Narrative inquiry in bioethics最新文献

{"title":"Proudly Jewish—and Averse to Circumcision","authors":"Lisa Braver Moss","doi":"10.1353/nib.2023.a909666","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nib.2023.a909666","url":null,"abstract":"Proudly Jewish—and Averse to Circumcision Lisa Braver Moss I've always had a strong sense of my Jewish identity—and I've always had grave misgivings about circumcision. It used to seem that these [End Page 86] statements were at odds with one another. Now I'm on a mission to integrate the two. I'm married to a man who's also Jewish. In the late 1980s, we had two sons, whose circumcisions I agreed to. Brit milah (the covenant of circumcision) is intended as a spiritually meaningful act symbolizing the agreement between God and the Jewish people. But for me, the experience was so upsetting that I didn't feel God's presence. In spite of all the arguments in favor—the weight of tradition, wanting my boys to be accepted in the Jewish world, and so on—I came to regret my acquiescence. I began to explore reasons to question circumcision from a Jewish point of view, publishing articles in Jewish magazines and speaking at conferences. Rather than focusing on the medical pros and cons, I wrote about Jewish law and ethics, and spoke with many rabbis. I was hoping to deepen Jewish dialogue on this topic, which was oddly off-limits in a culture that values intellectual inquiry. Besides helping me understand more about Judaism, my research and writing was a way of living with my guilt. I had succumbed to—and put my boys through—a tradition that went completely against my maternal instincts. This schism had made me doubt myself as a new mother. What kind of parent was I if I couldn't be a fierce protector of my newborn baby? It was not a positive or welcoming way for me to enter into motherhood. I blamed myself. I hadn't done medical research before my boys were born, trusting instead in the longevity of the tradition and the claim that circumcision is more hygienic. I bought into the medical justifications for circumcision—all of which, I later learned, fail to acknowledge the erogenous nature of foreskin tissue and its physiological function. If I'd known more; if I'd thought more deeply about infant trauma; if I'd taken my own spirituality more seriously—I would have fought for a different outcome, despite the pressure I felt as a Jewish person. Years went by. I wrote a novel about Jewish circumcision, then co-wrote a book of alternative bris ceremonies for families opting out of circumcision. Slowly, I came to understand that blaming myself for agreeing to circumcise my sons was not only a waste of time, but also missed the larger point. I'm not alone in my objections to this ancient tradition. Indeed, many Jewish parents get through the event with white knuckles, emotional detachment, alcohol, or sedatives rather than with genuine religious feeling. Shouldn't their spiritual authenticity matter? Shouldn't mine have mattered? In Judaism, every commandment (of which circumcision is one) should be approached with kavanah, or spiritual intent. Thus, my non-spiritual feelings about the circumcision tradition are problematic from a Jewish point of view. I should","PeriodicalId":37978,"journal":{"name":"Narrative inquiry in bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135194189","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"My Circumcision Decision: A Journey of Inquiry, Courage and Discovery","authors":"Laurie Evans","doi":"10.1353/nib.2023.a909676","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nib.2023.a909676","url":null,"abstract":"My Circumcision Decision:A Journey of Inquiry, Courage and Discovery Laurie Evans Before becoming a mother, I was teaching parents to massage their babies and offering trainings for professionals. To promote my work, in 1984, I exhibited at the Whole Life Expo in New York City. When I returned to my booth after a break, I noticed someone had left a pamphlet by Edward Wallerstein, who wrote \"Circumcision: An American Health Fallacy.\" Since I am naturally curious, I read it. Disturbed, I thought of tossing it. But, how could I be teaching a nurturing technique for newborns and avoid this topic? As a Jewish woman, how would I make the decision for my own future sons? Little did I know this one piece of paper would lead me on a path of inquiry that would change my life. One of the presenters at this conference was Dr. Robert Mendelsohn, an Orthodox pediatrician. Although Dr. Mendelsohn realized some parents would allow circumcision for religious reasons, he was honest enough to dispel every medical myth and explain the harm of removing normal functioning tissue. He also described possible complications from removing the foreskin, including infection, hemorrhage, and although rare, death. To learn more, I read whatever I could find on the topic. I attended midwifery and childbirth conferences to promote my work and prepare for when I became pregnant. I decided to ask about circumcision, but the