Many parents beat themselves up for learning too late, for not protecting their sons, but whose fault is it really? True informed consent was not provided.
By either the "reasonable patient" or "reasonable practitioner" standard, non-therapeutic circumcision is an abysmal failure.
In my case, had my mother been told I could die from circumcision it would have been enough to save me. For my friend Carol, had she simply been told that it could disrupt breastfeeding she would have rejected it.
Others have shared that had they known about the lack of ethics of circumcisers and circumcision it would have changed their minds. Others had no idea that there was any function, sexual or otherwise, attributed to the MALE foreskin.
Even if you assumed a parent could give valid proxy consent for the non-therapeutic mutilation of a child's genitals, the chances that any parent received what would be considered informed consent are virtually nil. They would have to be told:
that the criteria used to justify it are not adequate for any other 'beautifying' destruction;
that the foreskin is specialized erogenous tissue with numerous features and functions;
that because circumcision is ELECTIVE the requirements for truly informed consent would have to be an exhaustive list and detailed explanation of all possible complications, no matter how rare;
and that any provider of this 'service' violates oaths, ethics, and standard diagnostic protocols which they are normally expected to value and follow.
Failing to provide adequate information is grounds for a malpractice suit, but somehow circumcision-- and circumcisers-- skate free. I feel sick every time I read the accounts of regret parents who were not told BASIC things which would have changed their minds and saved their sons from the pointless, barbaric destruction. In every case, an adequate informed consent process would have been sufficient for them to avoid this lifelong regret.
Somehow in this perverted culture it is circumcised men and regret parents who are told to "get over it" and accept what was done.
In fact it is the circumcision providers, circumcision apologists, and happy customers of this cultural mutilation who need to "get over" their lack of ethics, lack of education, and lack of empathy. As I have said before, any doctor who possessed a full measure of any of those three "E"s would find it impossible to continue butchering boys at parental request or behest.
~Devon
