The care of the elderly in this country is a national scandal, and it reflects the values and priorities of the nation as a whole, not the doctors who provide the care. The senile elderly are warehoused in nursing homes, sentenced to an existence that no one would want. When, as is appropriate for their age and condition, they try to die, they are shipped off to the hospital to be treated and then shipped back to the nursing home to be warehoused into the future. The lengths that we will go to continue this “care” are truly absurd. Consider the case of Ida for whom we convened court in the hospital in the middle of the night during my internship year.

Ida was 100 years old and suffering from a severe bed sore on her ankle so deep that her leg bone was exposed. The voluminous medical record revealed that Ida had led a wretched life. Throughout her 20s and 30s she had been repeatedly hospitalized for psychotic episodes. At age 40, her family had permanently committed her to one of the state’s mental hospitals, where she had remained until well into her 60s when she was transferred to the nursing home. Ida had never recovered from her psychosis, even as she slipped into senility. For the past 20 years, she had been completely incapacitated and had not been heard to speak a single word nor could she understand anything said to her. Beyond being able to experience pain, it appeared that Ida had no comprehension of the world around her.

They must have been taking fairly good care of Ida at the nursing home because she was in good shape for someone who could not care for herself in any way. They fed her and cleaned her, but they obviously did not move her around very much. Over the years she had permanently contracted into a fetal position. She could only be placed on one side or another. That was why she had developed the bedsore near her ankle. Now it was infected and threatening her life.

We treated her with antibiotics, pain medication, and supportive measures, but we could not gain control of the infection. If she were younger, the next treatment would be to amputate her leg below the knee, but that seemed to be far too aggressive for a woman who was 100 years old and completely unaware of her surroundings … or so I thought. Normally, Ida’s family would decide on the next step, but she had no surviving family. She had never married, and her closest relative, a niece, had died 15 years before. Therefore, we would have to ask the court.

The court appointed a legal guardian for Ida to represent her interests in the case. The guardian felt that it was very important for the judge to see Ida, and as Ida could not come to court, the court came to Ida. One evening, the judge and the guardian came to the hospital to hold a hearing. We explained the situation and recommended that Ida should not be subjected to the pain of an amputation, and simply be returned to the nursing home where should would die within a few weeks. The guardian, in keeping with his job, argued strenuously that the fact that Ida was 100 years old and uncomprehending should not be a reason to deny her the most aggressive care possible. The judge, to his credit, visited the bedside and insisted that we take off the dressing so he could see the extent of the bedsore and the infection.

It seemed to me that the judge was uncomfortable with the decision that he ultimately reached. He ruled that there was no reason to treat her any differently simply because she was 100 years old and uncomprehending. We were required to amputate her leg and to do it as soon as possible. Neither the chief resident nor I were happy with this decision, but the chief resident was philosophical.

“Look at it this way,” he said, trying to cheer me up. “It will be a great experience for you, because I’ll let you do the case. You can chop her leg off!”

We took her to the operating room that night. The chief resident carefully dissected the muscles away from the bone and tied off the blood vessels. He handed me the bone saw, and I did indeed saw her leg off below the knee. I was not appreciably cheered by the experience, however. I could not stop thinking that we had committed a great injustice.

It took almost a month for Ida’s leg to heal, but it did heal. It took several weeks more for me to arrange her transfer back to the state nursing home. When I got the call one morning that the nursing home finally had a space available, I completed the paperwork in record time and arranged for the ambulance to take her back. By lunchtime, we were celebrating Ida’s departure.

Later that afternoon, the chief resident came to find me. He looked grim.

“It’s Ida,” he said.

I was confused. How could we be having a problem with Ida; we had sent her back.

It turned out that Ida, no sooner having been returned to her bed at the nursing home, had promptly died. That was hardly surprising; she was 100 years old. However, Massachusetts state law mandates official investigation of any death that occurs within 24 hours of release from a hospital. Ida’s case was going to be referred to the Medical Examiner, and the chief resident and I were facing the possibility of a trial to determine whether we had played a role in Ida’s death. Fortunately, the Medical Examiner has discretion over which cases proceed to a full blown investigation and he ruled that she had died of natural causes and that no further investigation would be necessary.

To me, the entire episode seemed like a cruel farce from beginning to end. Why were we keeping Ida alive in a nursing home when she was completely unaware and had no hope of recovery? Why did Ida get transferred to the hospital for treatment of her infection? Why did we go to the trouble of convening the court at the hospital in order to decide Ida’s fate? Why did the judge insist that we amputate her leg to preserve her life?

At every step of the way, I did what I was told, because that was my job. Ida paid the price as we senselessly prolonged her life by amputating her leg, and subjecting her to the only thing she could perceive: discomfort. At no point during the proceedings did anyone, doctors, legal guardian or judge, stop to consider whether Ida, or anyone, would have wanted the “care” we were offering. Indeed, I have no doubt that none of us, doctors, guardian or judge, would ever have opted for the treatment that we forced Ida to undergo simply because she could not speak for herself and tell us to stop.

