Not in San Francisco

“MALES need protection as females do,” says Lloyd Schofield, the main sponsor of a local ballot measure in San Francisco that, if voters pass it in November, would in effect make circumcision of babies illegal in that city. A federal law and various state equivalents indeed ban female circumcision, whether performed as a religious rite or not. So-called “intactivists” such as Mr Schofield therefore quite reasonably ask why the cutting of a baby boy's foreskin should be any different.

Circumcision arrived in America not primarily with Jewish immigrants but as a Victorian British fad, in which the original stated objective was to discourage masturbation and nocturnal emissions. The practice spread during the 20th century, and became almost universal by the 1960s. But in recent decades, circumcision has been declining, to about half of baby boys as of 2008.

The culture of the San Francisco Bay Area often exalts anything natural, from birthing to eating. So it is no coincidence that Marilyn Milos, a former nurse who has been called “the mother of the American genital-integrity movement”, is based in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. Many paediatricians in the area advise parents against circumcision.

In the medical part of the controversy, the early claims of benefits (such as the decrease of “spermathorrea”) have largely been debunked. Others, such as a decrease in penile cancer in later years, remain controversial. But recent studies from sub-Saharan Africa have shown that circumcision can reduce male rates of HIV infection. Intactivists counter that this hardly justifies what they call the amputation of a body part from infants who might never be at risk of HIV. Ms Milos still recalls a particularly terrifying circumcision in 1979, which she attended as midwife. “You never forget the screams,” she says. “I was witnessing the torture and mutilation of a baby.”

The constitutional issues of a ban promise to be even more controversial. Jews, of course, can argue that God's covenant with Abraham requires them to circumcise their boys, thus making the practice a matter of religious freedom.

But Supreme Court precedent is mixed. Many religious practices (such as polygamy, once practised by Mormons) are clearly illegal. In a 1944 case concerning a Jehovah's Witness who had custody over a nine-year-old girl, the court stipulated that “parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow they are free…to make martyrs of their children before they have reached the age of full and legal discretion.” Yet in a case in 1972 the court upheld the rights of Amish parents to refuse, on religious grounds, to send their children to school beyond 8th grade.

Whatever the fate of his proposed law, Mr Schofield seems most interested in changing minds. He is thrilled that many Jews signed his petition. Some have begun practising an alternative ceremony; brit shalom, the “covenant of peace”, which involves no cutting.