Blackberry lay.

We went about our daily routines that day but a pall had settled over our home.  Our grief was not just immense - we staggered under its weight.  And it was just then, when we were newly mourning the loss of that unhappy little black cat and when our grief was at its most acute because of its newness, that a strange thing happened.  It was early the next morning - a Sunday.  I was outside watering some grass that I had planted recently. I don't know why but I turned to look behind me.  From where I was standing, I could see the rear wall of the garage.  This wall has a door in it with windows in its upper half.  The door opens onto a paved walkway which is bordered by a stone wall that is about three feet high.  Above this wall, the land banks so sharply that the wall could not be seen from where I was standing but could be seen reflected in the windows of the garage door that faces it.  Something concentrated my attention on those windows, and I realized then that I was seeing, ghostly and pale, the reflection of a little white cat, sitting on his haunches upon the stone wall, licking one of his paws.  Not daring to approach him myself, I waved to my wife through the kitchen window, and, in pantomime, directed her attention to the little white cat, still sitting on the stone wall.  She was with him in a moment and, as she took him in her arms, he welcomed her with overt signs of affection.  He was, in every respect, Blackberry's opposite; above all, trusting and anxious to be taken in.  It should be unnecessary to add that I patched the hole in the wire mesh on the side porch before we left him alone, but he only stayed there for a short time anyway.  His tests were all negative, we quickly got him his vaccines, and he was so comfortable indoors and in our company that he rapidly made the transition to full-fledged house cat.  We named him Vanilla Bean.  My wife and I are not spiritual people, but it really did seem to us that Vanilla Bean had been sent to console us in our grief.  A great void had opened in our hearts when we lost Blackberry, and Vanilla Bean came along almost exactly twenty-four hours later to fill it.  I shudder to think what might have happened had we not rescued him but, of course, it was not we who rescued him but the other way around.

I mentioned just now that my wife and I are not spiritual people.  Neither are we particularly superstitious.  And yet there is a curious epilogue to this story, something that made me wonder whether Joe had been right, after all, about that horseshoe.  It was just after I had finished burying poor Blackberry and honoring his short sojourn in our lives with the planting of the Blackberry Bush.  As I trudged back toward the house, dejected and oppressed by grief, my gaze chanced to fall upon the horseshoe, pointing down.  Now, instead of rustic charm, it bore a look of stern reproach.  Instead of a quaint decoration, it seemed to be the gnarled hand of Death pointing triumphantly down to the ground where both good luck and Blackberry lay buried.  My grief then melded with regret and guilt as I wondered whether, in failing to heed Joe's advice, I had inadvertently courted the misfortune that had befallen Blackberry.  Though it was now too late to do Blackberry any good, I made a penance of correcting my mistake and immediately strung a wire from one prong of the horseshoe to the other and remounted it on the wall, correctly this time, with its prongs pointing up, so that our luck might not continue to run out into the ground.  Within a few hours, Vanilla Bean had arrived.

The End

 

 

 

 

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.  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.  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 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 text of the proposed 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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About me: I am originally from New York City and I now live near the Finger Lakes region of New York.  I am a licensed physical therapist and I write about bodily autonomy and human rights, gender, culture, and politics.  I currently serve on the board of directors of the Genital Autonomy Legal Defense & Education Fund, (GALDEF), the board of directors and advisors for Doctors Opposing Circumcision and 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.