Circumcision in America in 1998

Abstract

Medicalised circumcision of newborn males—a non-therapeutic, non-religious amputation of the foreskin of non-consenting infant boys—is currently performed on approximately half of all boys born in the United States. As the most common surgical procedure performed in the United States, circumcision has become part of routine hospital and physician practice over the past few generations as a result of a combination of parental ignorance, medicalised myths, physician ignorance, and fear of “offending” misinformed parents. That physicians are also paid handsomely for what some perceive as “a mere snip” has not escaped the attention of those who have studied this almost uniquely American custom.