"There are no valid medical indications for circumcision in the neonatal period."
- Committee on Fetus and Newborn. Standards and Recommendations for Hospital Care of Newborn Infants, 5th edition.   more...Evanston, IL: American Academy of Pediatrics. (1971). p.110.

"Circumcision is not a medical decision. Preventing an improbably future infection is a spurious indication. The standard of care is antibiotics, not amputation."
- Eileen Marie Wayne, MD, Letters (Nothing to debate on circumcision), American Medical News, (27 July, 1998). P.27.

"My own preference, if I had the good fortune to have another son, would be to leave his little penis alone."
- Benjamin Spock, MD

"Historians of the future will find it incredible that we mutilated babies by cutting off the end of their penises in the name of medicine. There are now serious concerns this routine procedure may actually deprive adult men of a vital part of their sexual sensitivity."
- Dean Edell, MD - Radio and Television Medical Advisor

"Circumcision causes pain, trauma, and a permanent loss of protective and erogenous tissue... Removing normal, healthy, functioning tissue for no medical reason has ethical implications: circumcision violates the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 5) and the United Nations' Convention on the Rights of the Child (Article 13)."
- Leo Sorger, to American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology: Stop Circumcisions, Ob Gyn News, (1 Nov., 1994). p.8.  less

The American Academy of Pediatrics says:

Role of Hygiene

"there is little evidence to affirm the association between circumcision status and optimum penile hygiene."

STDs including HIV

"behavioral   more...factors appear to be far more important than circumcision status."

Penile Cancer

"in a developed country such as the United States, penile cancer is a rare disease and the risk of penile cancer developing in an uncircumcised man, although increased compared with a circumcised man, is low."

Ethics

Of course here, they hedge and say while even though cutting off part of your baby's genitalia "is not essential to the child's current well-being" they are perfectly fine with parents and doctors using cultural tradition as justification. This report is also the first time the AAP has acknowledged(after decades of doctors mindlessly repeating the belief that babies don't feel significant pain) that circumcision without anesthesia is traumatic and if circumcision is to be done, anesthesia should be used.

I would like to know if the AAP thinks cultural tradition is an acceptable reason to cut off the clitoral hoods(biologically analogous to foreskin) of infant girls especially if it is done with anesthesia as is the case here: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWvi475cYZY">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWvi475cYZY</a>
(the video is not particularly graphic as it was made by a mother who had her own clitoral hood cut off when she was a baby and she wants to continue the tradition)

If you want, you can read the full AAP policy here: <a href="http://www.cirp.org/library/statements/aap1999/">http://www.cirp.org/library/statements/aap1999/</a>  less

In 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics(AAP) reviewed 46 years of research and concluded routine neonatal circumcision is not recommended.

The AAP also currently states: "The uncircumcised penis   more...is easy to keep clean. No special care is required. No attempt should be made to forcefully retract the foreskin [of a child whose foreskin is as yet unretractable]."

The U.S. is the only industrialized country where the majority of male infants are circumcised. Worldwide, only 10-15% of men are circumcised.

Circumcision did not originate as a measure to promote physical hygiene. Instead in the late 1800s, it was introduced into U.S. to discourage boys from masturbating.

Women have a foreskin as well, called the clitoral hood, which covers and protects their clitoris in the same way the foreskin protects the glans(head).

The foreskin is not 'just skin' and is not 'extra' or 'redundant',, in that no other part of the male body does what the foreskin does, or feels what the foreskin feels.

The foreskin serves to protect the glans, thereby maintaining the glans-surface's naturally-intended thinness, texture, and sensitivity.

The foreskin is a natural, retractile, protective covering for the glans of the penis, and is the most erogenous area of the penis in terms of the quantity, concentration, and quality of specialized nerve receptors and stretch receptors that it is endowed with, especially on its inner mucosal lining (which gets redeployed behind the glans during erection).

The average adult foreskin consists of 1½ inches of outer skin, 1½ inches of inner mucosal lining -- totaling a length of 3 inches -- and is 5 inches in circumference when erect. This amounts to a surface area of 15 square inches, or a surface area equivalent to that of a 3" by 5" inch index card!

The foreskin has rich sensations in and of itself. The foreskin also plays a mechanical-lubrication role. It serves as a gliding sheath during masturbation or sexual activity, rendering the quality of the friction between the man and his partner more gentle, less abrasive.  less