FLORIDA CIRCUMCISION SAGA: Mother May Get Monitored Visits With Her Son

It has been a while since I last commented on this story from Florida, where a court has ordered a child to be taken away from his mother to be circumcised as his father wished, and his mother was forced to sign the documents of consent under duress. In part, I don't want to write about this story any further, as it breaks my heart every time I think about it.

It looks like at long last, the mother in this case is going to be reunited with her baby after being forcibly torn apart by the state to appease her ex-husbands wishes to have her son circumcised, albeit under tough conditions and extreme surveillance. The father fears the child will be "abducted." (That's a laugh, considering what he put the child through, ripping him away from his mother in the first place. No, the father is afraid the mother will try to do what he has done.)

No one knows what will happen exactly, as the father has fought tooth and nail to keep this under wraps, and the courts are taking his side and cooperating with him, but the possibility of meeting at a neutral place, once a week for an hour, while being watched by a cop was discussed in recent proceedings. No photos can be taken, and the mother is not to say a single word to the child about circumcision. For the fuller story, the Sun Sentinel article can be read here.

My Comment
That this is happening seems so surreal.

Is this really happening in the United States of America?

It fills me with rage every time I think about it.

Imagine you were at odds with an ex-husband who was looking for any which way to get at you. Imagine you knew he was planning to inflict abuse on your son just to spite you. Imagine you knew that his plans were to inflict permanent physical harm on your child for your detriment and for his own personal enjoyment. Imagine you knew his intentions were to get back at you in the most horrific, most indelible way possible; by leaving a physical, irremovable mark on your son's most sensitive, most intimate organs that you would see every time you bathed him.

Now imagine that the state was actually on his side. Imagine that no matter how hard you tried, the state would not listen to you, ignored you every time you tried to ask for their help, and dismissed everything you tried to say to let you protect your own son from needless surgical intervention. Imagine the state actually commanded you to hand your child over to your husband so that he could do as he pleases with your son, while you stand idly by.

Now imagine you doing the only thing you could think of as a last resort; taking your child and running to a place of asylum for one last attempt to protect your son. Imagine police forces storming in, ripping him from your arms and whisking him to his designated fate. Imagine being thrown in jail, being treated as a criminal for wanting to protect your son from needless surgery, and a judge forcing you to sign the permission papers for your son's abuse in exchange for your freedom.

There are no ifs or buts about it, your ex-husband is going to have his way with your son and the state is actually protecting him helping him realize his sick ambitions.

Imagine the court has decreed that you will not get to see your son for 90 days. Imagine that the court has decreed that your ex gets to spend 90 whole days alone with your son to do with him as he pleases, and that you will not see or talk to him during that time, all the mean while lawyers helping him to try and make it so that you never see him again.

Now imagine that after time has passed, the court has finally decided it's time for you to see your son, but you will be monitored, and you are gagged from asking the one burning question whose answer you've been dying to know; is he OK? Has he been mutilated or has he been, at least for the time being, spared?

Well that's basically what is happening here.

How is it the father can take the child and do as he wishes, telling him the boy whatever he wants, but the mother is gagged from doing so?

How is it that what the boy actually wants for himself hasn't been considered? And that the courts have actively refused that option?

How is it the boy's own mother is being denied the right to know what has transpired in the time her son was taken away?

How absolutely infuriating.

A father who is hell-bent on having his son's genitals mutilated for his own self-satisfaction is rewarded sole custody, while the child's mother whose only wish is to protect her son from needless surgery is being treated as a criminal.

All meanwhile, no one has bothered to ask the child whose body is in question what it is he wants for himself.

Poor child.

His story is a catastrophe and a shame on this country.

It is a shame in this country when the selfish whims of a father are more important than the fundamental human rights of a child.

To end this post...
There is nothing more to say.

We live in a backwards country where you're thrown in jail and treated like a criminal for wanting to protect your children from forced needless surgery, but sick perpetrators who want to take them to have plastic surgery on their genitals to fit their liking get awarded sole custody.

Only if the child is male.

Were this a Sudanese, Malaysian, Indonesian man, or a man from a culture where female genital cutting is the norm, the scene would be different.

In this scenario, such a father would be jailed.

Girls and women are protected from unwanted, non-medical genital surgery by law, but the state will actually help you out if you want to inflict the same to a boy.

How fucked up this country...

A country whose laws will not protect the most basic human rights of a child, a country who was complicit in actually carrying the violation of these rights has failed.

It sounds as though intactivist efforts may be paying off however; according to the report referenced here, the father appears to be having a hard time finding somebody that will circumcise the child without a medical diagnosis. This may be due in part to intactivist demonstrations being held across the country, but also in great part to doctors and other organizations threatening to file a complaint against the doctor and hospital who would perform or facilitate this child's non-medical genital surgery.

