Canadian Paediatric Society
http://www.cps.ca/english/statements/fn/fn96-01.htm
“Recommendation: Circumcision of newborns should not be routinely performed.”

http://www.caringforkids.cps.ca/pregnancy&babies/circumcision.htm
“Circumcision is a ‘non-therapeutic’ procedure, which means it is not medically necessary.”
“After reviewing the scientific evidence for and against circumcision, the CPS does not recommend routine circumcision for newborn boys. Many paediatricians no longer perform circumcisions.”

Royal Australasian College of Physicians
http://www.racp.edu.au/download.cfm?DownloadFile=A453CFA1-2A57-5487-DF36DF59A1BAF527
“After extensive review of the literature the Royal Australasian College of Physicians reaffirms that there is no medical indication for routine neonatal circumcision.”
(those last nine words are in bold on their website, and almost all the men responsible for this statement will be circumcised themselves, as the male circumcision rate in Australia in 1950 was about 90%. “Routine” circumcision is now *banned* in public hospitals in Australia in all states except one.)

British Medical Association
http://www.bma.org.uk/ap.nsf/Content/malecircumcision2006?OpenDocument&Highlight=2,circumcision#Circumcisionformedicalpurposes
“to circumcise for therapeutic reasons where medical research has shown other techniques to be at least as effective and less invasive would be unethical and inappropriate.”

National Health Service (UK)
http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/articles/article.aspx?articleId=649
“Many people have strong views about whether circumcision should be carried out or not. It is not routinely performed in the UK because there is no clear clinical evidence to suggest it has any medical benefit.”

Canadian Children’s Rights Council
http://www.canadiancrc.com/Circumcision_Genital_Mutilation_Male-Female_Children.aspx
“It is the position of the Canadian Children’s Rights Council that ‘circumcision’ of male or female children is genital mutilation of children.”

drops in male circumcision:
USA: from 90% to 57%
Canada: from 47% to 14%
UK: from 35% to about 5% (less than 1% among non-Muslims)
Australia: 90% to 12.6% (”routine” circumcision has recently been *banned* in public hospitals in all states except one, so the rate will now be a lot lower)
New Zealand: 95% to below 3% (mostly Samoans and Tongans)
South America and Europe: never above 5%

It’s worth remembering that we wouldn’t even be having this discussion if it weren’t for the fact that 19th century doctors thought that :
a) m@sturb@tion caused various physical and mental problems (including epilepsy, convulsions, paralysis, tuberculosis etc), and
b) circumcision stopped m@sturb@tion.

Both of those sound ridiculous today I know, but if you don’t believe me, then check out this link:
http://www.noharmm.org/docswords.htm

Over a hundred years later, circumcised men keep looking for new ways to defend the practice.

The p*n*s’s owner.

* If he grows up happy to have had part of his p*n*s cut off, well and good.
* If he’s not happy to have it left alone, he can always get circumcised at a time and place and by a doctor of his own choosing, and tell the doctor how much he wants taken off, and from where. But very, very few men choose it, and in Finland where it’s not customary, fewer than one in 8000 need it done, lifelong.
* If he’s happy to be left alone and keep a whole penis, well, why shouldn’t he be?
* But if you’ve had part of his p*n*s cut off and that WASN’T what he wanted, what can you tell him? “Whoops, sorry” doesn’t quite cover it.

More and more men are in that position, as the Internet tells them (correctly) that this is a highly erogenous part of the body, and simply fun to have. Women are learning that it has advantages for them as well. And word is spreading that the US is on its own in this. The rest of the English-speaking world tried neonatal circumcision and gave it up, finding it did no good, and most of the rest of the world has never done it.

Circumcision is unique and peculiar: no other part of a baby’s body (and no part at all of a girl baby’s) may be cut off at parental whim. If it were only invented yesterday, it would never get ethical approval. It is a “cure” looking for a disease.

(And the AIDS claim is highly contentious, and largely irrelevant in the US, where very little HIV transmission is female-to-male.)