Circumcision - Male Genital Mutilation

Ryan Heydari

There are so many collective tragedies about children in the world that are heartbreaking, stories of war and loss. At the same time, there are some individual tragedies that are just as heartbreaking, and that's the story of John Heydari and his wife Homa Ahmadi from Toronto, Canada. The couple immigrated to Canada 12 years ago from Iran and in January 2013, Ahmadi gave birth to a healthy baby boy. He was a 'boy who loved attention, cried relatively little and seemed to actually smile. He gave us the most amazing moments of our life,' said Ryan’s mother.

After he was born, the parents didn't want to have him circumcised, but were persuaded by a family doctor to have the operation on their son. His inept aftercare saw him sent home on more than one occasion, despite his lethargy and unusual bleeding and as a result of the bleeding, the baby died 10 days after the operation. He was only 22 days old.

This unnecessary and risky operation should be stopped altogether, it's not a life-saving or necessary operation. It's a barbaric practice and historically has been done without anesthetic. Evidently, babies don't feel pain. This archaic thinking has been the norm in medicine for hundreds of years. Imagine not giving a baby anesthetic to cut off a piece of him. It doesn't make sense. Now this couple is left with only guilt and remorse for the loss of this beautiful boy, all for allowing a doctor to talk them into an operation they didn't want in the first place. We want to put an end to female genital mutilation, it's also time to put an end to male genital mutilation.