Protest Against Circumcision Planned Near Beaumont – Royal Oak

ROYAL OAK, MI — About 50 protesters will gather outside Beaumont Hospital – Royal Oak at noon on Saturday, Sept. 10, to demonstrate against a common medical procedure — circumcision.

The fifth annual Michigan March for Integrity is sponsored by NOCIRC of Michigan, a nonprofit, consumer rights advocacy group that educates people about circumcision and about the benefits of intact genitals.

“Michigan has one of the highest rates of circumcision in the world,” Norm Cohen, state director of NOCIRC of Michigan, said in a statement. “Meanwhile, 70 percent of the world does not practice genital cutting. This unnecessary practice violates a child’s right to bodily integrity.”

Street protesters — men, women and children — will march to remind Michigan physicians and hospitals of their duty to protect the rights of all children in their care, the group said. The march will also inform parents about the hazards of circumcision.

“Circumcision is as harmful as it is unnecessary,” said Dr. Robert Van Howe MD, professor of pediatrics at Central Michigan University’s College of Medicine, said in the statement. “Leave your son alone. He will thank you later.”

Circumcision is the only surgery performed on children without a diagnosis.

Cohen added, “Doctors and hospitals profit by perpetuating the myth that circumcision is health care. It is not. It removes a normal, functioning part of a child’s genitals.”

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More than 1,900 boys circumcised each year at Royal Oak’s Beaumont Hospital, an average of five boys a day. In Michigan, 82 percent of newborn boys are circumcised (over 48,000 annually) at a cost exceeding $10 million per year, the group claimed.

In a statement, Beaumont Health System said parents are encouraged to “thoughtfully discuss options with their care providers.”

“At Beaumont Children's Hospital, the decision to circumcise a child is left to the child's parents — taking into account their religious, ethical and cultural beliefs.”

The hospital added: “Beaumont supports the American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement on newborn male circumcision. This policy found the health benefits of circumcision outweigh the risks, but are not great enough to recommend universal circumcision.”

In that statement, endorsed by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the group said that benefits of circumcision include “significant reductions in the risk of urinary tract infection in the first year of life and, subsequently, in the risk of heterosexual acquisition of HIV and the transmission of other sexually transmitted infections.”

“The procedure is well tolerated when performed by trained professionals under sterile conditions with appropriate pain management. Complications are infrequent; most are minor, and severe complications are rare. Male circumcision performed during the newborn period has considerably lower complication rates than when performed later in life,” the policy statement continued.

“Although health benefits are not great enough to recommend routine circumcision for all male newborns, the benefits of circumcision are sufficient to justify access to this procedure for families choosing it and to warrant third-party payment for circumcision of male newborns. It is important that clinicians routinely inform parents of the health benefits and risks of male newborn circumcision in an unbiased and accurate manner.

“Parents ultimately should decide whether circumcision is in the best interests of their male child. They will need to weigh medical information in the context of their own religious, ethical, and cultural beliefs and practices. The medical benefits alone may not outweigh these other considerations for individual families.”

The state of Michigan spends $3 million a year providing 19,000 of these elective surgeries through Medicaid. Meanwhile in California, the circumcision rate has fallen to 23 percent, NOCIRC said.

More information about the protest is available on NOCIRC of Michigan’s Facebook events page.

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