If American doctors were doing their job, they would have ended the practice of non-religious, non-therapeutic male circumcision forty years ago when the American Academy of Pediatrics said in 1971 there is no valid medical indication for newborn circumcision.

Currently less than 25% of the boys born in California are circumcised at birth. As more and more parents learn that male circumcision is not necessary, they are saying no to male circumcision.

What parts should we cut off our infant daughters to reduce their problems down the road with bacteria and infections?

Male circumcision should be a "personal" choice, not a "parental" choice. It should be the "personal" choice of the person who is having a normal part of his body cut off without a compelling medical reason.

It is much harder for a woman with intact genitals to keep herself clean than it is for a man with intact genitals to keep himself clean. Somehow most American women manage to stay clean without their parents cutting parts off when they are infants. If we can teach our daughters how clean themselves, we can teach our sons how to clean themselves.

The comparison with female genital cutting is very relevant. Last year the American Academy of Pediatric proposed allowing doctors to make a small incision in the genitals of girls if her parents requested it for cultural reasons. Even though that form of female genital cutting is less damaging than male circumcision there was a public outcry and the AAP repealed its policy.

There is a growing number of men who don't like the fact that a normal part of our body was cut off without a compelling medical reason and without our consent. Doctors should have ended the practice of non-religious, non-therapeutic circumcision forty years ago when the AAP said there is no valid medical indication for newborn circumcision. There is no excuse for a medical doctor to cut off a normal part of a healthy boy's penis in 2011 especially if the boy's parents are not Muslim or Jewish.

The vast majority of intact adult men never have any "painful decision" later in life. They do have "a symphony of sensation" that circumcised men can no more imagine than a colourblind man can imagine green. Where circumcision is not customary (and doctors know more about the foreskin than how to cut it off), the lifetime risk of ever wanting it or needing it is one in thousands.

You realise that in the developed world, this custom is peculiar to the USA? The rest of the English-speaking world tried it (in Australia and New Zealand in the 1950s just as enthusiastically as the USA) , found it did no good, and has all but given it up - with no outbreak of any of the things it was supposed to be good for (and a generation of boys and men not looking like their fathers, and no problems there either).

The only reason US parents have this choice is that it is now pushed on them. Until the mid-twentieth century (when doctors were little tin gods) it was done without asking, and that is part of how it became customary. The other part is a string of bogus and exaggerated medical claims, now discredited.

There is no other normal, healthy, functional, non-renewable body part that parents are invited to cut off their children, and in fact it would be illegal to do so. It is illegal to tattoo a child. It is illegal to pierce a child's genitals. It is illegal to circumcise a cat or dog. This operation, a hangover from stone-age times, is out on its own.

Martin, in my opinion the only person who has a right to decide to cut off a normal part of a male's genitals is the male himself when he is an adult. Your son should be allowed to make that choice for himself. When he is old enough to get his penis tattooed or pierced, he can decide if he wants to have a doctor cut part of it off.

It is not a painful decision for men in Europe or other non-circumcising cultures. For them, the idea of cutting off part of their penis is strange.

There would not be a need for a law if American doctors had the moral courage to end a harmful practice that their profession introduced into this country in the late eighteen hundreds. Medical doctors introduced non-religious, non-therapeutic male circumcision and they promoted it for decades.

It is past time for American doctors to stop cutting the genitals of healthy boys! If doctors do not have the decency to stop on their own, I am in favor of a law to protect children from unnecessary surgery.

For a doctor to say that he or she only circumcises boys because parents request it is like a tobacco company executive saying that he or she only sells cigarettes because people buy them.

American parents circumcise their sons because medical doctors promoted the practice for decades. People smoke cigarettes because tobacco companies advertise them.

I was circumcised as an infant and wish that I had not been. It should have been my choice. There is no compelling medical reason to cut off a normal part of a healthy boy's penis.

I'm sorry you had medical problems with your foreskin, however medical problems with intact male genitals are very rare in Europe where they do not practice infant male circumcision.

If your pediatrician forcibly retracted your foreskin when you were a child, that was medical malpractice. It sounds like the doctors in your community failed to keep up to date on effective, non-invasive ways to treat the rare medical problems related to normal, intact male genitals.

When a boy is born his foreskin is attached to his glans. It is similar to the way a kitten's eyes are closed when it is born. It is a harmful to forecibly retract a boy's foreskin in the same way it is harmful to forecibly open a kitten's eyes.

It usually takes several years for a boy's foreskin to naturally separate from the glans and become retractable. If it take until a boy has reached puberty that is within the normal range.