Hospital Letter

It's very simple to write your birth hospital.  I just looked mine up on the Internet and called the general information number for the hospital and asked them the following question: "Does the hospital still allow non-medically-necessary circumcisions on hospital grounds and if so, what is the mailing address of the hospital president."  The receptionist didn't know about the circumcision question but gave me the address for the president and suggested that I write the Chief Operating Officer (C.O.O.) as well. I then asked for the name of the head of the legal department and she gave me that too.  She then transferred me to the department of the hospital that cares for newborns and they confirmed that my birth hospital did allow circumcisions on hospital grounds.  I was amazed at how helpful everyone was.  I even managed to talk to the nurse for the doctors that perform circumcisions.  All you have to do is be polite and if necessary, persistent.

If you were circumcised at birth and haven't written your birth hospital you're missing a great opportunity to put a "face" on an otherwise unknown mutilated child (that child being you).  Unlike other campaigns, the letter from just one "angry [white] male" will get the attention of a hospital administrator.  Furthermore, just as you may receive emails courtesy of anti-circumcision email lists, hospital administrators are almost guaranteed to be on similar lists and they may pass your thoughts on to other hospital administrators, multiplying your efforts.  You have a special connection with your birth hospital - take advantage of it.  Here's the letter to my birth hospital to get your started.  Feel free to use your own words or recycle mine as you see fit.

Begin Sample Letter

<<DATE>>

 

Dr. <<PRESIDENT'S NAME>>, President
<<NAME OF HOSPITAL>>
<<HOSPITAL ADDRESS>>
 

<<SALUTATION>>,

Let me introduce myself by stating that I was born at <<NAME OF HOSPITAL>> some <<YOUR AGE>> years ago and the experience was a positive one, up to a point. Not long after my delivery at <<NAME OF HOSPITAL>>, I was circumcised with the uninformed consent of my parents. The procedure was successful by current medical standards but my circumcision has left me very dissatisfied. I am angered by my loss of natural, healthy tissue and the normal appearance it would have provided.

A doctor today may feel safe circumcising a child today with his parents' consent and circumcision rates at 56% nationwide. However, there is a gathering storm of controversy surrounding circumcision and information on the harms of the procedure is now readily available to both doctors and laypeople. It is not difficult to imagine a baby boy circumcised today as a man 20 years in the future deciding that his doctor and hospital were negligent and that he was, in fact, mutilated. It's time for <<NAME OF HOSPITAL>> to stop allowing non-therapeutic infant circumcision on hospital grounds and to start educating its doctors on the liabilities of performing the procedure altogether.

 

Sincerely,

<<YOUR NAME>>
<<YOUR ADDRESS>>

 

Cc: <<C.O.O.'s NAME>>, Chief Operating Officer
Cc: <<NAME OF HOSPITAL>>, Legal Department

End Sample Letter


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