The National Women’s Law Center has just published a comprehensive report on individual health insurance. Nowhere to Turn: How the Individual Health Insurance Market Fails Women, that shows that women pay dramatically more than men of the same age.

… NWLC examined all “best-selling” plans (as identified by the online vendor) offered in the capital city in each state for a 40-year-old woman and man … For example, one insurer in Missouri charges 40-year-old women a whopping 140% more than men while another charges women 15% more than men. In Arkansas, all ten best-selling plans gender rate, and the difference in premiums ranged from 13% to 63% more for women. At the same time, not all plans use gender as a rating factor. For example, only some of South Carolina’s ten best- selling plans gender rate, but among those that do, NWLC found that 40-year-old women are charged between 15% and 54% more than men for the same plan.

How can that be? It happens because most states allow a practice known as “gender rating,” which allows insurers to set different health insurance rates for men and women. The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) opposes this practice:

The wide range of differences in premiums charged women and men shows the arbitrary nature of gender rating in practice. Given the unfair and discriminatory nature of gender rating, and the financial barrier this practice creates for women to obtain necessary health care, the use of gender rating should be abandoned.

Is gender rating truly unfair or does it accurately reflect the differences in healthcare costs between men and women? Is gender rating discriminatory, or is it merely the flip side of an insurance system that routinely charges older men more for health insurance, and younger men much more for car insurance?

First of all, it is important to be clear that we are talking about only a small sector of the insurance market. Most people, including most women, obtain their health insurance through an employer. In fact, only 7% of non-elderly women purchase health insurance directly from the insurer in the individual market. However, the NWLC notes that individual health insurance may soon be a larger component of the health insurance market. Several proposals for healthcare reform involve giving people tax credits to buy insurance in the individual market. In addition, some employers have switched from providing employee healthcare insurance to giving workers a fixed sum to buy insurance in the individual market. Therefore, the phenomenon of gender rating may soon affect a larger proportion of women.

Why charge women more for health insurance than men? The answer is very simple; women under the age of 55 spend much more in hospital costs, physician costs and other health costs than men. There are three main reasons for this: maternity care, exclusively the province of young women; increased incidence of chronic conditions among women; and the fact that well women are more likely to access healthcare services than comparable age men. The fact is that providing healthcare to women under age 55 costs substantially more than providing healthcare to men of the same age.

Most insurance companies have decided to exclude maternity services from basic individual plans. In order to obtain coverage for maternity care, women buying insurance in the individual market must purchase a maternity care rider. A maternity care rider can cost more than the premium for health insurance itself. In addition, riders may be limited in scope, and may require a waiting period (10 months to 2 years) before they take effect. Even then, maternity care riders may leave women responsible for thousands of dollars in out of pocket expenses.

Is it discriminatory for women to pay more for the same healthcare coverage than men of comparable age? The NWLC thinks so. They advocate that states:

…should eliminate the discrimination that women face by banning gender rating, ensuring all health plans include maternity coverage as part of the basic benefits package, and eliminating the practices of rejecting applicants due to health history, excluding pre-existing conditions, and rating based on age and health history.

But is it really discriminatory to ask people to pay more for health insurance when it costs more to insure them? Consider that the majority of insurers who charge women younger than age 55 more for health insurance than comparable age men, charge women over 55 less for health insurance than men of the same age. The NWLC does not appear to view this discrepancy as discriminatory to men. Consider also that young men are routinely charged much more to purchase auto insurance than young women, simply because they are more likely to get into accidents that incur substantial costs. The NWLC has not spoken out on gender rating in that part of the insurance industry.

What would happen if gender rating were prohibited? The overall cost of insurance would not change; women would pay less, but men would pay more. An argument can be made, particularly in regard to maternity care, that men are every bit as responsible for a pregnancy as the woman who carries that pregnancy. Therefore, they should share the costs for pregnancy and related services. In that case, premiums for men would rise substantially, but women would not be forced to purchase expensive riders to cover maternity care.

The NWLC acknowledges that what is really needed is fundamental reform of the health insurance system, either by making employee sponsored health insurance easier to provide and easier to obtain, or by merging the individual insurance market with other markets to pool risk over a larger group of group of people to keep down costs. In the meantime, though, the NWLC recommends abolishing gender rating and mandating the inclusion of maternity care. Their recommendations would certainly make individual health insurance more affordable for women, but it not necessarily more equitable for all.

 Over the last two millennia, religion has opposed science on many different occasions. And every time religion has opposed science, regardless of the topic, religion has been spectacularly wrong, every single time. Evolution is no different.

There is no one who is more completely convinced of the validity of evolution than creationists. That’s why they argue against it passionately. That’s why they tie themselves into knots trying to come up with bizarre criticisms of evolution. They know two things beyond a shadow of a doubt. Evolution is assuredly true, and evolution is incompatible with a literal reading of the Bible. It doesn’t take a great logician to see where that leads you. If evolution is true, then the Bible is not.

