Moorhead lawyer fights two-decade war on circumcision

MOORHEAD, Minn. — If you listen to public radio in the Fargo-Moorhead area, you may be familiar with attorney Zenas Baer's ubiquitous ads touting a small but curious aspect of his firm's legal expertise — "circumcision litigation."

The ads, according to Baer, do what he wants them to do: raise the consciousness of listeners about the issue of infant circumcision and "get them wondering about it."

Infant circumcision is the removal of the foreskin from the penis of a newborn male, a common practice today but one that was nearly nonexistent in the U.S. prior to about 1870, Baer said.

Around that time, a notion arose in the medical community that masterbation and the release of seminal fluid harmed the immune system and led to disease, he said.

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