Whose Body, Whose Rights?
Examining the ethics and the human rights issue of infant male circumcision

This absorbing social issue documentary educates viewers about seldom­discussed issues outside the medical debate over routine infant circumcision. It compassionately explores genital alteration of unconsenting children in a human rights context - examining U.S. history of male and female circumcision, demystifying male anatomy, and investigating long­term consequences. It shows the efforts toward healing and social change which informed men and women are making today, and discusses the constitutionality and ethics of genital surgery.

Director: Lawrence B. Dillon - Dillonwood Productions
Executive Producer: Tim Hammond

Whose Body, Whose Rights? is a social issue documentary designed for general audiences and for use in discussions of medical ethics, human sexuality, and the human rights of children. It explores the growing men's awareness of and activism surrounding routine infant male circumcision in North America.

To show why men have become active on this issue, basic male anatomy is demystified - including the structure, function and value of the foreskin - and the scope of the problem and adverse outcomes of infant circumcision are revealed.

Whose Body, Whose Rights shows
that many circumcised fathers are raising
happy, intact sons.

Tracing contemporary history from Victorian use of circumcision to control the sexuality of children of both sexes, to military circumcision campaigns targeting blacks during the World Wars, the video examines how circumcision became a social custom in English­speaking cultures, especially the United States. Current medical ethics are evaluated by men of various ages, races, religions and sexual orientations as they share individual and collective testimony about the adverse physical, sexual and psychological impact on their lives of a surgery they did not choose.

Women's views are also revealed - mothers who feel betrayed by the medical profession's promotion of painful newborn surgery - as well as survivors of female genital mutilation who expose the cross­cultural similarities in beliefs about the disposability of male and female children's genitalia.

Miriam Pollack reviews circumcision history from a
Jewish feminist perspective in Whose Body, Whose Rights?

This documentary probes the positive steps people are taking to heal themselves, to educate others, and to guarantee fundamental human rights of body ownership and self­determination for future generations of children, through filming of uncircumcision support meetings, interviews with doctors who no longer circumcise infants, demonstrations against medical associations and suppliers of circumcision equipment, performance art pieces, and other art forms.

Whose Body, Whose Rights? is a unique video ripe for our time, certain to provoke both inner reflection and cultural self­examination.

Attorney Charles Bonnner questions the
constitutionality of infant circumcision
in Whose Body, Whose Rights?

For more information on this video (including a link to a video excerpt), visit the CIRP review of Whose Body, Whose Rights?.

ACCLAIM FOR WHOSE BODY, WHOSE RIGHTS?

"...very powerful, to the point and attention­holding."

"As a Jewish therapist specializing in men's issues for over 30 years, I know that stopping genital mutilation is the single most important thing we can do to insure the physical and psychological health of men. This film helps us all understand the reasons we began doing it, why we continue, and what we can do instead. It is tremendously life­affirming and supportive." "Whose Body, Whose Rights? reveals the painful human rights realization that reproductive integrity and sexual health are repeatedly violated through destructive sexual surgeries attacking the most vulnerable members of society. Whoever believes that children do not have rights to their bodies has not seen this video."

"Whose Body, Whose Rights? will compel every health care professional, especially doctors and nurses, in taking to heart their oath - Do No Harm."

"This video makes it agonizingly clear that genital mutilation customs, which victimize helpless, unconsenting girls and boys in Africa and Western nations alike, are, in fact, anachronistic blood­lettings perpetuated by the self­serving emotional and economic interests of circumcisers, who exploit the fears of well­meaning parents and intimidate them into conformity."

"Long­term damage from circumcision, which this video identifies, can help one better understand why growing numbers of men are seeking to regain their genital integrity. Whose Body, Whose Rights? gives hope to these men that this a natural, healthy desire."

"Teachers of male health and sexuality courses will find this video to be a valuable tool that raises important questions concerning the right of males to make informed decisions about their own bodies."

"This film focuses squarely and necessarily on the question: Does a child's body belong to his parents or to him?"

"This remarkable video presentation creates the awareness needed to finally stop doctors form doing a procedure they are not licensed to do."

"Like many therapists living in a culture that routinely circumcises, I learned from textbooks that nearly always showed the penis without a foreskin as being "normal," so I presumed that men upset by their circumcision had a mental disorder. That impression was dispelled by this video's wealth of factual data about truly natural male sexual functioning and its rational look at the very adverse outcomes caused by circumcision. Therapists counseling men with such concerns should definitely see this video."

"The painful cries of little boys being circumcised remind me of my own paiful experience of female genital mutilation. It is the norm in my culture to mutilate girls, as it is in the U.S. for boys. It really terrifies me to know this. Hopefully this film will educate Americans about the harmful effects of male genital mutilation."

"As a sexologist for over 20 years, I highly recommend this educational video as very important viewing for therapists, sexologists, health care professionals, people of faith and prospective parents."

"As mothers and childbirth professionals, we encourage and recommed all parents and fellow childbirth professionals to view this insightful and revealing documentary. It's analysis will expand and alter one's understanding of circumcision, an unnecessary routine procedure."

"In this day and age, it is unethical and inappropriate for medical procedures, including infant circumcision, to be performed based on religious or cultural imperative."

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