For those of us who see the Bible as a founding religious document, no different from the Greek myths, the Bhagavad Gita or ancient Egyptian beliefs, it is difficult to understand what all the fuss is about. However, for those who believe that the Bible is a privileged document that represents the literal “word of God,” evolution is bound to cause serious psychic distress. For those people, religious belief is a first principle. They start with the premise that religion is true, particularly their own subset of religious belief, and that everything else must be evaluated with reference to the truth of religion.

Religion fills important psychological needs. It is a defense against the unpleasant reality that there is no meaning to life, no plan, no justification for our suffering. In the immortal words of folk wisdom, “Shit happens.” There’s no reason for it, no purpose to it, it is entirely random, and most importantly, there is nothing that can be done to prevent it. No amount of propitiating a “Creator” makes any difference, because there is no one running the universe and no one you can turn to for help. No one loves you, except your family (if you are lucky), and you are navigating this harsh world alone.

Simply put, religion isn’t truth. It is a made up story we tell ourselves to feel better in a lonely, dangerous world.

Evolution, on the other hand, is obviously true. We see the evidence all around us, and there is much more evidence buried in the ground. When we worry about drug resistant bacteria, we acknowledge evolution; when we perform scientific research on primates, we acknowledge evolution; when we search for genetic causes of disease, we acknowledge evolution.

Creationists are utterly convinced of the truth of evolution. That’s why they are trying so desperately to keep it out of the public schools and far away from children. It is so obviously true that anyone who learns about it will assuredly recognized that it is true. And if children will inevitably conclude that evolution is true, they might also conclude that religion is false. That must be prevented at all costs. The only way to do that is to prevent the teaching of evolution in school.

If evolution were “just a theory,” an equal among many competing theories, there wouldn’t be a desperate attempt to keep it secret from children. All the different “theories” could be presented and children (and older people) could judge for themselves. Creationists know that evolution is the only possible explanation for the world as it exists. No other “theory” can compete with it, and religious explanations sound foolish. Hence they fight strenuously to keep evolution out of school, and inevitably lose.

This is not the first time that this has happened. The “debate” over evolution is almost an exact recapitulation of the “debate” over Galileo’s demonstration that the sun is at the center of the solar system, not the earth. The Bible had located the earth as the center of the entire universe, to literally represent the role of man as the center of God’s concern. When it became apparent that the earth wasn’t even the central planet in our little solar system, religious authorities felt compelled to prevent anyone from learning the truth.

If it became widely known that the Bible was wrong about something as straightforward as the location of the earth within the universe, then it might be wrong about anything. Church leaders reacted as conservatives often do; they attempted to suppress knowledge. They tried to suppress Galileo (and Copernicus and others) not because they knew he was wrong, but specifically because they knew he was right.

Creationists have reacted in exactly the same way. They, too, are religious conservatives and they are attempting to suppress knowledge of evolution, not because they believe that Darwin was wrong, but specifically because they know he was right.

There have been many other, minor skirmishes between religion and science over the years. In every disagreement, religion has been wrong, usually spectacularly wrong. Every single time. Religion has never vanquished science and it isn’t about to start now. No one understands this better than creationists. Evolution is dangerous knowledge because it is true and that’s why they fight against it with all their strength. If evolution is true, then the Bible is false, and they will not, they cannot, acknowledge that.

If a woman says yes, it’s not rape. If a woman is drunk and says yes, and has no regrets later, it’s drunken sex. If a woman is drunk and says yes, but later has regrets, it’s date rape.

Does that make any sense?

That’s the question raised by Kim Voynar in Movie City News in discussing a controversial scene in the new Seth Rogan movie Observe and Report:

There’s been a bit of a brouhaha stirring over opening weekend about the alleged “date rape” scene in Observe and Report… Now, as the film is seen – or not seen – by a larger group of film writers, some are accusing the film of making comedy of date rape. But does it?

MaryAnn Johnason, writing for the Alliance of Women Film Journalists thinks it does:

Is date rape funny? That seems to be the big question of the day, because — yup — Seth Rogen’s character date-rapes Anna Faris’s character in Observe and Report …

[New York Magazine’s blog] Vulture finds the scene “explosively funny” — I do not — while also being “deeply uncomfortable,” which I think almost anyone would agree with. I think we’re sure to see much debate, even among feminists, about whether there’s anything redeeming in this particular example what appears to be, on the surface — and perhaps below the surface too — Hollywood’s casual misogyny.

On the other hand, Katey Rich of CinemaBlend.com declares that “Seth Rogen Is A Rapist, and That’s Okay.”

… [N]ow we’re faced with a mainstream comedy in which the main character, played by a beloved movie star, is totally, 100% a rapist. Women in Hollywood has already demanded that their readers boycott the movie, while Vulture argues that the scene isn’t even that bad given the other awful stuff Ronnie does over the course of film.