conversations were awkward and I received little helpful information. I found that circumcision was a taboo topic; few people wanted to talk about it. Why? Doctors who perform circumcisions, nurses who recommend it, and parents who consent to it do not want to face the reality of the harm they cause. Instead of facing the pain, they avoid the topic, and the procedure continues. Most men do not want to discuss or think about their own circumcisions. I learned that we need to have compassion during these conversations. A Jewish ritual ceremony (bris) is performed on the eighth day after the boy's birth, and includes circumcision and prayers. At a bris, friends and relatives are invited to observe and celebrate. It is part of my heritage. I tried to talk to my relatives about the information I had found, but everyone refused to discuss it. This avoidance made my decision very difficult. Then, for the first time, I was invited to a bris; I didn't want to attend. However, I had been at the boy's birth, so I decided to go to offer support. During the circumcision, my reaction was intense: I wanted to take the baby and run. I felt like an accomplice. I wanted to grab people by the [End Page E2] shoulders and scream, \"How dare you?\" I vowed I would never attend another bris, and I made the decision to write publicly instead of anonymously. I still had doubts, because I didn't know one intact adult male. What if I were to have a son, keep him intact, and he developed a complication later in life? I have learned that doctors are not taught non-invasive solutions, so most","PeriodicalId":37978,"journal":{"name":"Narrative inquiry in bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135194199","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"My Personal Experience with Circumcision","authors":"Petrina Fadel","doi":"10.1353/nib.2023.a909663","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nib.2023.a909663","url":null,"abstract":"My Personal Experience with Circumcision Petrina Fadel On October 2, 1981, I sat down to watch \"NBC Magazine\" on television, with a segment about infant circumcision called \"The Casual Cut,\" by Douglas Kiker. (To watch, see youtube.com/watch?v=vm6Y0HJo034) I listened to doctors say there were no valid medical reasons for performing circumcisions on baby boys. One doctor said that circumcisions were done mainly for parental preference. In horror, I saw a newborn baby boy being circumcised without anesthesia. Edward Wallerstein, author of the book \"CIRCUMCISION: An American Health Fallacy,\" told how circumcision is not practiced in most other countries. He called it a \"cop out\" that American doctors do not stop performing infant circumcisions, but instead take a neutral position by saying they'll let the parents decide. I was stunned. Why had most parents never heard this before? I did not know this when my first daughter was born in 1972, a year after the American Academy of Pediatrics wrote that \"there are no valid medical indications for circumcision in the neonatal period.\" Before my second daughter was born in 1977, I was asked during my hospital admission if I wanted my baby circumcised if I had a boy. No doctor had ever mentioned the word circumcision, but now a woman in admissions was soliciting me for this surgery, despite \"No Solicitation\" signs posted on their doors. When I thought back to being questioned this way, I got angry. I did not understand why doctors would do such a ghastly thing to baby boys, something no national medical association in the world recommends. I know now that the driving force in medicine is money. I read Wallerstein's book to educate myself, and spoke with my friend who was a La Leche League leader. Together we signed a letter to the editor that I wrote and mailed to local newspapers, telling people the facts about circumcision. I was reluctant to put my name alone on this letter, since people in the United States do not talk openly about circumcision. For me, this was the first step in a long journey. I learned of a childbirth group fighting against infant circumcision and contacted them. I arranged for a speaker to come speak about circumcision to two local childbirth classes. I learned that genital cutting is practiced not only on baby boys in the United States, but also on females in Africa and the Middle East. I inwardly wept as I read about the inhumane things done to girls there. I thought of my own daughters. No child, male or female, should ever be subjected to genital mutilation. In 1982, my third daughter was born. When I questioned my doctor during my prenatal care, he told me that circumcisions were medically unnecessary, that he had seen infants die from them in medical school, but he circumcises babies anyway if parents want that done. He called himself \"the reluctant rabbi.