Reverend Joan Bates Forsberg played a notable role in struggles for contraceptive access in the 1950s and 1960s and abortion […]
Mary, Did You Know?: An Essay on Christmas Carols, Medical History, and Reproductive Politics
The Christmas season is a curious time for a historian of women’s health, abortion, and maternal politics: at its historical […]
Sonia Johnson and Sticking It to Haters
Most women who run for president experience some degree of notoriety. Certainly this was the case for Sonia Johnson, who […]
Call the Medical Missionary: Religion and Health Care in Twentieth-Century Britain
If you have ever seen the popular BBC/PBS television program Call the Midwife1 then you know that the central setting, […]
Excommunicating Feminism in the Mormon Church
On June 8, 2014, Kate Kelly received a letter from her bishop telling her that she could be excommunicated from […]
Stop Rape: A WWII Chaplain’s Advice
During this week’s oral arguments on California’s Prop 8, Justice Samuel Alito questioned whether the court could take a stand […]
Rites and Wrongs: Changing a Ritual from Within
By Elizabeth Reis
The previously obscure ultra-Orthodox Jewish rite of metzitzah b’peh (oral suction) has burst into the news lately and raised critical questions about genital surgery, consent, First Amendment rights, tradition, and the representation of Jews.
I would guess that most Americans, even Jewish-Americans, had never heard of metzitzah b’peh (oral suction) until the recent controversy between ultra-Orthodox Jews and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. It refers to a custom performed after a circumcision in which a mohel (ritual circumciser) orally sucks the blood away from the baby boy’s penis. To insure the requirement that blood be shed and then hygienically removed (sucking was deemed the best means of achieving this hygiene anciently), metzitzah b’peh became part of circumcisions in the 2ndcentury, according to scholars. Most Jews, even observant Modern Orthodox Jews, have abandoned the practice. But a small minority adheres to and defends it, based on the First Amendment – somewhat surprisingly now on free speech grounds in addition to its religious liberty provisions.
The Flip-flop over Foreskin
This is a guest post by Elizabeth Reis, professor of women’s and gender studies at the University of Oregon. Professor Reis is the author of Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). This year (2012-2103) she is a visiting scholar in the History of Science Department at Harvard University.
The American Academy of Pediatricians recently released a statement saying that the health benefits of circumcision outweighed the risks. This pronouncement contradicts the Academy’s earlier ruling, just thirteen years ago in 1999, which stated unequivocally that the health benefits of the procedure were slim. The 1999 statement reversed a previous one made in 1989 that said there were good medical reasons for it; but a few years earlier, in 1971, the Academy had officially concluded that it was not a medical necessity. Clearly, circumcision is one of those surgeries about which opinion shifts back and forth over the years.