And this may be the moment where I have to hand in my feminist credentials and run away from the people with pitchforks, but here goes: I don’t think the scene is that bad. Rather, it works within the world and the tone of the movie overall, in which we are handed a main character– Ronnie Barnhardt, mall cop– and tested repeatedly as we watch him do a series of horrendous, ridiculous, and illegal things…

Voynar gets to the heart of the matter:

For me, the scene itself fell on the side of inebriated sex and not date rape, and I find the more vitriolic responses to it rather reactive and indicative of the larger issue of responsibility around sexual behavior and the urge to blame others for the negative consequences of our own choices…

There’s an inherent contradiction that a lot of feminists seem to prefer not to discuss at all: if we say that a woman who is inebriated by her own choice is therefore no longer responsible for the sexual choices she might make while in that state, is it fair to argue that the man she’s with, if he’s also inebriated, should be responsible for making that choice for her?

Would [they] be willing to argue that if a man has sex when he’s “too drunk” to make a sober decision, he no longer has responsibility for the consequences of that sex, such as pregnancy or spreading a STD? How can we seriously argue that a man who gets chooses to get too drunk and has unprotected sex IS responsible for the consequence of that choice … while arguing … that if a woman chooses to get herself too drunk to make a sober decision, the full responsibility for that choice must also fall on the man?

In other words, how can the fateful accusation of rape hinge on whether a woman who consents while drunk is happy or unhappy about that consent afterward? It shouldn’t. That does not mean that there is no such thing as date rape. A woman who consents to kissing or foreplay has not consented to sex, and there is no reason for a man to assume otherwise. Moreover, a woman who has been surreptitiously drugged cannot register either consent or protest, and any sexual acts performed on her are definitely rape.

However, a conscious woman, even when drunk, is a moral agent. Yes, means yes, and the fact that she has regrets later does not change that. Women can and should be held to the same standard as men. If men are expected to take responsibility for choices made while drunk, including sexual choices, then women should be expected to do the same.

Most people have heard of the human papilloma virus, HPV. It is the virus that causes genital warts in men and women. It’s gotten a lot of attention because it appears to be the cause of cervical cancer in women, cancer of female reproductive organs.

Many people have heard about Gardasil, the new vaccine designed to protect women against HPV, and therefore against cervical cancer. The vaccine appears to be very promising in women and studies are underway to determine if it is equally effective in men.

Few people are aware that HPV can infect the mouth through oral sex. A new study published in the March issue of the Journal of Infectious Disease (Oral Sexual Behaviors Associated with Prevalent Oral HPV Infection) is a preliminary study, but it suggests some very disturbing possibilities. Men who engaged in oral sex were more likely to have human papilloma virus infections of the mouth. More disturbing is that the study raises the possibility that oral HPV can be transmitted from person to person by open-mouthed kissing. Most disturbing of all, oral HPV may lead to oral cancer in the same way that cervical HPV leads to cervical cancer.

According to the study:

… [O]ral HPV infection was more strongly associated with the number of recent oral sex and open-mouthed kissing partners than with recent vaginal sex partners. In multivariate analysis, 6 [or more] recent oral sex or open-mouthed kissing partners … significantly elevated the odds of oral HPV infection developing …

To further evaluate the independent effect of open-mouthed kissing, a subset analysis was performed for the 59 college-aged men who reported no history of performing oral sex. Among these men, oral HPV infection was significantly more common among those with 10 [or more] lifetime and those with 5 [or more] recent open-mouthed kissing partners.

In other words, HPV infection was more common in men who had more oral sex partners, and more open-mouthed kissing partners. This suggests that, as expected, performing oral sex increases the risk of an oral HPV infection. The unexpected finding is that increased open-mouth kissing may also transmit the infection. That is supported by the fact that a few men who had never performed oral sex had oral HPV infections. It raises the possibility that they had contracted oral HPV from open-mouth kissing of partners who had performed oral sex on others.

What are the effects of oral HPV infection. In the short term, there appear to be few effects. In the long term, oral HPV infection is associated with the development of mouth and throat cancers. Tobacco use is another cause of mouth and throat cancer. It is unclear whether the two causes are independent or whether they interact.

The studies are preliminary, and involve only small groups, so the results must be interpreted with caution. Nonetheless, they are very worrisome. HPV genital infection is extremely common, particularly among young men and women. We know that genital HPV infection can cause cancer of the cervix in women. Similarly, HPV appears to cause at least some mouth and throat cancers. If a common genital infection can be easily transmitted to the mouth through oral sex, and then passed along through kissing, the potential for widespread infection and serious consequences is high.

Fortunately, the Gardasil vaccine appears to have great promise in preventing cervical cancer, and there is reason to believe that it could be effective in preventing oral cancers caused by HPV. Let us hope that is the case. Otherwise, we could be facing the grim prospect of an epidemic of cancer caused by oral sex, and spread by kissing.

As an obstetrician, I’ve observed thousand of women in labor. Their reactions run the gamut from extreme stoicism to blood curdling screaming and everything in between. Occasionally, though, there were women whose reactions were decidedly out of the ordinary.

There was the woman who, in the midst of active labor, felt the need to rip off her clothes and run naked and screaming down the hall. She was ultimately led back to her room and the door shut, so she was free to run around naked, in private. She was fine and the baby was fine. No one seemed the worse for wear except, perhaps, the expectant parents who were touring labor and delivery in preparation for their own birth experiences. When the naked, screaming patient caromed into their group, they were startled to say the least.