\" I told my doctor to write \"No Circumcision\" on my chart if I had a boy. While he delivered my daughter by Cesarean sectio","PeriodicalId":37978,"journal":{"name":"Narrative inquiry in bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135195643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mitzvah of the Bris","authors":"Thomas McDonald","doi":"10.1353/nib.2023.a909661","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nib.2023.a909661","url":null,"abstract":"Mitzvah of the Bris Thomas McDonald Having worked as a clinician in emergency medicine, internal medicine, and urgent care for a number of years, I've treated plenty of patients with skin infections. On a few rare occasions, some have casually mentioned that they were thinking about getting circumcised as adults to prevent reoccurring, frequent infections like Jock Itch. I think you're probably more likely to experience that kind of problem if you're uncircumcised. Jock itch is a fungal infection, and fungus likes dark, hot, sweaty places on our bodies. These infections are nothing serious—they are just sort of annoying for the patients experiencing them. I have two sons—both were circumcised, but my experience as a clinician did not play a role in the decision. My sons' mother is Jewish, while I grew up Catholic. I attended a Catholic high school and went to religious education classes until I was confirmed [End Page 77] as a teenager. Both of my parents are pretty serious Catholics. I can't remember ever missing a Sunday service. I always thought any sons I had would be circumcised, even before I was married and before I married someone who was Jewish. When we were expecting our first baby, my son's mother and I didn't really talk about circumcision or debate whether we should do it or not. Is it more socially acceptable to be circumcised versus not? I'm not exactly sure why, but I think the answer is probably yes. It seems like circumcision is the norm in our society. My son's mother wanted our son to be circumcised too but thought it would be great to have a bris. With my Catholic background, I didn't know the details about what was involved with a bris at the time. She explained that a person comes to the house (or to a relative's house) and circumcises the baby. All the relatives attend. It would be a party! At the time, the thought of throwing a party at a relative's home to celebrate a circumcision was amusing to me. Before the conversation with my son's mother, I assumed that the bris was probably done in the hospital with everyone attending there. But she went on to explain that a person who is trained to do it—a mohel—does this work as their main job and makes sure that the baby is anesthetized and that sterile techniques are used. To be clear, I didn't ever think that my sons wouldn't be circumcised. I just thought it would happen in the hospital rather than in Baba's living room, followed immediately by a meal of deli meat sandwiches. But the bris sounded like it would make a nice memory for the family, so I agreed to it. I was always (and still am) interested in Jewish traditions. I think they're pretty cool, so I was all in. I assume there could have been some pressure from my son's mother's family if the bris was something I didn't want to do, but that wasn't an issue since I was completely on board. There is an episode of Seinfeld called \"The Bris\" in which Elaine and Jerry are nervous about the duties they must perform for a bri","PeriodicalId":37978,"journal":{"name":"Narrative inquiry in bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135195653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Physician Family Conflict Following Cardiac Arrest: A Qualitative Study","authors":"Rachel Caplan, Sachin Agarwal, Joyeeta G. Dastidar","doi":"10.1353/nib.2023.a909673","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nib.2023.a909673","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Comatose survivors of cardiac arrest may die following withdrawal of life-sustaining therapy (WLST) due to poor neurologic prognosis. Family members, acting as surrogate decision makers, are frequently asked to decide whether the patient should continue to receive ongoing life-sustaining therapy such as mechanical ventilation in this context of risk of death following removal. Sometimes, physicians and family members disagree about what is in the patient's best interest, and this conflict causes distress for both families and medical personnel. This article examines themes recorded in the medical records of 24 cardiac arrest patients at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) whose families chose to pursue continued life support despite physician recommendations for withdrawal. In documented conversations between patients' families and their providers, the most prominent themes included faith in miracles, the inappropriateness of \"playing God,\" the value of more time with the patient, and differences in how providers and family members perceived the patient's status.","PeriodicalId":37978,"journal":{"name":"Narrative inquiry in bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135194190","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ease of Care","authors":"Travis