John Sambrook

11227 NE 128 ST
Unit I-102
Kirkland, WA 98034

October 5, 2017

Kirkland City Council

City Hall
123 Fifth Avenue
Kirkland, WA 98033

Dear Mayor Walen, Deputy Mayor Arnold, and Council Members:

Male infants are wounded for life when Non-Therapeutic Circumcision (NTC)
is forced on them by parents who do not understand the damaging nature of
NTC.
The damage done by NTC is not widely known. Even doctors, who should
know better, often have not integrated all of the far-reaching and devastating
effects of NTC. If this can happen to doctors, is it likely that parents will have a
better understanding?
So, is there evidence that NTC is harmful?
In August, 2017, the AMA Journal of Ethics published an article, Nonthera-
peutic Circumcision of Minors as an Ethically Problematic Form of Iatrogenic
Injury, authored by J. Steven Svoboda, Esq., MS, JD. 1
Citing from the Conclusion of the article:

The vast majority of medical practitioners have the best interests of their
patients at heart; if they recommend or agree to circumcision, it is usually
in the belief that it does more good than harm. As more physicians are
coming to realize, however, this belief is misguided: many physicians to
whom I speak these days now say that they would prefer not to circumcise
and only do it because the parents ask for it. At the same time, it is often
the case that the only reason parents ask for it is because they believe cir-
cumcision is medically beneficial, recommended by health authorities, or
the normal thing to do. It is time for this vicious circle to be broken. Who
better to take the initiative than the community that introduced NTC in
the first placethe American medical profession?

I also refer you to the following website for additional information on the dam-

1 http://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/2017/08/pdf/msoc2-1708.pdf
 2
age done by NTC: Doctors Opposing Circumcision.
Finally, please note that healthy infants sometimes die as a result of NTC surgery.
What could be worse or more agonizing to a parent than eventually realizing
that their sons death was entirely unnecessary? (Death From Circumcision,
Dr. Daniel Frisbee, Ph.D., 2010.) 3
I suggest that it is impossible to review this evidence objectively and yet con-
clude that NTC is benign. It is clearly harmful. It is harmful to the individual on
which it is inflicted, it is harmful to his parents when they finally learn the truth,
and it is harmful to his future sexual partners when they suffer the secondary
effects of the genital mutilation that was forced on him.
Allowing NTC to be forced on a helpless infant who cannot consent is a massive
violation of the human (individual) rights of the infant. The fact that his parents
requested the procedure is irrelevant. While parents have a duty to care for
their children, they have no right to wound them, and more and more, people
are realizing that NTC is nothing but harmful. There are no net benefits to it; it
is only a net lose for the infant, his parents, and future sexual partners.
As regards religion, which always comes up regarding this topic, I suggest
that thoughtful individuals must reject the idea that a parents religious beliefs
somehow grants them the right to carve those beliefs into the genitals of their
children.
Optimistically, I hope that the Kirkland City Council will choose to act in a
brave, loving and caring way. When you have the opportunity to talk with our
legislators in Olympia, I ask that you please raise this issue with them, and ask
them to draft and then pass legislation making all forms of genital mutilation,
both male and female, illegal in Washington State.
In closing, I wish to thank you for your consideration of this issue. The courtesy
of a reply is requested.

Sincerely,

John Sambrook

2 https://www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org

3 http://www.drmomma.org/2010/05/death-from-circumcision.html