Another memorable occasion occurred during a blinding February snowstorm. A young woman, on reaching ten centimeters without pain medication was cheerfully told by the nurse that now it was time to push the baby out.

“Oh, no,” the woman cried, “I’m not doing that. I’m done and I’m leaving!”

Whereupon she lumbered out of bed, grabbed her heavy winter coat and headed for the elevators. I’m not sure where she thought she was going to go, or what she though was going to happen, since she was taking her baby and her labor with her. Fortunately, a security guard caught up with her as she was trying to get out the main entrance and gently led her back up to the labor and delivery floor. She had her baby uneventfully only 45 minutes later.

There was one patient, though, who stood out above all others, and whom I still remember vividly more than a decade after the fact. With every contraction, she slapped her husband across the face.

She was not my patient; she was a midwife patient. I always worked with certified nurse midwives and found them to be extraordinarily skilled and competent. I was available as back up in the event of a medical emergency. This time, unusually, I was called for emotional distress … of the midwife.

The midwife had spent the previous twelve hours with the patient and her husband and she looked traumatized. The patient, she said, was too difficult to handle. That was an unexpected admission from this midwife, who was very experienced with all manner of patient difficulties. No, the patient was not running around the room screaming; no, her husband was neither drunk nor abusive; no her family members were not carrying weapons. She was completely uncooperative, but the worst part is that she was beating up her husband.

Really? I found that hard to believe. Most women in labor don’t have the presence of mind to beat up anyone. Moreover, according to the midwife, she had a working epidural that was providing excellent pain relief. The patient could feel pressure with contractions, but did not seem uncomfortable. Nonetheless, she was demanding more medication in her epidural (she already had plenty), she was refusing to push the baby out (she was now 10 centimeters dilated), but most distressing, with every contraction, she slapped her husband across the face.

This I had to see. I slipped into the vestibule of the labor room and observed. Sure enough, with every contraction, her husband crept closer to “help” her, and she slapped him square across the face with the flat of her hand. He had big red welts on his cheeks to prove that it had been going on for sometime. In between contractions, she was being abusive to the anesthesiologist who was patiently trying to explain that it was not safe to put any more medication in her epidural. He tried to reason with her. She had adequate pain relief already; she was feeling only pressure, not pain, and he did not want to abolish all sensation or she would be unable to push the baby out. She didn’t care, she said. She had no intention of pushing this baby out anyway. We could operate on her if we wanted it to come out.

I entered the main part of the room and introduced myself as the doctor on call, here to help her have her baby. The husband and the anesthesiologist looked relieved. I decided to tackle one problem at a time. I turned to the husband.

“I think,” I suggested gently, “that you might be getting a little too close to your wife when she has a contraction. Let’s pull up a chair and have you sit close enough to hold her hand, but no closer.”

“Really? You think so,” he looked dubious. “I want to help.”

“Oh, yes,” I replied. “I’m pretty sure that will be better. Let’s give it a try.”

Next I turned to the patient.

“You can’t have any more pain medication right now. You’ve reached the limit of safety.”

That was greeted with a stream of expletives, and a declaration.

“I don’t want to feel anything at all.”

“Sorry,” I said, “but that’s simply not possible. I’m sure you understand that the most important consideration is the safety of you and your baby.”

Apparently, she didn’t understand. She was defiant.

“The midwife says I have to push the baby out, but I’m not going to push. If you want this baby to come out, you can pull it out with forceps or something, or you can cut it out with a C-section.”

“No,” I said, “forceps and surgery are medical procedures, and they must be used only for medical reasons. We won’t be doing that unless there is a medical need.”

“Instead,” I continued, “I’m going to ask the anesthesiologist to let your epidural wear off a little bit. You might get uncomfortable, but the urge to push will return, and you’ll push the baby out.”

“Oh, no I won’t,” she threatened. “I won’t push and you’ll have to wait for hours.”

I made a dramatic show of looking at my watch.

“That’s okay,” I responded as sweetly as I could under the circumstances. “I’m here for the next 12 hours, so I’ve got plenty of time. The baby looks fine on the monitor, so there’s no rush. Take all the time you want.”

I headed for the door.

“You’re a bitch,” she screamed after me.

I turned.

“Yes, I guess I am.”

Her epidural began to wear off in 30 minutes. The pain began to come back and so did the urge to push. The nurse explained that the harder she pushed, the sooner it would be over, and it was in her interest for it to be over. The longer she waited to cooperate, the more intense the pain would become.

Once she began cooperating, she was able to push the baby out in 5 minutes.

Unfortunately, that did not improve her personality. She handed her son off to the nurse and when he was swaddled, directed that her husband should hold him. She subjected both him and me to a constant stream of verbal abuse while I was delivering the placenta and he was cooing at her new son.

When everything was done, I congratulated her, even though she was glaring at me. I mentioned that I would be calling Social Service to visit her before she went home because it looked like there might be some tension between her and her husband.

“Really?” She seemed genuinely shocked. “Can’t you see? We get along great.”