Cearley","doi":"10.1353/nib.2023.a909662","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nib.2023.a909662","url":null,"abstract":"Ease of Care Travis Cearley Roughly nine years ago, I was deer hunting on a friend's property just outside of Canaan, Missouri, where he had graciously provided me access to one of his premier tree stands. It was early in bow season and even though the calendar had suggested it was Autumn, the weather mirrored a classic Missouri August morning, muggy and thick. Dressed in my lightest hunting gear, I had just gotten settled—bow in lap, arrow knocked, binoculars ready—when I felt a stinging sensation in my calf. Slowly hiking up my pant leg so as not to make too many sudden movements, I saw a familiar yet harrowing sight: Seed ticks had invaded my socks, and I was covered from the mid-calf down with black pulsating parasites. I knew instantly (as many outdoorsmen know) that my hunt had come to an end. Somewhere on the hike down the hillside or the climb into the tree, I had stepped on a nest of ticks, and the rest of my morning was shot (no pun intended). I quickly clambered out of the stand, made my way back to my friend's house and proceeded to strip down in his front yard. Left with only one option, I placed all \"infected\" articles of clothing in a burn pile, took my naked self to the nearest hose, rinsed feverishly in his yard, and checked every inch of my body for burrowed residents. You see, removal—complete and thorough—is the only way to keep the tick from becoming an unwelcome guest, causing itching and burning, or even spreading disease. The seed tick is an especially menacing foe. He can be invisible to the naked eye. He is faster than you would expect. He travels in herds. However, all ticks, regardless of size, are capable of causing weeks of discomfort. This discomfort and concern multiplies based on where the tick chooses to lodge itself. You see, there is a spot on the base of a man's penis where the penis itself meets the scrotum—a private, quiet, warm and damp location—that is particularly enticing to the tick. As an avid outdoorsman and lover of nature, I have had my fair share of uninvited guests attempt to call this place home. Multiple times in my life, I have taken caution in the painstaking removal of ticks in all sorts of locations, and I will tell you, few tasks are more galling or difficult than removing one burrowed next to the crease of the scrotum just under the penis itself. It seems they are keenly aware of the small bit of extra skin that exists on this part of the male anatomy, and part of me believes that they are also aware of the difficulty it presents. [End Page 79] At the time of the Canaan seed tick attack, my wife was pregnant with our first son who was due to be born that coming December. I am now the father of three sons. As a family, being outside is our favorite pastime. We run, we play, we chore; and whenever we can, we spend time in the woods. Whether we are exploring the various state parks of Missouri or rambling through the treelines of the family farm, some of the happiest times we spend as a famil","PeriodicalId":37978,"journal":{"name":"Narrative inquiry in bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135194195","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Our Baby, Whose Choice? Certainty, Ambivalence, and Belonging in Male Infant Circumcision","authors":"Lauren L. Baker","doi":"10.1353/nib.2023.a909669","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nib.2023.a909669","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract: Routine infant circumcision is one of the most common surgical procedures performed in the U.S. Despite its broad societal acceptance, the practice is not without controversy. The stories included in this symposium offer rich insight into the diverse set of attitudes, values, and beliefs related to the practice of circumcision. They additionally offer insight into the complex web of personal, interpersonal, and social dynamics that inform the circumcision choices parents make for their children, the reasons parents make them, and how others can influence decisional choices. More broadly, these narratives raise important ethical questions mirrored today in broader contemporary bioethical and public discourse on the scope and limits of parental authority to make decisions for their children, power dynamics in medical decision making, and the ethics of healthcare activism. In this commentary, I discuss three sets of themes related to the ethics of circumcision running through the symposium narratives, comment on the ethical tensions and questions which emerge from each set of themes, gently problematize some of the rhetoric surrounding the ethical permissibility of circumcision, and gesture towards the future of bioethical inquiry on circumcision discourse.","PeriodicalId":37978,"journal":{"name":"Narrative inquiry in bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135195642","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"To Cut or Not to