Several men circumcised at birth are suing the state of Oregon for allegedly “stealing” their bodily autonomy while also arguing that a current genital mutilation law discriminates against boys.
California-based attorney Eric Clopper filed the lawsuit last week on behalf of Cecil Mininger and his teenage son, as well as brothers Carter and Landon Moody, in Multnomah County Circuit Court in Portland. The plaintiffs all had their foreskins surgically removed as infants within the state, according to the filing.
The 76-page document alleges that boys have been neglected by the state and asks for equal protection under a law that bans female genital mutilation. The current law, it says, which only protects women from genital cutting, is a violation of the state constitution’s Equal Rights Amendment and Equal Protection Clause.
The suit urges the court to either ban genital cutting procedures for children of any gender or overturn the statute entirely.
Parents currently have the choice to decide whether or not to have their newborn son circumcised, with the procedure not legally mandated anywhere in the U.S.
However, the suit argues that victims of male genital cutting could sue their circumcisers. It claimed that the procedure has become “medicalized” in the U.S. but provides few health benefits and inhibits healthy sexual function.
“This lawsuit is about one simple, urgent principle: equal protection under the law,” Clopper, who founded Intact Global, a non-profit that says it stands against non-religious genital mutilation that is funding the suit, wrote in a statement on the organization’s website Friday.
“If Oregon protects girls from non-consensual genital cutting, it must protect boys and intersex children too. Anything less is unconstitutional.”
Acting local counsel Lake Perriguey, a civil rights lawyer who fought to overturn Oregon’s ban on gay marriage in 2014, described the procedure on young boys as “barbaric.”
“It is quite barbaric and strange that we in America cut non-consenting children at a very early age without any medical necessity,” he told The Oregonian Monday.
Male circumcision is practiced across multiple faith groups, including within Judaism and Islam.
More than 70 percent of males in the U.S. have been circumcised – more than doubling the rate of the rest of the world, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Most circumcisions occur within the first week after birth.
The Independent has contacted Clopper for more information.
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