Circumcision and Reproductive Health Services in a Non-Profit Clinic
Male circumcision (MC) has recently become a topic of contention in the United States. Research published in the last five to eight years, conducted in various African countries, has highlighted the prophylactic effects of the procedure against HIV transmission and has influenced the recommendation strategies of the World Health Organization and most recently of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP 2012). Despite this, since the 1970s, 18 states in the United States have defunded the procedure from Medicaid, Colorado being the most recent. In addition, in the spring of 2011, San Francisco citizens sought to ban the procedure, arguing that newborn males' body integrity should be protected—an effort that was subsequently thwarted by the state legislature when it passed a law that prohibited such bans on circumcision.