What will happen to this child?

His mother?

Will a father actually get away with having a doctor perform non-medical surgery on his 4yo son's genitals for his own satisfaction? At the expense of the child's rights and express wishes?

Will a doctor actually go through with carrying out the whims of this mentally depraved father?

I hope that this is the last blog post I EVER write on this story.

To be honest I don't want to know anymore than this; I'd be too afraid to know this child was mutilated, to imagine the horror and pain he must have gone through.

My deepest prayers are that this child is safe, that this mother is finally reunited with her child, and that he doesn't have to spend any more time with that sick, disgusting monster of a father of his.

May this child be back in his mother's arms where he belongs.

Previous Posts:

FLORIDA UPDATE: Father Intent on Circumcising 4-yo Son Seeks to Legally Paralyze Mother

FLORIDA UPDATE: Mother in Circumcision Dispute Fails to Appear in Court - Judge Orders Her Arrest

FLORIDA: Belligerent Judge Seeks the Circumcision of a 4 Year Old

FLORIDA UPDATE: 4-yo Circumcision Case Goes Federal

FLORIDA CIRCUMCISION SAGA: Mother Arrested, Child Nabbed

FLORIDA UPDATE: Court Battle Slated for Monday - Father Objects to British TV Coverage

A Word Of Prayer for Chase

FLORIDA: What Happened Today As Per Intact America

FLORIDA CIRCUMCISION SAGA: Withdrawal of Motion and Notice of Voluntary Dismissal Filed

FLORIDA CIRCUMCISION SAGA: Insult to Injury

FLORIDA CIRCUMCISION SAGA: It's Not Over Yet

FLORIDA BULLETIN: Circumcision Scheduled for 4-yo - Anonymous User Discloses Details

FLORIDA: Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital Complicit in Medical Fraud, Child Abuse?

Related Links:

Parents in circumcision fight appear to settlevisitation dispute after judge, attorneys meet privately

Hironimus Circumcision Case: Doctor Threatens to File Complaint Against Hospital

Father jailed for US mutilation

AFRICA: Boys Circumcised at School Without Parents' Knowledge

As if it weren't enough that male circumcision is being promoted in Africa under the dubious pretext of HIV prevention using questionable "research", and as if it weren't enough that parents are being brainwashed to have their children circumcised, organizations in Africa are taking the liberty of going to schools and circumcising children without their parent's knowledge.

Since "mass circumcision" campaigns began to be rolled out across Africa, promoters of male circumcision were careful to really push that the circumcision of males would be "voluntary," where it can mean that, at least theoretically, men would not be circumcised without their fully informed consent. 'Voluntary" can also mean that parents could "volunteer" their children to be circumcised. (Intactivists, such as myself, contest that a child forcibly circumcised without his own consent is no "volunteer.") "Voluntary Male Medical Circumcision", or "VMMC", it was called, for short.

But now, it seems that "voluntary" doesn't even matter anymore, and organizations are taking it upon themselves to visit schools and circumcising male students without even consulting parents on the matter.

In a recent case, at least 25 boys were circumcised at Oderai Primary School in Soroti sub-county, Soroti District, prompting furious protest by parents, some who were extremely distraught that their children were circumcised without their permission. The boys were circumcised at Soroti Health Centre III in an exercise that was facilitated by NGO Baylor Uganda.

District medical workers came, and a woman filling in for the head teacher (she was away on sick leave) simply authorized them.

When queried, the official in charge of the facility where the boys were circumcised, Harriet Amuat, insisted they were carrying out a government programe and Soroti District administration had signed a partnership with Baylor Uganda to fund the circumcision exercise in Teso sub-region.

The question is, who gave the go-ahead with a "circumcision exercise" that would forcibly circumcise healthy, non-consenting children, completely sidelining their parents?

Who held these talks?

Who made the preposition that children were to be circumcised without informing their parents?

Who accepted?

That's what I'd like to know.

Incidentally, Baylor Uganda is funded by none other than PEPFAR and the CDC. The CDC, a strong partner and supporter of BIPAI’s efforts in Uguanda, provides a majority of the Baylor-Uganda $24 million annual budget, through the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

American organizations are essentially bankrolling the forced circumcision of healthy, non-consenting children. Some may argue that "parents can give consent," but in this case even parents were disregarded.

Not the first time
This might be dismissed as a "one-time accident," but unfortunately, this is not the first time this has happened; a similar case happened recently in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu, just this April.

