Below are highlights of some suggestions that we have received regarding the specific language of our bill. If you would like to add to the discussion, please contact us at [email protected]. We won’t post your suggestions or name unless we get your written permission first.

12/8/2003 

Regarding “prematurely and forcibly retracting” the foreskin, you might want to narrow this down a bit.  Just as a crazy example, you wouldn’t want this law to apply to retraction of a 17-year old guy on a hot date with a fast-moving aggressive girlfriend.  Such a retraction might be painful, but probably not mutilation since permanent damage is far less likely. The idea here is to stop the retraction of young children and babies (self-retraction excluded).       

So maybe it would be better to try to stop the following:

“any forcible retraction of the penile or clitoral prepuce of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years, except to the extent that the prepuce has already separated from the glans”

It might be good to include breasts and nipples (mammary glands) in the bill.  They might be reproductive organs, in a sense, though I’m not sure if they are technically genitalia.  It’s rare, but some women in extremely high-risk families have chosen mastectomies as preventative care.  I’m not aware of any such surgeries on children, but it’s not inconceivable that somebody might think it’s a good idea, and blocking off that road in advance seems sensible.