AntiCircThere are no ethical arguments for removing a normal, healthy body part from a child who cannot consent. Held against the four principles bioethics applies to every procedure, routine infant circumcision fails each one.
AntiCirc envisions a world where children are free from medically unnecessary surgeries carried out without their consent — in the name of culture, religion, profit, or parental preference.
There are no ethical arguments to support the removal of normal body parts from children who cannot consent.
A parent's right to consent is limited, by bioethics, to cases where the child's life or health is genuinely at risk.
The foreskin is healthy tissue and routine circumcision treats no disease — so it cannot meet that bar.
Infant circumcision violates all four of the universally accepted bioethical principles [36].
Do no harm
The principle of non-maleficence requires that medical practitioners not intentionally cause a needless injury to the patient. Childhood circumcision involves the permanent surgical removal of healthy, protective, erogenous tissue from a child, and is therefore a needless injury.
Childhood circumcision violates the principle of non-maleficence.
The act of doing good
The principle of beneficence requires that health care professionals provide a benefit to a patient. Because routine childhood circumcision provides no benefit to the child, removes a normal body part, and exposes him to unnecessary risk, trauma and pain.
It violates the bioethical principle of beneficence.
Fairness and equal protection
In the United States, girls of all ages are protected by law from all medically unnecessary genital surgeries. Boys are entitled to the same legal protection. There is no acceptable rationale for a distinction in law between female and male genital modification.
Circumcising a baby boy violates the principle of justice.
Right to self-determination
The bioethical principle of autonomy invests every person with the right to make decisions regarding his or her own body. Our Declaration of Independence states that we are 'endowed with certain unalienable rights,' including self-determination.
Infant circumcision violates the principle of autonomy.
Respecting a patient's right to self-determination assumes they can make an informed decision and act voluntarily. A child cannot, so the decision passes to a proxy — usually a parent. But a parent's right to consent on a child's behalf is limited to interventions necessary to protect the child's life or health. Routine circumcision is not one of those cases.
Proxy consent exists to act in the child's best interests when they cannot — not to authorise permanent, non-therapeutic changes to a healthy body the child will one day own.
"Intactivism" promotes the right of boys — and all people — to be free from forced, medically unnecessary surgery on their genitals. It is not opposition to circumcision itself: an adult with the age and capacity to make an informed decision is free to choose it. The objection is to doing it to someone who cannot.
Opposition has always existed, but stayed in the shadows while genitals and sex remained taboo. The movement keeps gaining momentum as circumcised men and regretful parents speak out to protect the next generation. Intact America is its largest organised expression, funded entirely by tax-deductible donations.
Compelling reasons exist for strong concern among attorneys about the damage caused by circumcision, including pain, psychological harm, and loss of sexual function.
An organization of physicians opposed to non-therapeutic neonatal circumcision, with members in 50 States and on six continents.
There is a myth that men do not mind being circumcised. Men circumcised as children often complain about their condition and its consequences.
Dedicated to educating parents about the harms of circumcision and protecting future generations from unnecessary genital surgery.
Documenting the physical and psychological harm caused by circumcision through comprehensive surveys and research.
Non-therapeutic genital cutting has significant physical and psychological consequences and has no proven benefits.
Follow these principles into the supply chain they enable.