Echo Montgomery Garrett

From the moment, Echo Montgomery Garrett--journalist, author, editor, and publisher--spoke with Georganne Chapin about circumcision, she knew she'd found a cause that was worth dedicating her time and energy to. When her sons were born, she'd questioned the routine practice, but at the time, she couldn't find a single friend, who had not had their sons cut. Besides pre-Google information on the surgery was in short supply. Working with Georganne, the founding executive director of Intact...See more

From the moment, Echo Montgomery Garrett--journalist, author, editor, and publisher--spoke with Georganne Chapin about circumcision, she knew she'd found a cause that was worth dedicating her time and energy to. When her sons were born, she'd questioned the routine practice, but at the time, she couldn't find a single friend, who had not had their sons cut. Besides pre-Google information on the surgery was in short supply. Working with Georganne, the founding executive director of Intact America, on Georganne's memoir, "This Penis Business: A Social Activist's Memoir," Echo was astonished to learn that the practice had its roots in racism and classicism at the turn of the 20th century, and that the surgery became widespread in the wake of World War II when the birth process moved from midwives to fee-for-service hospitals. As a regret mom, Echo seeks ways to help spread the word that cutting off a boy's foreskin does irreversible harm and is a surgical procedure that carries plenty of risks with no reward. She has interviewed more than a hundred people on this topic and been with Georganne when she's fielded calls from people all over the country from distraught mothers' whose young sons have had their foreskins forcibly retracted to older men, who recently discovered Intact America's website and have questions that they'd been afraid to ask. Most of all, Echo shares Georganne's determination to expose the Medical Machine in the United States that peddles this painful, unnecessary surgery to expectant parents and the fact that circumcision and the results of it all add up to big business to the tune of almost $6 billion a year. See less