Case Against Circumcision

By JOHN LANGONE

t has been called the unkindest cut, and readers may well accept that after they finish this painfully graphic examination of circumcision.

Dr. Fleiss, a Los Angeles pediatrician, is harshly critical of the procedure, saying he came to this view after performing a hundred or so circumcisions and seeing "the suffering, pain and trauma" of the baby.

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In his view, the foreskin has unique and important functions. "Just as the eyelid protects the eye," he writes, the foreskin protects the end of the penis, "keeping its surface soft, warm, moist and sensitive."

And yet, Dr. Fleiss says, "most American medical textbooks depict the human penis, without explanation, as circumcised, as if it were so by nature."

Male circumcision, he says, is extremely rare outside the United States, found primarily in developing Muslim countries, in Israel among Jews, in some African tribes and among some aborigines.

Routine circumcision, he writes, is mostly unheard of in Europe, South America and non-Muslim Asia, and became routine in the United States only after World War II.

Pediatricians have mixed views. In one survey, one-fourth of them recommend that it be performed in healthy newborns. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology say the benefits are not significant enough to recommend circumcision routinely.

The pediatrics group adds, however, that parents can legitimately "take into account cultural, religious and ethnic traditions."

"What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Circumcision," by Dr. Paul M. Fleiss and Dr. Frederick M. Hodges, Warner Books, $14.95.