While researching the multitude of questions that come with being a new mother, Tina Overton encountered one that made her dizzy: whether to circumcise her newborn son.
She never had reason to think about it before, let alone consider an alternative. But quickly, Overton became familiar with a small but vocal minority of parents and researchers arguing against circumcision. After months of scouring books, articles and the Internet, she reasoned the procedure was unnecessary, painful - and a violation of her son's human rights.
"It became clear, it was not my body to alter," said Overton, who teaches childbirth classes with her husband in their Sykesville home. "A generation ago, it was just done and nobody spoke of it or questioned it. People didn't know the issues, the complications, the discomfort, the pain. Now, thankfully, people are getting the information and choosing not to do this."
Dating back centuries, circumcision has been done for cultural, religious and medical reasons. But what was once considered standard American practice is now controversial. A debate over circumcision emerged quietly in the United States in the 1970s and, since then, the discussion has intensified and the rates of circumcision have declined.
In 2006, about 56 percent of infant boys were circumcised, a drop from 66 percent nearly a decade earlier in 1997. In at least 17 states - Maryland not included - Medicaid has stopped paying for the procedure.
The debate is fueled, in part, by conflicting medical research. Parents and advocates - or inactivists, as the no-circumcision camp is known - are battling in Internet chat rooms about culture, sex, morality, health and what to say to a boy when he asks why he doesn't look like Dad.
At issue is a surgical procedure in which topical anesthesia is given and the foreskin over the tip of the penis is removed. For centuries, circumcision has been an important rite of the Jewish and Muslim religions and, until recently, it was routinely done among American babies of all backgrounds.
On one hand, some research points to medical benefits of circumcision, including decreased incidence of urinary tract infections in infants, and a reduction in the transmission of cancer-causing human papillomavirus, HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Some men who have not been circumcised as infants may have to do so for medical reasons such as phimosis, a condition in which the foreskin becomes so tight that it cannot retract from the head of the penis.
