You may have heard Australian parents justify circumcising their baby ‘to save him from having it done later’. They will quote the story of ‘a friend of a friend who knew someone who had a son…’, but how many boys actually need to have it done later for a medical reason? And of those that were done for a medical reason, how many could have been treated with a less invasive method? To attempt to answer those questions we can look at the overall circumcision rate in countries where they respect the genital autonomy of their children. Countries such as Spain, Denmark and Finland have a an overall circumcision prevelance of less than 2%. This includes men who were circumcised as children, or circumcised later for religious, medical or other reasons. In other words, there are at least 98% of men in these countries who will never need to be circumcised. The situation in Australia is slightly different. Circumcision was so prevelant that generations of Australians have forgotton how a normal penis is supposed to function, and they, at the suggestion of their doctors who are likely to be circumcised themselves, are too quick to circumcise when a less aggressive treatment is available. But even in this ‘pro-cutting’ culture, a recent analysis of data extracted from the National Morbidity Database, the Australian Studies of Health and Relationships research database and the Australian Bureau of Statistics has concluded that:

“…at least 93 per cent of boys will never require a circumcision, so inflicting (routine infant circumcision) on them to avoid such a possibility is at best pointless and at worst a criminal infringement of their human rights and bodily integrity.”

Read more at this bubhub forum post.