Sucking an infant’s bleeding penis, after first cutting off his foreskin without anesthesia. Torture abuse of a sexual organ. An old man performing a satanic torture sexual abuse rite.  Not traumatic for the baby?? Not a crime!

A satanic torture sexual abuse rite?

1. An infant gets viciously tortured  by removing a part of his sexual organ. No medical necessity. Worse, no anesthesia! How cruel!
2. An old man puts the infant boy’s injured penis into his mouth to suck the penis, to suck out blood

• By conventional wisdom, sucking the penis of an infant is a heinous crime that will scar and traumatize the infant for life ^1 2. Even if it is done tenderly and painlessly. By today’s laws, anyone who sucks an infant’s penis (or vagina), even if it were the father or the mother, would be punished as harsh as a murderer and labeled an "infant rapist".
• I don’t see concerns about the trauma to a defenseless baby who gets physically hurt and injured in cruel ways, without anesthesia.  And then painfully gets the penis sucked.  See Circumcision study halted due to trauma

 

Religious rules, 3000 years behind modernity

But no, it is a religious rite, totally legal.

Even if the infants catch Herpes. After the second known death, only in New York, of an infant dying of Herpes, finally the law wakes up. No, not an instant arrest for torture sexual abuse and reckless killing. Just an inquiry.

It is typical of religion: they follow outdated rules that were wise thousands of years ago. 3000 years ago, it might have been wise to disinfect a baby boy’s wound with saliva. That disinfection would outweigh the risk of getting Herpes infection.  Now we have better and safer methods for surgery, anesthesia, and infection prevention. (I will refrain from discussing the doubtful wisdom of removing the foreskin of a baby).

Death by Herpes, the only worry?

Cases of Herpes transmission without death did not cause major worry. Only the cases of death cause concern.

Painfully cutting off a piece of a baby penis and then sucking the remaining penis is not traumatic? But tender touch, look, or even looking at photos of said penis scars the victim forever? We fail to understand such logic.

Circumcision study halted due to trauma |CNN, 1997

The researchers discovered that for those circumcised without anesthesia there was not only severe pain, but also an increased risk of choking and difficulty breathing. […]

Clearly proven physical damage to helpless infants. And no outcry.

Up to 96 percent of the babies in the United States and Canada receive no anesthesia when they are circumcised, according to a report from the University of Alberta in Edmonton.  One of the reasons anesthesia is not used, the study found, is the belief that infants feel little or no pain from the procedure. […]

[Researchers] studied the heart rates and crying patterns of babies during different stages of circumcision.[…]

You are talking REAL research, real truth-seeking. Using scientific method to find the best possible truth.

Some babies were given an anesthetic and others were not.But the researchers found that while topical anesthetics may help initially, they are woefully inadequate during foreskin separation and incision.

They concluded that if circumcision must be performed, it should be preceded by an injected anesthetic.  In fact, they found the results so compelling that they took the unusual step of stopping the study before it was scheduled to end rather than subjecting any more babies to circumcision without anesthesia. Circumcision study halted due to trauma

In a scientific experiments children get randomly assigned anesthesia, or no anesthesia. Before the end of the experiment it became evident that anesthesia is clearly less traumatizing. Thus it became immoral and unethical to continue the experiment and to keep on assigning children to the non-anesthesia group. The experiment was aborted prematurely.

Religious reply to scientific research

The baby should not experience any significant pain once the circumcision is complete. […]

The above experiment was performed before 1997. To no avail.

I do not use anesthesia since the entire procedure is so quick that it is possibly counterproductive.  I had the opportunity to discuss the matter with Dr. Eric S. Shinwell a world renowned neonatologist while he was doing research at Stanford University and had the following dialogue. [In summary] I asked him if I were to start using anesthesia as part of my bris milah circumcision which would be the preferred method. He replied that in a hospital it is required to give the baby a nerve block (two injections into the base of the penis)because of the length of the procedure.  But regarding a bris the actual incision is so quick and precise that subjecting the baby to the nerve block possibly is more painful than the bris itself.

The correct procedure is: first to apply a topical anesthetic cream, then the injection. Just like the dentist!