A visitor from outer space might be forgiven for concluding that the most important part of the human body is the foreskin. It is, after all, the only part of the body that has multiple organizations devoted to its preservation in the natural state. The visitor might get the impression that the choice of circumcision is a fateful choice with profound implications for the rest of life.

It would probably come as a shock to our visitor to learn that circumcision is just one in a series of issues that allow some parents to feel superior to other parents. In fact, the fetishization of the foreskin is just another example of maintaining that minor, irrelevant decisions are critical to parenting, while major decisions that have an impact on the community at large (such as vaccination) should be left entirely to parental discretion.

The language used by foreskin fetishists might lead the visitor to believe that circumcision is very dangerous. According to circumcision.org: “Based on a review of medical and psychological literature and our own research and experience, we conclude that circumcision causes serious, generally unrecognized harm and is not advisable.” Foreskin fetishists also employ inflammatory language to express their judgmentalism. Circumcision is “mutilation” and parents who choose to circumcise their sons are “mutilators”.

The foreskin fetishists are so obsessed with the foreskin that they actually dare to advance the misogynistic claim that male circumcision is analogous to female genital mutilation, in other words, that the foreskin is the analogue of the clitoris. The male analogue of clitoridectomy is is amputation of the penis. Comparing circumcision to clitoridectomy is like comparing ear piercing to having your ears cut off.

Anti-circ activists like to claim that there only risks and no benefits to circumcision, but that is not true. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics:

“Existing scientific evidence demonstrates potential medical benefits of newborn male circumcision; however, these data arenot sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision. Inthe case of circumcision, in which there are potential benefitsand risks, yet the procedure is not essential to the child’s currentwell-being, parents should determine what is in the best interestof the child. To make an informed choice, parents of all maleinfants should be given accurate and unbiased information andbe provided the opportunity to discuss this decision. It is legitimatefor parents to take into account cultural, religious, and ethnictraditions, in addition to the medical factors, when making thisdecision…”

Circumcision is now known to have additional benefits in preventing the transmission of HIV. In fact, the World Health Organization has begun recommending routine circumcision for adult African males, in order to limit the spread of a disease that has devastated a continent.

Why do anti-circ activists fetishize the foreskin? They do so because it is a convenient way to assert superiority over parents who make different decisions. The anti-circ activists belong to a group of parents who believe that parenting can be reduced to a few decisions (trivial in reality) about birth, circumcision, diapers (cloth or disposable), whether your child sleeps in your bed, and how much and how you carry your baby around. Fortunately, or unfortunately, parenting is far more complicated. There are no fool proof prescriptions for successful parenting, and no simple ways to separate the “good” parents from the “bad”.

Rather than judge parenting by process (the decisions parents make), good parenting can only be judged by outcome. Did the choices that the parents made allow the child to reach his or her potential and become a happy and productive member of society? When parenting is judged by outcome, we are all in the same boat. No one really knows if they are doing the right thing until long after a particular decision is made. Therefore, no parent can feel superior to another parent. However, some parents really, really want to feel superior to everyone else. Hence the elevation of the foreskin to being one of the most important parts of the human body.

My first job after residency was in a neighborhood health center in the city. We provided care for a large, relatively discrete ethnic population. Most of my patients did not speak English, but I was never without one of our excellent translators. My patients came from a culture where children’s futures were considered paramount. They heeded any and all medical advice about pregnancy and birth.

There were down-sides to the job, of course. I admired many things about the culture of my patients, but there were some I found difficult to accept. The clearly inferior position of women and the way that many of my patients greeted the birth of a daughter with obvious and profound disappointment bothered me.

One spring Friday, I met Mrs. W. She had come to the US only 3 weeks before and believed herself to be about 8 months pregnant. She had two healthy girls and no history of medical problems. However, on exam, her uterus was larger than expected and I ordered an ultrasound to see if she was closer to her due date than she thought. The patient smiled brightly when the translator explained the ultrasound and the translator reported that Mrs. W was happy to have an ultrasound. She and her husband wanted to know if this was the son they both prayed for.

The ultrasound report arrived in my office midmorning on Tuesday. Mrs. W was carrying twins, 8 months along, and both girls. One of the twins appeared to have a heart problem of some kind, with clear evidence of serious illness. The twin was swollen (probable heart failure) and there was other evidence of severe compromise.

I was furious. The ultrasonographer should have called me immediately. The information was extremely time sensitive. The patient should have been evaluated promptly by me and a battery of specialists to determine whether the babies should be delivered early and to arrange special care for the ill twin. The office called Mrs. W and advised her to come to the hospital right away.

At the hospital I found that the situation was worse than I feared. The nurses could find only one heartbeat. I pulled out a portable ultrasound machine and did a quick scan. The ill baby was dead. She had died, and based on her appearance, almost certainly from congenital heart disease.

The second baby looked healthy and vigorous. The situation still remained precarious, because it was unlikely that a pregnancy with a dead twin would continue to term, and it was 8 weeks before the expected due date. A baby born that early would have a good chance of survival, but far from assured. Mrs. W was admitted to the hospital and given medication to speed maturation of the baby’s lungs in advance of the inevitable premature delivery.