Cut? That is the Question","authors":"Tracy Wilson","doi":"10.1353/nib.2023.a909665","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nib.2023.a909665","url":null,"abstract":"To Cut or Not to Cut?That is the Question Tracy Wilson What is circumcision? In simple terms, it is the removal or excision of the foreskin of the penis. Seems so simple, right? In some families, it is that simple. In other families, it is a religious exercise. I am a doctorally-prepared Family Nurse Practitioner and started my nursing career in the NICU. I have seen my fair share of circumcisions. As a nurse, our role was to prep the room with whichever instrument the OB/GYNS preferred and then soothe the baby. Some OB/GYNS prescribed Sucrose, which is ultimately sugar water, for the babies to have while undergoing circumcision, while others wouldn't prescribe anything. What I learned in the NICU and by watching circumcisions being performed was that the doctor's preference determined the pain management protocol. Some doctors cared more about pain control, some cared [End Page 85] about presentation and ensuring the foreskin was cut properly, and some were just old school and had their preferences. I wanted to comfort the baby and make his world as comfortable as possible. Watching circumcisions being performed, I never formed an opinion about them. I really looked at circumcision like any other procedure. However, I did see some parents really toil over the decisions, especially fathers who did not want to \"see their son tortured or mutilated like that\" as one told me once. I didn't quite understand the comparison to mutilation, but I understood why he did not want his son to go through the procedure. It wasn't until years later that I understood the gravity of the decision when I became pregnant with our son and knew immediately it was a boy. Call it a mother's intuition, but I just knew. To circumcise my son was never a decision I had to deliberate very long because it was something I was accustomed to in my family. It wasn't until one of my relatives got married and had her first son that I became aware that this would ever be a weighty decision for someone in my family. I took it for granted all those years before working in the NICU because circumcision was superficial to me. I realized that it's not just a piece of foreskin to many people. For some circumcision is done for religious reasons, for others making the choice to circumcise is about sameness, or hygiene. For my extended family member, it happened to be about sameness. She didn't want her sons to look different from their dad. Since potty training was mostly going to be taught by their father, they wanted their sons to look like him. Many NICU parents told me they wanted their sons to look like their fathers, so this notion was familiar to me. After my extended family member explained why sameness mattered, I understood the reasons why some parents felt this way. There are other stories like this which we pondered upon when we got pregnant with our son, and I really began to reflect on whether we should circumcise or not. Then two additional frames of thoughts arose; one, I ensu","PeriodicalId":37978,"journal":{"name":"Narrative inquiry in bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135195649","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Difficult Road to Deciding on Circumcision","authors":"Anonymous Two","doi":"10.1353/nib.2023.a909664","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nib.2023.a909664","url":null,"abstract":"The Difficult Road to Deciding on Circumcision Anonymous Two Anonymous Two When I got my results back from my noninvasive prenatal testing, NIPT and found out I was going to have a little boy, one of my first thoughts was, \"I don't want to circumcise him,\" which sounds silly because I just found out the gender of my baby and my first thought is about his genitalia. The idea of growing and carrying this perfect little baby for nine months and then hurting him was unthinkable to me. I simply did not want to hurt him. The idea of it made me feel sick. Anytime the subject came up, I would protectively put my hand over my belly. And I do admit there were a lot of times I wished I was having a girl so I didn't have to deal with the circumcision debate. There was a lot of conversation between myself and my husband about it. My husband was adamant about getting it done. He referred to uncircumcised penises as \"snake penises\" and said our son will be made fun of for being different. He said it would be easier for him to clean and when he's old, he won't have to worry about infection. I would counter with, \"well what if he falls in love with a girl from a culture that doesn't circumcise? She will think his penis is weird.