He additionally discounted the use of topical anesthetics as useless for this procedure and advised me that there is no place for anesthesia as part of a regular bris circumcision.
[Note: Dr. Shinwell used a mohel for his son’s circumcision even though he is well versed in performing a medical circumcision.]  Bris FAQ

The personal opinion of one religious researchers does not outweigh a definite scientific study. So definite that it was stopped mid-way because it was proven beyond reasonable doubt that anesthesia is much better.

Detailed press reports

Brooklyn DA Looking Into Infant’s Death From Controversial Bris Practice

It is not known whether Fischer was involved in this most recent death. A 2010 form letter to rabbis from the state health commissioner notes that in July of 2007, the commissioner “restricted the practice of one mohel who was epidemiologically linked to several such cases,” though it did not name the mohel.

On the heels of the revelations about the cases linked to Fischer, the city’s health department issued a public warning about the practice, which touched off a firestorm in the ultra-Orthodox community. Some among the rabbinic leadership accused the health department of overstepping its authority and infringing on religious freedom and rabbis’ rights to regulate ritual practice. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Frieden, the health commissioner — both non-Orthodox Jews — were compared to Nazis and Russian czars.

Ultimately, the mayor intervened, promising to study the matter and, according to a story in The New York Times, noting that “it is not the government’s business to tell people how to practice their religion.” At the time, Rabbi David Niederman of the United Jewish Organization in Williamsburg told The Times that “the Orthodox Jewish community will continue the practice that has been practiced for over 5,000 years.”

When it came to light that two more babies had been infected (apparently not by Fischer), Frieden issued an “Open Letter to the Jewish Community,” which recommended — but stopped short of requiring — a cessation of the practice altogether, instead endorsing alternatives to the practice, like using a sterile glass tube (which is done in modern Orthodox circles).

Frieden’s letter was met with renewed outrage by the ultra-Orthodox community. And, once again, the health department came under fire for what the community considered an overstepping of its bounds.

 

Infant’s death at Maimonides Hospital linked to circumcision

A two-week old boy died at a Brooklyn hospital in September after contracting herpes through a religious circumcision ritual that ignited controversy in 2005 after another infant died, the Daily News has learned. […]

The unidentified infant died Sept. 28, 2011, at Maimonides Hospital, according to a spokeswoman for the city Medical Examiner, who confirmed the death after a News inquiry.

The cause of death was listed as “disseminated herpes simplex virus Type 1, complicating ritual circumcision with oral suction.” […].

In 2004, city health officials revealed that a baby boy died after a circumcision carried out by a Rockland County rabbi who specializes in the centuries-old, ultra-Orthodox ritual known as metzizah b’ peh.

Under the practice, the rabbi or mohel removes blood from the wound with his mouth — a practice city health officials have criticized, saying it carried “inherent risks” for babies.

In 2004, three infants circumcised by Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer were determined to have contracted herpes, city officials said.

 

 Baby’s Death Renews Debate Over a Circumcision Ritual |NYT

The cause of death of the 2-week-old boy, who died at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn on Sept. 28, was Type 1 herpes, caused by “ritual circumcision with oral suction,” according to the medical examiner’s office.

The ritual of oral suction — or in Hebrew, metzitzah b’peh — is practiced almost exclusively in ultra-Orthodox communities and, to a lesser degree, in Orthodox Jewish communities, despite efforts by the city to curtail it and educate communities about its health risks. The procedure occurs during the circumcision ritual of the bris, as the practitioner, or mohel, removes the foreskin of the penis and then sucks the blood from the wound to clean it.

In 2003 and 2004, the city reported three cases of Type 1 herpes that were linked to circumcision, involving a boy on Staten Island and twin boys in Brooklyn, one of whom died. The procedures were done by one mohel, Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer, who was later prohibited from performing the ritual in New York City.

The authorities have not determined the identity of the mohel in the most recent case, but since the death they have been trying to work with the Hasidic community. In 2004, after the death of the twin, the Brooklyn district attorney tried to investigate but received little cooperation within the community, according to a person with knowledge of the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity because it was not brought to trial.

Little cooperation

“There is probably nobody in public life who fights harder for the separation of church and state than I do, but I just wanted to remind everybody: religious liberty does not simply extend to injuring others or putting children at risk,” Mr. Bloomberg said.