In this case, 30 children were forcibly circumcised by NGO Impact Research Development Organisation (IRDO) based in Kisumu, which has a clinic in Eldoret. Apparently the children were lured by strangers into cars with sweets.

Here too, parents protested the fact that their children had been forcibly circumcised without their knowledge.

It appears here too, the NGO has ties with PEPFAR, as evidenced by the "about" tab on their Facebook Page.

In yet an even earlier incident, high school students were being targeted at Embakwe High School.

Here too parents were furious to find that their children came home circumcised.

I cannot find any reference as to who gave the go-ahead, and who financed it in the linked article.

Wrong on so many levels
First off, the "mass circumcision" roll-outs are based on questionable material.

Even if the so-called "research" could be lent any credibility, circumcision would still be considered so ineffective at preventing HIV, that circumcised males and their partners must be urged to wear condoms. There is not a single doctor or "researcher" that can deny this fact.

If adult men wish to be circumcised, even being fully informed, that's one thing, but it is despicable that the procedure is being presented to parents as a "decision."

But lastly, it is simply horrific that children are being forcibly circumcised, completely disregarding their parents, and something needs to be done about it.

Was this an accident?

Or was it deliberate?

Those who authorized programs that go to schools and circumcise children without their parents' knowledge ought to be investigated and held responsible.

Relevant Links:

Parents protest forced circumcision of children

Anxiety in Eldoret after NGO ‘forcibly’ circumcises 30 boys

School circumcises pupils without parents knowledge

CANADA: CPS Diverges from AAP on Infant Circumcision

In 2012, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) released a controversial policy statement on circumcision.

While the statement did not culminate in a recommendation as circumcision advocates were hoping for, it was littered with the baseless mantra that "the benefits [of circumcision] outweighed the risks," and with calls for public medical programs to cover it.

The claim that "the benefits outweigh the risks" conflicts with statements that "the benefits [of male infant circumcision] aren't great enough to recommend" it, and that "the true incidence of complications after newborn circumcision are unknown," found within the same Policy Statement.

So out-of-line was the 2012 AAP report, that 38 pediatricians, urologists, epidemiologists, and professors, representing 20 medical organizations and 15 universities and hospitals in 17 countries formally rejected it.

Even so, circumcision advocates took the "benefits outweigh the risks" soundbite and ran with it.

Some go as far as actually saying the AAP has given a recommendation for circumcision, when it is clear to those who have actually read their 2012 statement that they stop short.

After the AAP released their statement, it didn't take very long for the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to mirror them. Almost like clockwork, the CDC released a statement similar to that of the AAP, seemingly giving circumcision advocates yet more ammunition for promoting male infant circumcision. (As the AAP, the CDC shies away from a clear recommendation for male infant circumcision.)

With the Canadian Paediatric Society due for a release of their own policy statement on male infant circumcision, speculation arose as to whether or not they too would mirror the controversial AAP statement.

Circumcision advocates were hoping the CPS would get into lockstep with the AAP, and repeat the same "benefits outweigh the risk" slogan.

Much to their chagrin, however, the CPS not only failed to join the AAP and CDC in chorus, they outright reaffirmed their position against it.

Said Dr. Thierry Lacaze, chair of the CPS Fetus and Newborn Committee:

"While there may be a benefit for some boys in high risk populations and the procedure could be considered as a treatment or to reduce disease, in most cases, the benefits of circumcision do not outweigh the risks."

Thus the AAP and CPS can be witnessed going separate ways on the matter.

Is the CPS stepping out of line?

Or is it the AAP who is deviating?

The fact of the matter is that the trend of opinion on routine male circumcision is overwhelmingly negative in industrialized nations.


The AAP tried very hard to push the slogan that "the benefits [of circumcision] outweigh the risks" in their 2012 statement, but they were formally rejected by 38 pediatricians, urologists, epidemiologists, and professors, representing 20 medical organizations and 15 universities and hospitals in 17 countries.

And now, the Canadian Paediatric Society joins the number of respected medical organizations who diverge with the AAP.

Thus, it continues to be true:

No respected medical board in the world recommends male infant circumcision. All of them, including the AAP in their latest statement, state that there isn't sufficient evidence to warrant this endorsement.

To say otherwise would be to take an unfounded position against the most respected medical organizations in the West.

Good on the CPS for refusing to buy into the AAP's nonsense.

Relevant Posts:

CANADA: Canadian Paediatric Society - Monkey See, Monkey Do?

OUT OF LINE: AAP Circumcision Policy Statement Formally Rejected

USA: Centers for Disease Control to Mirror American Academy of Pediatrics

Relevant Links:

Canadian Paediatric Society re-affirms position against routine circumcision