By Mike Buchanan: Regular followers of this blog will be well aware of the Thornhill Clinic,
Luton, and the boast by the people running it, that it’s the largest
private male circumcision clinic in the UK. Our protest outside the
clinic during the afternoon of 22 March (details below) will relate
specifically to the non-therapeutic circumcision of male minors (Male
Genital Mutilation, MGM). Male minors cannot – legally – give informed
consent to the procedure.
Darrel Gregory is the Executive Director of the clinic, and my recent email exchange with him is here. Details on Mr Gregory and the four doctors working at the clinic are here. The doctors have been placed on the Genital Mutilators Directory by A Voice for Men, and our latest two posts on the clinic are here and here.
We shall be joining Men Do Complain at the protest – as we did in two protests in the autumn – and it will be held outside the clinic between 15:00 – 18:00 on Tuesday, 22 March. The clinic’s opening hours on Tuesdays are 15:30 – 17:30, and the address is 1-3 Thornhill Road, Luton, Beds. LU4 8EY.
We wouldn’t be surprised if the people running the clinic decided not to open it that afternoon, but no matter. Both national and local media will be attending and filming the protest, as will supporters of MDC and J4MB, and we’ve been assured of a police presence. It hopefully doesn’t need to be said that we’re planning an entirely peaceful protest, which won’t be directed at any religious group(s).
We’re confidently expecting an even larger attendance than we saw at the very successful protest last International Men’s Day, in Parliament Square. A video (6:30) of that protest is here. We’ll be ordering more placards etc.
We urge you to attend the protest, whether or not you’ve been personally affected by MGM. We have men at these protests who were themselves circumcised, and have no problem with that – but they believe firmly that in future, male minors should not suffer the procedure, and be allowed to make up their own minds after they’ve passed 18 years of age. MGM is, of course, only one of many areas where the human rights of men and boys are assaulted by the actions and inactions of the state. 20 such areas were outlined in our 2015 general election manifesto.
The reasons MGM remains our #1 campaigning issue don’t change over time:
1. MGM is illegal. For MGM not to be illegal, there would have to be a parliamentary override, and no such override exists. There are no exemptions in the law of England and ales for religious or cultural exemptions. I recently had a 20-minute-long heated discussion with Dr Simon Hochhauser, one of the Co-Chairmen of Milah UK, a Jewish organization promoting the continued mutilation of the genitals of eight-day-old baby boys. It was on BBC 3 Counties Radio, and it’s here.
2. MGM is unethical, for precisely the same reasons Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is unethical. (FGM has been specifically illegal since 1985.)
3. MGM is a human rights violation, and breaches Articles of UN and EU conventions. For details, click on the link in (1) above.
4. The historical purpose for MGM was to reduce the pleasure males would later derive from sex, to encourage their fidelity to their wives, as explained in an excellent article by William Collins.
5. MGM can lead to wholly unnecessary physical and psychological damage and therefore suffering, and sometimes death – as a direct consequence of the procedure, or later suicide. Should anyone be in any doubt about this assertion, they are invited to watch a video (49:32) on Tim Hammond’s Global Survey of Circumcision Harm. Tim, an American, will be talking on the topic of circumcision harm at the second International Conference on Men’s Issues, London, July 8-10.
Among our list of key posts are many about MGM, simply scroll down to ‘Male Genital Mutilation’.
I urge you to join us at the Thornhill Clinic protest, for which we’ve already been assured strong support by leading anti-MGM campaigners. We have every reason to believe it will be the largest such protest ever held in the UK. Please email me mike@j4mb.org.uk if you’ll be able to join us. Let’s have a protest on a scale that people won’t be able to ignore. It’s time for MGM to be consigned to where it has long belonged – the dustbin of history. Thank you.
Source
Darrel Gregory is the Executive Director of the clinic, and my recent email exchange with him is here. Details on Mr Gregory and the four doctors working at the clinic are here. The doctors have been placed on the Genital Mutilators Directory by A Voice for Men, and our latest two posts on the clinic are here and here.We shall be joining Men Do Complain at the protest – as we did in two protests in the autumn – and it will be held outside the clinic between 15:00 – 18:00 on Tuesday, 22 March. The clinic’s opening hours on Tuesdays are 15:30 – 17:30, and the address is 1-3 Thornhill Road, Luton, Beds. LU4 8EY.
We wouldn’t be surprised if the people running the clinic decided not to open it that afternoon, but no matter. Both national and local media will be attending and filming the protest, as will supporters of MDC and J4MB, and we’ve been assured of a police presence. It hopefully doesn’t need to be said that we’re planning an entirely peaceful protest, which won’t be directed at any religious group(s).
We’re confidently expecting an even larger attendance than we saw at the very successful protest last International Men’s Day, in Parliament Square. A video (6:30) of that protest is here. We’ll be ordering more placards etc.
We urge you to attend the protest, whether or not you’ve been personally affected by MGM. We have men at these protests who were themselves circumcised, and have no problem with that – but they believe firmly that in future, male minors should not suffer the procedure, and be allowed to make up their own minds after they’ve passed 18 years of age. MGM is, of course, only one of many areas where the human rights of men and boys are assaulted by the actions and inactions of the state. 20 such areas were outlined in our 2015 general election manifesto.
The reasons MGM remains our #1 campaigning issue don’t change over time:
1. MGM is illegal. For MGM not to be illegal, there would have to be a parliamentary override, and no such override exists. There are no exemptions in the law of England and ales for religious or cultural exemptions. I recently had a 20-minute-long heated discussion with Dr Simon Hochhauser, one of the Co-Chairmen of Milah UK, a Jewish organization promoting the continued mutilation of the genitals of eight-day-old baby boys. It was on BBC 3 Counties Radio, and it’s here.
2. MGM is unethical, for precisely the same reasons Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is unethical. (FGM has been specifically illegal since 1985.)
3. MGM is a human rights violation, and breaches Articles of UN and EU conventions. For details, click on the link in (1) above.
4. The historical purpose for MGM was to reduce the pleasure males would later derive from sex, to encourage their fidelity to their wives, as explained in an excellent article by William Collins.
5. MGM can lead to wholly unnecessary physical and psychological damage and therefore suffering, and sometimes death – as a direct consequence of the procedure, or later suicide. Should anyone be in any doubt about this assertion, they are invited to watch a video (49:32) on Tim Hammond’s Global Survey of Circumcision Harm. Tim, an American, will be talking on the topic of circumcision harm at the second International Conference on Men’s Issues, London, July 8-10.
Among our list of key posts are many about MGM, simply scroll down to ‘Male Genital Mutilation’.
I urge you to join us at the Thornhill Clinic protest, for which we’ve already been assured strong support by leading anti-MGM campaigners. We have every reason to believe it will be the largest such protest ever held in the UK. Please email me mike@j4mb.org.uk if you’ll be able to join us. Let’s have a protest on a scale that people won’t be able to ignore. It’s time for MGM to be consigned to where it has long belonged – the dustbin of history. Thank you.
Source
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