THE UNKINDEST CUT
This article originally appeared
in THE HARVARD LAW REVIEW and is reprinted here with the permission of
the Editor.
Circumcision
is not something most people think about. If they did, they'd learn
that it can cause deformity and death and is as unnecessary and
lamentable as amputating a healthy finger, says J. Steven Svoboda
'91. But because circumcision is tied to the seldom-discussed
subjects of male sexuality and health, he says, the practice continues
by many who never consider its consequences.
Founder and director of Attorneys for the Rights of
the Child, Svoboda educates and litigates on behalf of the burgeoning
anticircumcision cause. His organization, launched five years ago in
Berkeley, Calif., is the only legal practice devoted to the issue,
according to Svoboda. Doing this work enables him to practice public
interest law in an underserved area, he says.
"I see a lot of harm from this procedure. I don't
see a lot of lawyers working on it," Svoboda said. "I'm here because
nobody else is and I think it is an important issue."
While the organization also works to prevent female
genital cutting, it focuses on male circumcision because of its
prevalence in the United States. Through educational campaigns
directed at the general public and the legal bar, Svoboda contends
that circumcision takes away the protection of the foreskin and
reduces erogenous function. In addition, according to Svoboda, more
than 200 boys die each year from the procedure, and many others lose
their penis or substantial portions of it. The organization refers
potential plaintiffs harmed by circumcision to attorneys familiar with
the issue and serves as an ongoing resource in lawsuits.
Even for those not obviously damaged by
circumcision, the procedure is simply never necessary and is not
endorsed by any national medical association, says Svoboda. A surgical
procedure should not be performed, he says, unless there is a proven
need. "It's been twisted around to the point that we do [circumcision]
unless you can prove otherwise, and I think that is a cultural thing.
It's not based on medical reality," he said. "There is no other
culturally based procedure that physicians are performing."
The pressure to have a boy circumcised remains
strong in this country, he says. The notion that a boy must "look like
his father" is ingrained in many people, who are often confused by
conflicting information available on the practice, says Svoboda. Yet
the number of circumcisions performed in the United States has
diminished, from a peak of 85 percent decades ago to below 60 percent
today, according to Svoboda.
The decreasing popularity of the procedure coincided
with the rise of the anticircumcision movement in the '70s, when the
American Academy of Pediatrics announced that there is no medical need
for circumcision and Dr. Benjamin Spock spoke out against it. The
cause's first major organization, the National Organization of
Circumcision Information Resource Center, was founded in 1986 and this
year presented Svoboda with a human rights award. And a passion for
human rights is why he does this work, he says. He won't talk about
whether he's circumcised; he says it's irrelevant. The movement
includes Muslims and Jews (who each traditionally circumcise their
boys), Christians and atheists, women, and circumcised and
uncircumcised men, linked only by their desire to stop this practice.
While ideally circumcision should be outlawed,
Svoboda says, the more pragmatic path is to show people that
circumcision should no longer be a part of the culture, so that it
would become as antiquated as, say, foot binding now is in China. That
will eventually happen, he believes.
"Every culture develops a rationale for why this
particular practice makes sense and vilifies the other practices,"
said Svoboda. "I think we're in a process of unlearning those things.
I think it takes a while. It's a long road, but I think we're going
down that road."
©2002 Lewis Rice
