Mission Statement
Preamble:
Intact and its members recognize that the individual, regardless of age or gender, has the right to their physical integrity. Intact asserts that our laws and the enforcement of those laws must be without gender or age discrimination.
Mission Statement:
Intact's purpose is to end non-therapeutic male infant circumcision. Intact works to this end through increased public awareness, legislation, and litigation. Intact also seeks to have male infant circumcision internationally recognized as a human rights violation. Intact makes a distinction between "circumcision" and the various practices involving ritual or religious cutting, and is not involved in the debate surrounding religious practices, including ritual or religious cutting.
Methods:
Intact's primary method is to use existing national and international laws and instruments to protect male infants. Additionally, Canada's medical ethics standards do not permit doctors to perform non-therapeutic infant circumcisions, and these standards can also be used to end the practice.
Definition of terms:
male infant circumcision: the surgical removal by a licensed physician of part or all of the prepuce of the penis of a baby.
ritual or religious cutting: Several religions practice various alterations or scarring of the body, carried out by traditional practitioners (non-physicians) in a non-medical setting. (See Brit or Brit Milah)
Brit or Brit Milah: the Jewish ritual of foreskin removal, which is to be distinguished from circumcision in that it is not performed by a licensed physician in a clinical setting, but rather by a Mohel (traditional practitioner), usually in the family home.
Neonatal: of a newborn child.
Prophylactic: preventing a disease or medical condition, as opposed to therapeutic. (n: prophylaxis)
Therapeutic: treatment of existing disease, as opposed to prophylactic. (n: therapy)
Mutilation: cut off or destroy the use of, render imperfect by cutting out or away part of.
Relevant Legal Issues:
1. Canada became a party to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on 13 December 1991. The Government of Canada is now obliged to honour the terms of the Convention. Article 2 Paragraph three reads as follows:
States Parties shall take all effective and appropriate measures with a view to abolishing traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children.
2. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is equally clear on this matter:
15(1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
3. In Canada, the federal Department of Justice warns that anyone performing any type of surgery on a minor for cultural, religious or cosmetic reasons may be prosecuted under assault provisions of the Criminal Code.
4. In March 1992, the colleges of physicians and surgeons in Ontario and BC banned the performance of Female Genital Mutilation-FGM-by their members, ruling it an act of professional misconduct.
5. Now Federal law also specifically prohibits female genital mutilation, a violation of equal protection under the Charter.
6. See also Section 7 for the "right of the security of the person" and Section 12 for the "right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment."
Relevant Medical Issues:
A. Lack of Necessity:
1. The Canadian Paediatric Society has made three statements, in 1975, 1982 and 1996. In each statement they uphold and indeed strengthen their position that circumcision is not necessary, and may be harmful to the infant. For example, the CPS concluded that "Circumcision of newborns should not be routinely performed," [1] and as early as 1975, that "there is no medical indication for circumcision during the neonatal period," [2] and refers to circumcision as a "mutilative operation of questionable benefit."[3]
2. Even if the CPS statements are completely disregarded, and one argues a case for the prophylactic benefits of non-therapeutic infant circumcision, the surgery is at very best non-therapeutic. In this situation parental consent is invalid.
3. According to the CPS, any reasons to choose circumcision must be ascribed to "social status,"[4] "conformity,"[5] or "ritual."[6] The infant patient is not in a position to choose surgery for these reasons.
B. Harm Suffered:
1. It seems obvious that the removal of skin from an organ as sensitive as the penis must be presupposed to detract from its sensitivity, unless it has been shown otherwise. In reference to this issue, research by John Taylor of the University of Manitoba concludes that: "Circumcision ... abates junctional mucosa that appears to be an important component of the overall sensory mechanism of the human penis."[7] The Taylor article also states that "Meissner's corpuscles of the prepuce may be compared with similar nerve-endings in the fingertips and lips,"[8] that "the prepuce provides a large and important platform for several nerves and nerve endings....the innervation is impressive,"[9] and refers to parts of the foreskin as "primarily sensory tissue."[10] In a later interview, Taylor said "This is real 18th century surgery... The whole mechanism of the penis is different in the circumcised vs. uncircumcised.... Doctors doing this procedure don't know what they're removing."[11]
2. Studies show the sexual importance of the foreskin. In fact, the sensory importance of the prepuce has been recognized since as early as 1959, when Dr. Winkelman of the Mayo Clinic wrote:
[T]he specific type of erogenous zone is found in the mucocutaneous regions of the body. Such specific sites of acute sensation in the body are the genital regions, including the prepuce, penis, clitoris, and external genitalia of the female, and the peri-anal skin, lip, nipple and conjunctiva. It is the special anatomy of these regions that require the use of the term "specific" when one speaks of erotic sensations originating in the skin. This anatomy favors acute perception.[12]
Thus, rather than being a surgery with no consequences to the patient save that of therapy/lack of therapy, circumcision clearly diminishes the organ's sexual sensitivity. In light of this, only the patient can judge whether any supposed prophylactic benefits would outweigh the sacrifice of sexual sensitivity.
C: Lack of Consent:
1. Valid third-party authorization to surgery on a child depends upon the surgical intervention being therapeutic. In the vast majority of circumcisions this is not the case. Even were prophylactic benefits presupposed (in contradiction to the CPS's extensive research), this does not constitute therapy. An illustrative case is Eve,[13] in which it was ruled unlawful for a parent to consent to surgery on their child because of questionable advantages and lack of benefit to the patient.
Endnotes:
2. Canadian Paediatric Society Statement: Circumcision in the Newborn Period, 1975.
3. Ibid, par 15.
4. Ibid, par 1.
5. Ibid, par 11.
6. Ibid, par 21.
8. Ibid, pp. 294.
9. Ibid, pp. 294
10. Ibid, pp. 295.
11. Interview with John Taylor, pathologist, University of Manitoba
13. Law Reports, Re Eve. (1-31 D.L.R. (4th) pp. 1-37)