Did you hear the one about the Catholic hospital in Cincinnati?

On October 3, 2013, more than fifty people gathered with me outside Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio to protest a circumcision clamp study taking place there. We were thrilled that intactivist luminaries including Marilyn Milos attended, and I was especially pleased to see so many new and young faces. Lots of young mothers brought their intact sons and daughters, including a young girl who held up a sign saying "Cut me, go to jail, cut my brother, get paid," and a young boy whose sign said "WHERE WAS MY CHOICE?"

Our mobile billboard was a tremendous hit, garnering reactions from passing cars, pedestrians, and even the media. Television reporters from local NBC affiliate WLWT, as well as WCPO Cincinnati, responded to our press release and showed up to covered our press conference. Yellow Springs News, a local paper, even printed my op-ed piece about the protest.
Many people had a strong reaction to our presence: some drove by shouting "I love being circumcised!" while others honked to show support. Countless people asked us why we were there, and listened with growing horror as we explained the nature of the circumcision study (measuring pain and blood loss in newborn babies during circumcision) happening inside the hospital.

Buzz about the protest was everywhere, from a hospital employee who blogged about us, to the barista at the local coffeehouse who showed her support and said, "I had no idea this was going on. Thank you for being here!" We saw dozens of people inside the hospital taking photos of the protest, and many came to speak with us as they were leaving the hospital. We encountered a great deal of anger, too. One man was very aggressive, physically menacing more than one of us. Towards the end of the day, a handful of nurses stormed out of the hospital and yelled at us. On the flip side, several nursing students came over and asked for more information, saying they were happy we were there. We handed out a flyer about why we were holding the protest (download the PDF here), as well as an informational sheet showing the different circumcision clamps (download the PDF here).

We know our presence and message made a difference because the hospital felt threatened enough to put out this weak, defensive statement: "The circumcision study compares two medically accepted circumcision processes. Only after the parent or guardian requests and consents to circumcision for their infant, is informed consent sought for this study; they are free to decline their child’s participation in this study. Steps to ensure pain relief are integral to the study protocol. Male infant circumcision has been practiced for centuries and is not among the procedures prohibited in the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services." We are preparing a formal response to Good Sam's statement.

Our protest could not have happened without the support of thousands of intactivists who signed our letter and donated to our campaign. Social change happens when a passionate community comes together and makes noise about injustice. We made noise on October 3, and lots of it. The fact that people got very angry is a huge sign that we are making a difference, making people think about the thousands of babies whose genitals are assaulted. As Mahatma Gandhi said, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

I have been asked to opine on this thread as to why the protestors were subjected to verbal and physical aggression. I reckon it's because people are angry, which likely means that they feel threatened or feel that someone is being wronged by the protest. Perceived threats in this case could include a threat to their income, or a threat of extremely painful cognitive dissonance attendant upon realizing that they're participating in the brutalizing of children or that they allowed such a thing to happen to their own children. Other painful realizations that aggressive behavior could help people avoid looking at could include the fact that their penis is abnormal due to circumcision and the acknowledgement that their parents failed to protect them from such brutality. And, the likelihood of nasty, aggressive behavior is increased when a person can't articulate a good argument against the position that bothers them, but lack the honesty to acknowledge that it may be right.

Re: this research--Surely it violates basic ethical principles having to do with informed consent of experimental subjects and the Hippocratic injunction "First, do no harm." But I am not taking a stand against this study. Why, you ask? Because stopping this study would not save one single kid from getting his genitals cut. All of these boys were due for the circumcision chopping block, study or no study. Of course, like any civilized person, I am against all genital cutting of children (except in rare cases of actual medical necessity), but I must acknowledge that it won't be stopping any time soon and that stopping this research won't stop circumcision. Given that, the study is actually a good thing in a sense because it will determine which clamp creates less pain and bleeding. Thus, those boys who will be circumcised anyway will suffer a little bit less. So I urge my fellow intactivists to forget about protesting this and similar studies and direct their attention back onto circumcision itself as opposed to studies of it.