Sure enough, despite intensive medical efforts to prevent delivery, Mrs. W ruptured her membranes approximately 1 week later in the middle of the night. My partner on call delivered the babies. Baby girl 1 was sent to the morgue. Baby girl 2 went directly to the neonatal intensive care unit. We were optimistic that the extra week of pregnancy, and the medication for lung maturation had improved her chances for an excellent outcome.

The parents did not express any disappointment that this baby was girl. Indeed, they seemed to have bonded to her fiercely, visiting her in the NICU at all hours and willing her to live. Baby girl W had a surprisingly rocky course. She required prolonged ventilator assistance to breathe, developed gastrointestinal problems and other complications of prematurity as well.

Gradually, the Baby W began to improve and after several weeks it became clear that she would survive. Almost 2 months after her mother was admitted, Baby W went home with her parents.

Several weeks later I arrived at my office to start a day of seeing patients. Before I crossed the threshold, I knew that something was wrong. The translators had red rimmed eyes. Our patient educator was crying.

I looked around the room. “What happened?” I asked, dreading the reply.

“Baby girl W died last night,” one of the women replied. “The director of the health center wants to talk to you about it.”

I was stunned. Premature babies are at much higher risk of sudden infant death, but she had seemed so healthy when she left the hospital. I sought out the director and we ducked into an empty exam room to talk. I was still in shock and she looked grim faced. What had happened? What had caused the baby’s death?

Baby girl W’s mother had found her lifeless in her crib the previous night. She called an ambulance, which brought the baby to another hospital closer to home than our hospital. The pediatricians at the other hospital tried to resuscitate Baby W but it was far too late. Compounding the tragedy, no one could communicate with Baby W’s parents because they did not speak English. They waited for a translator to arrive.

The pediatrician, who had no knowledge of the complicated history of Baby W, proceeded as if this were any other unexplained infant death. He sent the baby’s body to radiology for a full body X-ray. By the time the translator arrived, he knew why Baby W had died.

The director looked anguished.

“Baby W died of a skull fracture. The x-ray also showed that she had multiple broken ribs, and a broken leg. Baby W was beaten to death.”

I was dumbfounded. The director recognized my confusion.

“The father has already confessed. He killed the baby because he did not want another daughter.”

I went back to my office and told my staff. They were equally stunned, and over the next few days we agonized over whether any one of us could have seen this coming. Child abuse is not uncommon in any community, and we had all been trained to look for the warning signs, but none of use had seen any.

Sometimes tragedies leave us with valuable lessons, but sometimes they leave us with nothing but grief and pain. Even after 20 years, I still cannot make sense of what happened. Baby girl W’s life had been threatened by the death of her twin, by the negligence of the ultrasonographer, and by a whole host of additional complications of prematurity. We all worked so hard to save her, and then, unwittingly, we sent her home with the man who would kill her. Baby girl W’s life and death must mean something, but, I confess, I cannot conjure anything positive from her story of illness, struggle and the ultimate betrayal.

Who owns a man’s sperm? For most of human history, the answer was obvious. The man owns it, unless, of course, he deposits it in a woman. Then she owns it, and he can’t ask for it back.

In this age of burgeoning reproductive technology, the answer is no longer clear. Sperm deposited in a sperm bank by a man preparing for the ravages of chemotherapy or the potential ravages of war can be used by others beside him, and can even be used after his death. That situation presupposes a man who has expressed a wish to have children in the future and has taken specific actions (collecting his ejaculate, giving it to the sperm bank, and paying for its preservation).

However, it is also possible to harvest sperm directly from the testicles of a man who has never given consent to have his sperm taken, including a man who is recently dead. That’s exactly what a Texas woman, the mother of a young man, dead after a bar fight, is trying to do.

According to an article on MSNBC:

… Nikolas Colton Evans, 21, died Sunday at a Brackenridge hospital after being punched and falling outside an Austin bar March 27.

His mother, Marissa Evans, told the Austin American-Statesman newspaper …”I want him to live on. I want to keep a piece of him,” …

Court documents said the sperm had to be collected within 24 hours of Nikolas Evans being removed from life support unless the body was cooled to no more than 39.2 degrees.

[Travis County Probate Judge Guy] Herman ordered the county medical examiner’s office to continue storing the body at the proper temperature until the sperm could be collected…

While the judge’s sympathy for a distraught and grieving mother is admirable, his decision is wrong, both ethically and legally.

Parents do have the right to authorize the harvest and donation the organs of a child who has died, but sperm are not like other body cells. In and of themselves, they are useless to anyone else. Their value comes from the ability to use the sperm to conceive a baby, the biological child of the deceased. The ethical issues raised are complex.

Who owns a man’s sperm? Can he be made to father a child without his express action, involvement or consent? These are issues of basic reproductive rights.

The issue of reproductive rights has been adjudicated many times. No one has the right to force a man to become a parent without that man taking action to become a parent. The action can be something as simple and unintentional as having sex with a woman capable of conceiving. Although the man may not have the intention of becoming a parent, his action in having sex makes him ethically and legally obligated for any offspring that result.

