CIN (Circumcision Information Network) 2:11

CIN CompuBulletin
Circumcision Information Network 
Volume 2, Number 11, 27 March 1995

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE NURSES OF ST. VINCENT
The New Times, February, 1995, Seattle, Washington, by Cat Saunders
[Second of a multi-part series.  The first part was Saunders' own view of
circumcision as a human rights issue.]

A group of nurses from St. Vincent' s Hospital in Santa Fe, New
Mexico...have organized to stop circumcision.  In this interview, I spoke
with four of the nurses who were in Seattle recently.  As you read their
stories, open your heart.  Let your feelings come, for only if we all feel
the horror of circumcision can we stop it.  Together we can stop it now. 

Cat:  How did your conscientious objection begin? 

Mary:  We came into this very simply.  We just wanted people to stop
hurting babies.  In 1992, we started a petition.  Before that, I think
that we all had the sense that something was wrong, but we had never
communicated about it.  Everything I'd read said circumcision isn't a
necessary thing to do, from a medical or health standpoint.  So why are we
doing it?  You take a newborn baby, strap him down to a board, and cut on
him.  It's obviously painful!  Circumcision became so intolerable that
five of us wrote a letter saying that ethically we could no longer assist. 
When we were getting ready to present the letter, other nurses came out of
the woodwork and asked to sign it.  Out of about 50 nurses, 24 signed it. 

Betty:  For years before that, we dealt with it the way women deal with
things when they feel powerless.  When it came time to do one, we would
just make ourselves scarce.  When I did have to assist, I would not look
at the circumcision.  I would look at the baby's face, and maybe put my
finger in his mouth to pacify him.  But whatever name you call
it--mutilation, torture, creating a wound, violation it was going on, and
I was never looking.  It was crazy!  Now we're conscientious objectors,
but it's still going on.  We can still hear it. 

Mary:  Yes.  Behind closed doors, you can hear the baby screaming.  You
know exactly what part of the operation is happening by how the screams
are. 

Betty:  Yes, that's important.  Please quote that. 

Cat:  How about the maiming that happens?  One of my friends who is not
circumcised said that in gym class, he noticed boys who have been maimed
by it. 

Mary:  Most people don't see that.  They say, "What complications? What
problems?" 

Cat:  Mary-Rose, the video you all did, Saying No to Circumcision, begins
with you telling a story about a recurring dream. 

Mary-Rose:  Sometimes I think we get messages from the spiritual realm
that we try to turn away, but the messages keep coming, and we have to
listen.  My dreams were about taking the babies and strapping them down,
participating in the whole thing, and having the babies say to me.  "Why
are you doing this? You were just welcoming me, and now you're torturing
me.  Why, why, why?"  I've watched doctors taking more foreskin than they
should. 

When there's too much bleeding, they burn the wound with silver nitrate so
that the penis looks like it's been burned with a cigarette.  Then the
doctor will tell us to go tell the mother that this is what it's supposed
to look like. 

I know people are going to say it's weird, but I think circumcision is
like the Holocaust; it's like rape--like any injustice--and this kind of
abuse is still going on! 

Cat:  It is abuse.  Mary, you said in the video that doctors have told you
not to say "poor baby" or comfort the baby after his circumcision, in
front of the parents.  This brings up the whole issue of responsibility
and guilt, and how we protect the abusers instead of caring for the
victims. 

Mary:  Betty is actually in trouble for reacting to a circumcision.  She
opened a diaper, and her facial expression was such that the parents wrote
a letter saying that she had "made them" feel guilty. 

Betty:  Yes.  They're saying my facial expression was "unprofessional."  I
was looking at a genital wound!  I thought I was doing well, because I
didn't cry.  My thought was that maybe it was a botched circumcision, and
that maybe too much had been cut off.  But who am I to say, because now I
think that any amount is too much.  That's the position we're in now,
where we are accused of harassing. 

Mary:  Just by our mere existence, we "make" people feel guilty.  People
don't take responsibility for their guilt.  There's so much denial about
this. 

Mary-Rose:  Sometimes I'll see a father with his son right after birth,
and the bonding is really great.  The baby is looking at the father, and
the father is ecstatic he's communicating with his baby.  Yet, he has his
son circumcised.  Afterward, the baby won't look at the father, and the
father wants to know.  "Why won't my baby look at me?" 
[To be continued.]

AAP ACTION
On Sunday, April 9th, NOHARMM New York in conjunction with NOHARMM
Philadelphia will stage an action at the annual convention of the American
Academy of Pediatrics.  We will protest the AAP's reliance on research
that it concedes is "flawed and inconclusive" to support circumcision. 
For more information, call 212-340-8015, or E-mail BarryBe@AOL.com, or
attend the orientation meeting in NYC on Wednesday, April 5th, 19:00 local
time, at 131 West 72nd St., 2nd Floor.
Back to the News 1995 page.
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