How I came to oppose circumcision

And ended up writing a book about it

I realised about halfway through my medical science degree I had made a huge mistake. The thought of doing shift work in a pathology lab with little social interaction, average pay, and limited career progression in an industry that would automate most of its workforce in a couple of decades suddenly dawned on me, and it wasn’t appealing.

I decided to salvage my degree with a research project, so in 2010 I started a two-year study of turtles and their immune systems. It was during this time, while reading in between lab tests, that I chanced upon an article by Christopher Hitchens on the subject of circumcision.

Hitchens described the Jewish practice of metzitzah b’peh, in which the mohel (who performs the circumcision) sucks the bleeding wound before spitting out the blood. At this point my eyebrows were so high they had probably left my forehead.

I was surprised not just to learn such a practice had existed, but that it continues to this day despite leaving babies brain damaged or dead as a result of herpes-infected mohels transmitting the virus. This harmful practice is thankfully only performed by a minority of Jewish people, but that it is performed at all remains deeply concerning.