\" The more we talked about it, the more ridiculous it felt thinking that far in advance and all these hypothetical situations he might get in over his penis. My parents wanted it done for religious reasons, but that wasn't a factor for me. My mom kept saying it's in the Bible and it needs to be done. My boss is Jewish and she joked that I could just convert to Judaism and the choice would be taken away from me so I didn't have to stress over it. Everything I read on my mommy groups and sites like Reddit called male circumcision child abuse and stated how barbaric it was. Terms like \"genital mutilation\" were thrown around a lot, and I didn't want to be part of a group that was seemingly looked down upon by so many. I spent my whole pregnancy saying how much I did not want to circumcise my baby. About a week after he was born and we were starting to get settled, my husband started to call around trying to get him an appointment for circumcision. It was unusual to do it this way, as typically it's done when babies are still in the hospital. But the hospital wasn't doing circumcisions because it was elective, and they weren't doing elective procedures because of COVID. At his first doctor's appointment, I talked to our pediatrician about it. She is Indian and told me she didn't circumcise her boys and said that it was very normal in many parts of the world to not do it. I would watch her pull back the skin to check it for fibers and think, \"Is it really that bad to keep it? It's just skin.\" Our pediatrician didn't do it, as she doesn't perform procedures in the office, and she gave us some names of doctors that were supposed to be doing it. My husband called them all and none of them were doing circumcisions either. Finally, my husband found a","PeriodicalId":37978,"journal":{"name":"Narrative inquiry in bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135194184","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Newborn Circumcision, With a Twist","authors":"Joyeeta G. Dastidar","doi":"10.1353/nib.2023.a909660","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/nib.2023.a909660","url":null,"abstract":"Newborn Circumcision, With a Twist Joyeeta G. Dastidar While I'm currently an internal medicine hospitalist taking care of adults on the inpatient side, my residency entailed dual training in both Internal Medicine and Pediatrics. For four years, I'd switch every three months between working in the adult and pediatric hospitals. My first rotation was Newborn Nursery, where I rounded on healthy newborn babies. There was an aide whose job it seemed, was to swaddle and cuddle the babies. I had a flash of envy regarding how much more time the aides actually got to spend with the babies when compared with the pediatricians. During this time, and throughout my pediatrics residency, I had the opportunity to observe neonatal circumcisions. It seemed archaic: The baby boys had their arms and legs strapped down into place to give clear access to their penis. The restraints reminded me of a more sanitized version of medieval torture devices I'd seen at a museum. As the observer, I tried to help soothe the baby through shushing and patting and letting the baby lick sugar water from a syringe. These comfort strategies were not enough, and the babies invariably wailed during the procedure. They left the treatment room with a generous layer of petroleum jelly and an extra-padded diaper for protection. Years later, when my husband and I were pregnant with our son, we debated two things primarily. First, we didn't agree on what type of food to feed the baby. I'm vegetarian, whereas my husband is not. My husband won out in feeding the baby an omnivorous diet. Second, we debated whether to have the baby undergo a circumcision. On the one hand, we wanted the decision about circumcision to be up to our baby. However, we knew he'd only truly be able to decide much later in life, closer to adulthood. While we were aligned on this end, perhaps due to being male himself, my husband felt even more strongly than I on the point of preferring to let our son decide for himself. On the other hand, we knew it'd be much easier to get a circumcision done as a baby. As a bonus, if done as a neonate, our son would have no recollection of the procedure. In South Asia, where my family originated, the decision to circumcise often fell along religious lines. While grappling with agnosticism personally, I was raised in a staunchly Hindu household. In talking to my mother, she mentioned that circumcision was not something done in our faith. However, this was a one-time statement that my mother said in passing, knowing her input would be disregarded if we felt circumcision was in baby's best interest from a medical standpoint. [End Page 76] Our baby was born very premature and spent months in the NICU until he was closer to his due date. There were conflicting statements made regarding our baby's urologic diagnosis: Hypospadias was brought up by a pediatric resident rotating in the NICU. He mentioned it when he noticed the attending neonatologist taking a closer look at our son's penis. T","PeriodicalId":37978,"journal":{"name":"Narrative inquiry in bioethics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135194438","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}