Articles Archive

Tallahassee soon won't have Van Lewis to call wacko anymore. Or maybe not.

Lewis ran twice unsuccessfully for City Commission in the 1990s, citing his experience as a centuries old Apalachee Indian warrior, Ahunahana, who had been...

San Francisco can be a pretty nutty place.  With a ban on Happy Meals, purposely refusing to enforce federal immigration laws, and constantly sending Nancy Pelosi back to Congress, it is easy to see why people would think that anything that comes...

I am the badass mama of two intact boys. A feminist mama. A gentle, peaceful parenting mama. I know, every day, that I screw up as a parent. I also know, every day, that the choices I make for my sons are the right ones.

Starting with the first...

(Reuters) - Dutch doctors want politicians and human rights groups to speak out and discourage the practice of male circumcision in the Netherlands because they say it is a "painful and harmful ritual," and a violation of children's...

Two young men were arrested yesterday in front of the Tallahassee Memorial Hospital carrying signs and shouting at motorists.

Identified as Benjamin Bridges Lewis of 424 N. Calhoun St. and William Van Brunt Lewis of 3117 Okeeheepkee Road, were...

In 1949, a British physician wrote in a landmark article that non-therapeutic circumcision is risky, harmful, and should not be performed.  The article led the British National Health Service to end coverage of the surgery in 1950.  The...

This past Saturday, April 2nd, 2011, I attended the 18th Annual Genital Integrity Awareness Rally in Washington DC. April 2nd was actually the culmination of a half-week of activities which began on the previous Wednesday, the 30th of March. The...

Circumcision is seen as the central mitzvah (or commandment) of Judaism. Even for nonreligious Jews, circumcision continues to be perceived as the sine qua non of Jewish identity. And yet, unlike any other controversial topic that we Jews address...

I want to thank my dear friend Mary Alda Balthrop [Van's widow] for doing me the great honor of allowing me to honor the memory of Van Lewis today. If we can write a man’s memory with a special pen capable of recording his feelings for...

Van, as many now know, motivated one of the greatest biology researchers and teachers the world has ever known, the beloved Harvard biologist George Wald, to examine circumcision in the light of his vast knowledge of almost everything. Professor Wald...

Crying here in Vancouver,  what a wonderful man.  He ran such a good race.  A life well lived.  Gloria Lemay

Van Lewis made a powerful first and last impression on me! At a NOCIRC conference, at Georgetown University in Washington, Van strode into the room with an enormous bright red sign, carefully hand painted, which read, INFANT CIRCUMCISION IS A SEX...

It was our beloved Intactivist friend Van Lewis who convinced Florida Medicaid not to pay for cutting up baby boys’ genitals anymore. He actually slammed his fist onto their table to wake them all up. We are all blessed that we...

SAN FRANCISCO -- California has banned local authorities from outlawing male circumcision, striking a final blow to a San Francisco group that had hoped to put the matter to a popular vote.

Religious groups applauded Governor Jerry Brown's...

As soon as I found out I was having a boy I started researching circumcision. I did not like what I saw. So much pain for such a little person to deal with for what I found to be no apparent reason. I had totally made up my mind and I was completely...

(NEW YORK, NY) — The South African Medical Association sent a letter response last week to NOCIRC-SA—the South African chapter of the...

1.  Proponents and opponents of AB 768 were invited to submit, by 5 pm on Friday last week, any briefs, letters, emails, faxes, etc to Ms. Ronak Daylami, an attorney who serves as staff counsel to the committee. Her job was to use the next 3 days...

(NEW YORK, NY) — On Wednesday, May 4, 2011, Jamaal Coleson Jr. died after his parents brought him in for a circumcision procedure at Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan. He died one month before his 2nd birthday.

Jamaal's parents are...

The lawsuit involving a South Dakota Native American infant, Eric Dickson Keefe, from the Rosebud Indian Reservation, who bled to death from a circumcision in 2008, was settled this week for $230,000. The case involved an Indian Health Service doctor...

A few days ago, the American Medical Association made an announcement that contradicts the position of medical associations worldwide about something that has recently seen an explosion in media coverage - infant male circumcision.

Throughout...

The Tallahassee Democrat has published a long story by reporter Gerald Ensley on Van Lewis' activism and life. The article was published on December 14, 2011 to coincide with the 41st anniversary on December 17, 2011 of Van's first...

The American Academy of Pediatrics held its 2011 conference at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center in South Boston over the weekend of October 15th. That Saturday, Elizabeth Noble, Jed Stamas, Alex Foygel and I gathered in front of the BCEC...