Description:
CIRCUMCISION CUTS THROUGH US ALL. In her eye-opening memoir, Georganne Chapin exposes the business of medical circumcision. This unnecessary and most common pediatric surgery in the United States permanently reduces the size and alters the function of a boy's penis for the rest of his life. Every year, nearly 1.5 million baby boys are assaulted in American hospitals and doctors' offices, subjecting them to pain, functional and psychological damage, and a forever-altered sexual experience. Chapin traces circumcision's U.S. roots from 19th Century fears of masturbation to stereotypes about race, class, religion, and male sexuality. She describes how what started as a way to keep men and women from enjoying sex morphed into a for-profit medical practice-one that is rare or unknown in Europe, non-Muslim Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Finally, she shows how physician organizations, especially the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), have worked for decades to fraudulently promote circumcision's supposed benefits and suppress facts about circumcision harm and deaths, and how they refuse to acknowledge the procedure as a gross violation of basic medical ethics. Indeed, the AAP now characterizes male genital mutilation as a matter of "culture" and "parental preference"--a position that, conveniently, shields trade associations and their physician members from legal and financial liability. This book is a punch-in-the-gut wake-up call that will enrage and empower anyone impacted by the multi-billion-dollar penis business.
Brief description:
Georganne Chapin is a healthcare expert, attorney, social justice advocate, and founding executive director of Intact America, the nation's most influential organization opposing the US medical industry's common practice of surgically altering ("circumcising") the genitals of male children. Georganne has published many articles and op-ed essays and has been interviewed widely on local, national, and international television, radio, and podcasts about ways the US healthcare system exploits vulnerable patients, prioritizing profits over people's basic healthcare needs.
Review Quotes:
"With this book, Georganne Chapin is doing the heavy lifting of helping parents make informed decisions around an almost exclusively cosmetic, yet shockingly normalized surgery."
-- "Nathan Riley, MD, host of The Holistic OB/GYN podcast"