Coming up next week is a series of public information meetings and protests outside London clinics that perform genital alterations of children with 'atypical', 'ambiguous', or 'otherwise deemed unworthy' genitals.  STOP Genital Mutilation in Children's Clinics! is aimed at those children who are born with genitalia that fall in the continuum between completely male and completely female. These children are often called intersex.

The meetings and protests are sponsored by Zwischengeschlecht.org. Zwischengeschlecht.org is a Human Rights Advocacy Group of survivors and allies fighting against genital mutilation in children's clinics and for the right to physical integrity and self determination for all children born with "atypical genitalia."

Genital alterations of children is a problem in the United States, also. Recently, news was published of a doctor at Cornell University who used a vibrator on female children after clitorises were surgically altered to a smaller size. The children were born with a clitoris that was larger than is considered normal by many. So, their parents decided to have their child's clitoris reduced. The doctor was testing to determine if the girls were still sensitive.
See Slog: Female Genital Mutilation at Cornell University and Bioethics Forum: Bad Vibrations.

Check out the Intactivist Calendar for other intactivist events coming up.

Parents, protect your babies. Support intactivism. All children deserve to grow up with their WHOLE body. The following list includes blogs, articles, and websites of interest to Intactivists that were published in the past week. This is a running tally of the ones I found interesting.
 

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Jewlicious U: OPINION: Grabbing circumcision by the balls
Male infant circumcision violates international laws enacted by the United Nations. Article 6 of The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Circumcision goes against the edicts of the United Nations, and therefore violates human rights. "If Jews are to exist in a contemporary world, and escape the barbaric past in which we have so suffered, we as a people must be willing to make sacrifices of our own to coexist."
  Read more . . .

Parents, protect your babies. Support intactivism. The following list includes blogs, articles, and websites of interest to Intactivists that were published in the past week. This is a running tally of the ones I found interesting.
 

Monday, August 22, 2011

Dr Momma Peaceful Parenting: Intact or Circumcised: A Significant Difference in the Adult Penis
Removing a part of the penis from a baby boy through infant circumcision affects the man that boy grows up to be. Circumcision removes the foreskin, which has important functions like protecting the glans and making sex more pleasurable for both the man and his partner. Many circumcised men are restoring their foreskin to regain some of what they lost by being circumcised.

The New York Times: Health: Circumcise or Don’t? Quandary for Parents
The Times points out that there really are no valid reasons to circumcise baby boys in an article that still tends to advocate for male genital cutting. “There’s no compelling medical reason to [circumcise baby boys],” said Dr. Douglas S. Diekema, a pro-circ member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’s task force on circumcision. So, why not leave the choice to the owner of the penis. Maybe he would like to keep his whole sex organ. I know I would have liked to remain whole.

The Bilerico Project: To Cut or Not to Cut
A discussion of the history of circumcision, from Egypt to America. The author also tells how Victorian medical experts in the 1870s began touting circumcision as a purveyor of many health benefits for men. Currently, there are a few staunch advocates for male infant circumcision or male genital mutilation. But there is resistance from intactivists. "The United States has the highest rate of HIV infection and the highest rate of male circumcision in the industrialized world. Male circumcision, therefore, cannot reasonably be thought to prevent HIV infection."
  Read more . . .

Parents, protect your babies. Support intactivism. The following list includes blogs, articles, and websites of interest to Intactivists that were published in the past week. This is a running tally of the ones I found interesting.

One interesting topic this week is the furor in Africa what happens to the removed foreskins from the male circumcision campaign. News has come to light that male foreskins are used in the cosmetic industry and for manufacturing some medical products.

• iAfrica: Government fuels 'foreskin trade' Monday, August 8, 2011
• Sowetan: Concern that foreskins of circumcised babies will be sold illicitly to the global cosmetics industry Monday, August 8, 2011
• Africa Times Live: Babies' foreskins could be sold: Ethics watchdog Monday, August 8, 2011
• Daily News: Circumcision could promote illicit trade: report Monday, August 8, 2011
   

Sunday, August 7, 2011

The WHOLE Network: An Open Letter to Mohel Michael Henesch
A young man writes a letter to the mohel who circumcised him 21 years ago. The young man does not like being circumcised. He provides his personal experience with the results of the mohel's handiwork. He does not like the irritation of the exposed tissue. Nor does he like the gradual loss of sexual pleasure as his penis develops a protective callous because the foreskin is missing and cannot protect the delicate tissues.

Salem-News:  Rites of the Parents Against Rights of the Child; Circumcision, a Misdemeanor or a Crime?
A discussion of religious rites versus bodily rights of children. "Circumcision: men's power over the child!" "Circumcision does not answer the needs of the child…" Genital cutting of children is slowly becoming abhorred worldwide. But it is not disappearing fast enough.
 

Monday, August 8, 2011

The WHOLE Network: Does Circumcision Cause Erectile Dysfunction?
The United States, a nation with 4.5% of the world's population, consumes 47% of the world's Viagra. Hmm. The United States also is one of the nations with the highest male circumcision rate in the world. Correlation? Causation? Hmm. I know that before I started restoring my foreskin that my sexual performance had dropped tremendously as I aged. I cannot say that I had Erectile Dysfunction or ED, but I was not far from it. Restoring my foreskin reversed that. Read more . . .

The big news this week is that a judge ruled that the San Francisco circumcision ban measure must be removed from the ballot because it violated state law. First, the judge made a tentative ruling that the ballot measure would be stricken from the ballot. the judge said that the California Business and Professions Code prohibits local regulation of medical procedures. She said that it "serves no legitimate purpose" for an illegal measure to remain on the ballot and ordered elections chief John Arntz "to, um, cut it off." (Can we grow up enough to stop with the stupid puns, already.)

• City Insider: Circumcision ban to be snipped from ballot
• USA Today: Circumcision ban to be stricken from San Francisco ballot

Then, the following day after a hearing the judge makes her decision final.

• BBC News: San Francisco circumcision ban struck from ballot
• CNN Health: San Francisco judge removes circumcision ban from ballot

Intactivists say they are considering an appeal of the judge's ruling. Read more . . .