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May 22, 2003
The Hon. Christine Gregoire
Attorney General
1125 Washington St. SE
PO Box 40100
Olympia, WA. 98504-0100
Dear General Gregoire,
I recently read a law journal article by an international team of lawyers and
professors and it disturbed me so much I felt compelled to pass it on to a
person in authority. The article comes from the Journal of Law and Medicine,
February 2000. It says that routine circumcision of infants is a prima facie
case of assault. It also says that the medical and parental exceptions do not
apply since no specific, diagnosed disease or condition exists. Therefore,
routine circumcision of infants constitutes assault.1
As has been well documented, this painful procedure causes men to live their
lives with hidden emotional scars. Circumcision is a traumatic event for the
infant and victims can suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.2 No national
or international medical association in the world endorses routine circumcision
of healthy boys.3
I request a review of circumcision by your office, the Washington Association
of Prosecuting Attorneys and the Prosecutors of the State of Washington. Mr. J. Steven
Svoboda, Attorneys for the Rights of the Child (and one of the article's
authors) is available if you require any further information on this issue.
Sincerely,
Gary Burlingame
Cc:
Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys
All 39 Washington County Prosecutors
J. Steven Svoboda, ARC
Gary
Burlingame
address,
etc.
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J. Steven Svoboda, Esq.
Attorneys for the Rights of the Child
2961 Ashby Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94705 USA
Tel/Fax 510-595-5550
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1Gregory J Boyle, J Steven Svoboda, Christopher P
Price, J Neville Turner. Circumcision of Healthy Boys: Criminal Assault?
7 J Law Med 301 (2000).
2John Rhinehart, Neonatal Circumcision Reconsidered, Tran Anal.
Jnl., Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 215-221, July 1999.
3Ronald Goldman, "Circumcision: The Hidden
Trauma," Vanguard,
1997.
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