Depositing sperm in a sperm bank, against the possibility of being rendered infertile in the future, or for use in infertility treatment, can also serve as taking action to become a parent, as long as the man gives consent for the implantation of that sperm in a specific individual, or makes legal arrangements in advance to cede control of the sperm in the event of his death.

Merely depositing the sperm is not enough. Women who have tried to use the sperm of a former partner, after separation or divorce, are not allowed to do so. Indeed, the courts have ruled that women cannot use embryos created with a partner’s sperm before separation or divorce in the absence the man’s specific consent. These rulings have established the principle that the action of donating sperm does not establish the fact that a man wishes to become a father with a particular woman at a particular time.

The restrictions on harvesting sperm, an invasive procedure, should be even higher. The Texas mother argues that her son always wanted to have children, but that is not enough. Donating sperm to a sperm bank implies that a man wants to have children, but those sperm cannot be used to create those children unless the man agrees to implantation in a specific woman at a specific time. Both ethically and legally we acknowledge that men have every right to change their mind. If we cannot deduce a desire to have children from the action of depositing sperm in a sperm bank, we certainly cannot deduce such a desire from vague claims of wanting to be a parent in the future.

The issue of control over sperm applies only to men, but there are analogous issues that apply to women. Now that eggs can be harvested from women, a parent, spouse or lover could request harvesting the eggs of a woman who is brain dead. Alternatively, a parent, spouse or lover could request that the brain dead woman be artificially inseminated and her body used not only to conceive a child, but also to support that child until birth.

The control of sperm (and eggs) is a matter of both bodily autonomy and reproductive rights. No one can be forced to become a parent unless he or she takes specific actions to conceive a child. There mere desire to have children in some indeterminate future does not meet that standard.

The Texas judge is wrong. The death of a child is a tragedy, but that does not allow the grieving parent to harvest the child’s reproductive cells in an effort to “keep a piece of him.”

From the Max Planck Institute comes news of a new study that sheds light on male-female interaction in the primate world.

… Cristina M. Gomes and Christophe Boesch show that female chimpanzees copulate more frequently with males who share meat with them on at least one occasion, compared with males who never share meat with them, indicating that sharing meat with females improves a males’ mating success. Although males were more likely to share meat with females who had sexual swelling (i.e. estrous females), excluding all sharing episodes with estrous females from the analysis, did not alter the results. This indicates that short term exchanges alone (i.e. within the estrous phase of the female) cannot account for the relationship between sharing meat and mating success.

The study does not explain why this exchange occurs. Are female chimps bestowing their sexual favors on males who bring them a highly prized food because those males are more likely to be good providers for a female raising young? Or do female chimps bestow their sexual favors on those who will pay for them, with meat being the favored currency? In other words, are female chimps looking for the best father for their children, or are they high priced call girls, willing to have sex with any john who can pay the extravagant price?

You might think that these issues would be of interest only to a small community of scientists who primate behavior. You’d be wrong. The Great Beyond, the blog of the prestigious journal Nature, believes that the way that the story has been reported in the mainstream media reveals a strong undercurrent of sexism.

Feminists avert your gaze. News that female chimps mate more frequently with male chimps that share their meat with them has prompted a slew of at best corny, at worst downright sexist, even lewd, headlines…

…Thank goodness for the Daily Mail, who confuse humans and chimps even in their headline, “Why food is the way to a woman’s heart (if you happen to be a male chimpanzee)”, to open their story with the brilliantly enlightened “As every Romeo knows, laying on a delicious dinner for two is one of the best seduction ploys.”

Seduction is also apparently what the chimps are up to according to Mongabay.com and the Independent.

And how about “Frisky chimps’ female meat market”? over at Blatherskite. Nice.

The Telegraph takes a leap that I’m not sure the author’s would have intended: “Buying a woman presents could help men get them into bed, a new study which shows that chimpanzees have sex for gifts suggests” is how their story begins.

Reuters have a go at linking the study with prostitution in their opening paragraph.

The long-term nature of the behavior, though, indicates that rather than being a form of chimp prostitution, the meat for sex exchange is a sign of something more prosaic. The male chimps don’t simply offer meat at the time that the females are sexually available (estrous); it is an ongoing behavior that persists even when the female chimps are unreceptive. The researchers believe that female chimps are looking for males who are the best providers. The ability to catch another animal is a sign of hunting prowess and a good hunter will be able to supply high quality food that will increase the chances of a healthy pregnancy and strong offspring.

According to Gomes, “Our results strongly suggest that wild chimpanzees exchange meat for sex, doing so on a long-term basis. Males who shared meat with females doubled their mating success, whereas females, who had difficulty obtaining meat on their own, increased their caloric intake, without suffering the energetic costs and potential risk of injury related to hunting.”

Feminists may not be mollified by the acknowledgement that the meat for sex exchange is not prostitution. Even the more mundane explanation lends credence to traditional notions of mate selection, and marriage interaction. The meat for sex exchange is the chimp form of the traditional marriage, where the men goes out into the wider world to do exciting things, and women stay home to raise the children.