The Case Against Circumcision

Few operations are more common in the U.S. than circumcision--the surgical removal of the foreskin covering the penis. Once it was practiced mainly by Jews and Moslems, whose reasons are religious,* not medical. Now it is so widely accepted as a hygienic measure that 80% of all American baby boys are circumcised shortly after birth.

Is the operation necessary? Not according to Captain E. Noel Preston, a pediatrician stationed at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base. Writing in the A.M.A. Journal, Preston notes that the operation, performed from three to eight days after birth, can produce immediate complications in the newborn, such as hemorrhage and infection, plus later problems like painful urination and bed-wetting in older children.

Unjustified Risk. Many doctors assume that circumcision prevents cancer of the penis. But Preston notes that penile tumors occur in circumcised as well as uncircumcised men. Nor does circumcision appear to be a major factor in preventing cancer of the cervix in women. Men of India's Parsi group are not circumcised; Jewish men are. Yet cervical cancer is rare among the wives of both groups. It is more frequent, however, in lower-class Moslem women, whose husbands, though circumcised, maintain low standards of personal hygiene.

Preston readily agrees with the argument that an uncircumcised penis is more difficult to keep clean than one from which the foreskin has been removed. But this, he feels, does not justify the risks of an operation that he considers little better than mutilation. "If a child can be taught to tie his shoes or brush his teeth or wash behind his ears," says Preston, "he can also be taught to wash beneath his foreskin."

* Jews regard circumcision as part of the covenant between God and Abraham (Genesis 17:9-14) and a sign of belonging to the community of Israel. Arabs adopted the practice in pre-Islamic times, have since spread it to all Moslem lands.

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