This all started last week, when Yang tweeted about the opioid epidemic. Great! An important topic for Democratic candidates for president to speak about. Then someone asked him about circumcision:

Do you have an opinion on routine infant circumcision?
— Jellyfish Rave

This is a question that almost any political candidate would just...not answer. It’s an extremely fraught religious and cultural issue that nevertheless is relatively immaterial to the context of running for president. But Yang, a dedicated poster, responded anyway:

Against the practice.— Andrew Yang

“I’m highly aligned with the intactivists,” Yang said. “History will prove them even more correct.”

Presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who recently revealed he is against circumcision, has met both the poll and donor requirements to qualify for the Democratic debates...

Yang’s views against circumcision has not deterred him from moving forth in the race.

Georganne Chapin schrieb:

During the 2020 presidential race, Andrew Yang became the first political candidate ever to express his personal opinion that circumcising baby boys is wrong.

“It’s sort of pushed on parents in many situations,” Yang told The Daily Beast. “From what I’ve seen, the evidence on it being a positive health choice for the infant is quite shaky.”

Georganne Chapin schrieb:

But politics aside, more Americans should be talking about what happens to 4,000 baby boys every day in American hospitals.

No other country in the developed world does it as a routine medical procedure.

Last year, Intact America, which I lead, conducted a national study of mothers who had given birth to sons within the previous four years. Survey results revealed that physicians, nurses and midwives routinely and often aggressively push new moms to circumcise their sons.

The survey showed that 19 out of 20 mothers were solicited by health professionals to have their baby boys circumcised, and that new mothers were asked, on average, six times to “consent” to their sons’ circumcision. Among the mothers responding to the survey, only 45% of mothers who had not been solicited circumcised their sons. That compares to a 78% circumcision rate among another group of mothers who had been solicited.

If fewer than half of parents walk into the hospital with plans to circumcise their sons, why do nearly 80% walk out of the hospital having made this irreversible choice? Obviously, medical professionals hold a lot of sway over mothers who have recently given birth and are often exhausted and too tired to argue. These mothers might decide that the professionals know best, or they might simply fold under pressure — and allow their child to be cut.

But something else is at work. Circumcision — America’s most common pediatric surgery — is big business. It is performed on approximately 1.5 million boys a year at a cost of more than $1.9 billion annually.

..Yang elaborated, saying he initially deliberate to have his two boys circumcised however his spouse talked him out of it.