By COLlive reporter
In a cost-cutting measure funding for circumcisions is being reduced in the U.S., according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University. Currently, 18 states do not provide Medicaid funding for infant circumcision, and San Francisco has attempted to ban the procedure.
This action is being protested in an editorial (Oct. 5) in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Hopkins doctors Ronald Gray and Aaron Tobian said the increasing efforts to defund or outright ban infant male circumcision are unfounded, harmful and “ethically questionable.”
The fact is that more than 500 published studies in the past decade have reaffirmed the benefits of circumcision in preventing transmitted disease, as well as preventing urinary tract infections. Studies in Africa have shown that circumcision can decrease HIV infection by up to 60 percent and actually saves lives.
This “no-funding” has contributed to The Centers for Disease Controls and Prevention (CDC) featured a report showing a slight decline in In-Hospital Newborn Male Circumcision.
The result of this report has been published in Israel as a downward trend in American’s practice of Bris Mila (circumcision).
But Rabbi Levi Heber, a Crown Heights based mohel, told COLlive the report’s finding is in no way an indication of the Bris Mila trend in this country.
“Not only is it misguided, we see an increase in the practice of the sacred Mitzva of Mila,” said Heber who is the director of the International Bris Association, an organization that promotes and helps arrange Bris Milahs around the country and world.
Heber claims that when uninformed parents were offered circumcision by hospital staff which is fully covered by insurance, they accepted believing that this was fulfilling their requirement as Jews to have their sons circumcised.
However, “as a result of less Hospitals covering circumcision, and more people becoming informed as to the importance and requirement of a proper Bris, there has been a significant increase in the observances of Bris Mila,” he says.
“Currently, many communities do not have access to a local Mohel or do not know how to arrange a proper Bris so, the IBA will help locate a Mohel and arrange the Bris and if needed, will cover the cost.”
Learn more about Bris Milah at Circumcision.net
Rabbi Levi Heber
came down many times to do Brisim for Balabatim in our community and has made such a kiddush Hashem with his gift and talent of doing an amazing job, and does the job so swiftly. Every parent that used him here absolutely was so happy with him. I highly suggest you use him for your communities and own children.
A Shaliach!
this picture is from a bris in Myrtle Beach SC