Hi everyone — we are about to reach 800 signatures! Thank you so much for your support. Would you help us keep the momentum going by sharing this petition with 10 people? Facebook groups, text threads, X, email, and WhatsApp are all great ways to spread the word. The more of us who sign and speak out, the harder we are to ignore. Here are the latest updates from Intact America on Cole Groth:
“Long Island baby now faces heart transplant after botched circumcision, dad says” — Greater Long Island, June 6, 2025 >>
Georganne Chapin’s response to Greater Long Island:
The tragedy of baby Cole Groth is not that his circumcision was “botched,” as stated in the headline. Rather, it is that Cole’s parents were encouraged to agree to a surgery that should never have been done in the first place. Cole had a serious heart condition. He didn’t need a circumcision because there was nothing wrong with his penis.
It is appalling that medical professionals in a neonatal intensive care unit, a place where sick babies should be given every chance to heal, instead performed a gratuitous surgery on this child’s normal genitalia at 11 o’clock at night, when he should have been sleeping peacefully.
Circumcision comes with certain risks, including bleeding, infection and even death. For this reason, the American Academy of Pediatrics states that the surgery should only be performed on babies who are medically stable. By definition, any baby in intensive care does not meet this criterion. Cole’s father said that he was not told of any risks. Nor, presumably, was he told that the surgery is painful and traumatic; if he knew this, why would he have agreed to subject his medically fragile son to it?
May Cole’s story serve as a warning. The United States is the only country in the Global West where baby boys’ normal, functional foreskins are routinely amputated. Every “routine” circumcision puts a baby at unacceptable risk, with no gain. If hospitals are so irresponsible as to push this surgery, parents need to take heed and say “NO.”
– Georganne Chapin, Executive Director of Intact America
Thanks again for supporting the fight the end genital cutting in the United States.