Photo: dbking (CC)
Well that’s Russell Crowe’s opinion, anyway. IOL Scitech reports from the battlefront over circumcision in the United States:
In the United States, a vocal movement of “intactivists,” or people who oppose male circumcision, is engaged in a fierce debate with doctors over the practice of clipping baby boys’ foreskins.
Actor Russell Crowe may be the most famous of them. Earlier this year he declared on Twitter: “Circumcision is barbaric and stupid,” before swiftly tweeting sorry to anyone who thought he was “mocking the rituals and traditions of others.”
Over the weekend, California’s governor blocked a bid by opponents of circumcision to have voters decide if local governments could make it a crime for doctors to perform the procedure unless medically necessary.
But the movement has vowed to keep fighting against a medical practice that is done to about 57 percent of American boys – down from more than 80 percent in the 1980s according to US health authorities – yet remains rare in most of Europe, Asia and Latin America.
Defence of circumcision typically tends to come from Jews and Muslims who say it is part of their belief set, though opponents say religious circumcision actually makes up less than one percent of all operations.
Increasingly, support for the practice has come from US doctors who warn of the potential risks of not doing it, including more likely cases of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV…
[continues at IOL Scitech]
