Mis-Informed Consent?
Why Parents Really Choose to Circumcise Their Sons
by Jennifer Gardner
It was about 4:00 in the afternoon in mid-October, 1997. Twenty-four hours before, I’d given birth to my first child: a healthy 7 lb. 11 oz. boy named Nathan. I was relaxing with my new family when a knock came at the door and in walks a medical professional. He’s a young-ish man – probably a resident – carrying a clipboard in one hand, and wheeling behind him a cart of medical paraphernalia in the other.
“I’m here to take Nathan down to be circumcised,” he announces to me, as he
hands me the clipboard.
“But I already told three people: I don’t want him circumcised!” I objected, huff-
ily.
Each of the other times I’d been asked–by the Ob/Gyn and the nurses I said no. And each time they smiled and replied, “Good!” This time, it was the last straw.
The medic pressed the issue. “But, his name’s up on the board,” he whined.
At this, I practically shouted at him, “Well, take it off, then!”
This was my introduction to the world of informed consent for newborn circumcision. I thought you just said yes or no, signed the paper if it was “yes,” didn’t sign if it was “no,” and that was it.
Not long after, I phoned my former childbirth class educator who worked as a midwife at the hospital. She told me that circumcision is assumed for boys, unless noted otherwise.
While pregnant with my 2nd child, I mentioned this incident to my OB. “They probably just didn't want to miss
anyone who wanted it.” This answer caught me by surprise. Better that they make sure they don’t miss anyone who doesn’t want it! Still, it wasn’t that the man had simply asked me if I'd like it done; he told me that he was there to take my son!
One would think that a hospital would uphold the law that says they must obtain a parent’s written consent before performing a circumcision. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. Medical historian Frederick Hodges has
spoken about informed consent during the 20th century:
"The process of adopting the concept of informed consent into standard hospital practice, especially for surgeries that had never been considered risky enough to require consent, did not get underway, in most cases, until the 1970s. This applies to neonatal circumcision as well as many other aspects of medical practice. In almost all cases the movement for informed consent was initiated by patients and their lawyers, rather than doctors and hospitals.
In the particular case of circumcision, hospitals instituted their informed consent procedure, as minimal and unsatisfactory as it is, as a result of various lawsuits, which were reported in the medical press as warnings. Two of these critical lawsuits were brought against hospitals by Orthodox Jews, ironically, who were horrified that their babies had been circumcised in the hospital without their permission, thus destroying any possibility of a proper Bris Milah on the 8th day. Even today, there are many doctors who do not bother to inquire. They just assume that all parents would want all babies to be circumcised."
In March, 1999 the American Academy of Pediatrics announced that after having reviewed the last 40 years of studies on the subject, they could find very minimal evidence of medical benefits of infant circumcision, and therefore cannot recommend it be performed for all boys.
