United States of America

The US has the developed world’s highest routine infant circumcision rate, but it is declining

The United States is the only country to circumcise a majority of male infants for non-religious, non-medical reasons. Population circumcision is around 71–80%, but the inpatient newborn rate has fallen markedly — roughly a 54% decline in inpatient newborn male circumcision over recent decades.

Population vs newborn-incidence figures differ; the ~71% is the standing population rate, the decline is in the annual newborn rate.

No US law restricts non-therapeutic infant circumcision

No US federal or state statute restricts non-therapeutic infant male circumcision; it is legal and unregulated, routinely performed and often publicly funded (Medicaid in most states). Reform efforts — an equal-protection lawsuit (2025), state Medicaid-defunding bills, and a narrowly-failed New Hampshire bill — exist but none has restricted the practice.

The AAP’s 2012 policy found benefits outweigh risks but stopped short of recommending routine circumcision

The American Academy of Pediatrics’ 2012 policy statement concluded the health benefits of newborn circumcision outweigh the risks but were not great enough to recommend routine circumcision; it was internationally contested, with a 2013 rebuttal by a group of European paediatric bodies arguing it reflected cultural bias.

The 2012 statement carried a stated expiry and is the most-cited yet most-disputed US policy document on the question.

US HIV prevalence is low and circumcision is not a frontline US prevention tool

US adult HIV prevalence is roughly 0.4% (CDC, 2022). While US-funded research underpins African VMMC programmes, domestic HIV prevention centres on PrEP, testing and treatment-as-prevention rather than circumcision, and the US epidemic is concentrated in populations where female-to-male circumcision offers little benefit.

Epidemiological context, not a causal claim about circumcision.

US circumcision harms are documented in both clinical and informal settings

Verified US cases include a New York City hospital circumcision that nearly caused a newborn to bleed to death and an at-home religious circumcision that injured a boy — alongside a peer-reviewed study of factors associated with early deaths following neonatal circumcision. Documented cases are not a measured complication rate.

Individual documented cases, not a population complication or mortality rate.