Back to the News 2000 page.NEW YORK POST, December 23, 2000.
An 18-year-old Air Force private is suing the doctor and hospital responsible for circumcising him at birth, saying the operation caused him excruciating pain as an infant and lasting sexual harm. William Stowell's suit in Brooklyn federal court claims his mother was drugged when she signed the consent form.
He says his pain threshold has been reduced and his ability to sexually satisfy women has been unalterably harmed. He wants $75,000 in damage. Stowell, who says he doesn't recall the pain he suffered as an infant, recalls becoming aware of his condition at a children's camp at age 14, when he saw another boy's uncircumcised penis in a group shower. "I wanted to know why he had one and I didn't - and, more importantly, where mine was," said Stowell, who now lives in Roanoke, VA.
His lawyer, David Llewellyn, is an anti-circumcision advocate who claims to have won settlements in a half-dozen similar cases in the past five years. A spokesman for Long Island College Hospital declined to comment and Dr. Frank Cariello, who no longer works at the hospital, could not be reached. Stowell's mother, Linda, said she was mortified when she brought her boy home and realized he'd been circumcised.
"But what could you possibly do?" she said, "There's not any way you can put something like that back on once it's gone."
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