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Intact America 2026 Initiative: “Mothers’ Infant Health Survey”

by
Blog, Education
July 9, 2026

Introducing the Mothers’ Infant Health Survey: Intact America’s Most Ambitious Research Initiative

(Last update: 7/8/2026)

How many baby boys are circumcised today in America? It’s one of the most important questions asked within our movement.

This summer, Intact America will launch The Mothers’ Infant Health Survey. This landmark survey provides one of the clearest pictures yet of newborn circumcision in the United States and Canada.

Good decisions begin with good information.

That’s why Intact America is investing in one of the largest research efforts in our history.

We’ll survey 2,500 mothers who have given birth to sons within the past three years. Their experiences will help us better understand today’s circumcision landscape while providing valuable insights into how families make this important healthcare decision for their sons.

What we’ll learn:

  • What influenced the decision to circumcise (or not).
  • Who influenced the decision.
  • Where and when the circumcision occurred and who carried it out.
  • Whether the baby experienced forcible retraction of his foreskin at any time.
  • Whether the baby experienced any complications from his circumcision.
  • Why some parents made different decisions for later sons.
  • Personal stories that bring the data to life.

Reliable research empowers better education. Better education inspires thoughtful conversations. Thoughtful conversations create meaningful change. That is exactly what this project is designed to accomplish.

By the numbers:

  • 2,500 mothers participating
  • 2 countries represented
  • 7 survey leadership committee members
  • $20,000 projected survey cost
  • One Mission: Provide the most accurate understanding possible of today’s newborn circumcision landscape.

Meet the survey committee:

This historic initiative is being guided by an outstanding team of physicians, researchers, advocates, and organizational leaders.

Physicians. Researchers. Advocates. Communicators.

Together, this committee brings decades of experience to one of Intact America’s most important initiatives.

  • Christopher Maurer, attorney and Intact America Board Member
  • Georganne Chapin, attorney, health care expert, and Intact America Founding Executive Director
  • Dan Bollinger, Intact America consultant and experienced survey researcher
  • Robert S.Van Howe, MD, MPH
  • Dale Andersen MSW, RSW, psychotherapist and researcher
  • Jeffrey Cartwright-Smith, PhD experienced survey researcher

Their combined expertise will help ensure the survey provides meaningful information that strengthens education, public awareness, and future advocacy efforts.

Follow this page for more developments

We want our supporters to have the latest updates of our survey as they happen. Check back here to follow the project’s journey from development through publication.

We’ll share:

  • Survey milestones
  • Behind-the-scenes updates
  • Research insights
  • Methodology
  • Major findings

We invite you to follow along as this exciting project comes to life.

(Last update: 7/8/2026)

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Marilyn

Marilyn Fayre Milos, multiple award winner for her humanitarian work to end routine infant circumcision in the United States and advocating for the rights of infants and children to genital autonomy, has written a warm and compelling memoir of her path to becoming “the founding mother of the intactivist movement.” Needing to support her family as a single mother in the early sixties, Milos taught banjo—having learned to play from Jerry Garcia (later of The Grateful Dead)—and worked as an assistant to comedian and social critic Lenny Bruce, typing out the content of his shows and transcribing court proceedings of his trials for obscenity. After Lenny’s death, she found her voice as an activist as part of the counterculture revolution, living in Haight Ashbury in San Francisco during the 1967 Summer of Love, and honed her organizational skills by creating an alternative education open classroom (still operating) in Marin County. 

After witnessing the pain and trauma of the circumcision of a newborn baby boy when she was a nursing student at Marin College, Milos learned everything she could about why infants were subjected to such brutal surgery. The more she read and discovered, the more convinced she became that circumcision had no medical benefits. As a nurse on the obstetrical unit at Marin General Hospital, she committed to making sure parents understood what circumcision entailed before signing a consent form. Considered an agitator and forced to resign in 1985, she co-founded NOCIRC (National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers) and began organizing international symposia on circumcision, genital autonomy, and human rights. Milos edited and published the proceedings from the above-mentioned symposia and has written numerous articles in her quest to end circumcision and protect children’s bodily integrity. She currently serves on the board of directors of Intact America.

Georganne

Georganne Chapin is a healthcare expert, attorney, social justice advocate, and founding executive director of Intact America, the nation’s most influential organization opposing the U.S. medical industry’s penchant for surgically altering the genitals of male children (“circumcision”). Under her leadership, Intact America has definitively documented tactics used by U.S. doctors and healthcare facilities to pathologize the male foreskin, pressure parents into circumcising their sons, and forcibly retract the foreskins of intact boys, creating potentially lifelong, iatrogenic harm. 

Chapin holds a BA in Anthropology from Barnard College, and a Master’s degree in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University. For 25 years, she served as president and chief executive officer of Hudson Health Plan, a nonprofit Medicaid insurer in New York’s Hudson Valley. Mid-career, she enrolled in an evening law program, where she explored the legal and ethical issues underlying routine male circumcision, a subject that had interested her since witnessing the aftermath of the surgery conducted on her younger brother. She received her Juris Doctor degree from Pace University School of Law in 2003, and was subsequently admitted to the New York Bar. As an adjunct professor, she taught Bioethics and Medicaid and Disability Law at Pace, and Bioethics in Dominican College’s doctoral program for advanced practice nurses.

In 2004, Chapin founded the nonprofit Hudson Center for Health Equity and Quality, a company that designs software and provides consulting services designed to reduce administrative complexities, streamline and integrate data collection and reporting, and enhance access to care for those in need. In 2008, she co-founded Intact America.

Chapin has published many articles and op-ed essays, and has been interviewed on local, national and international television, radio and podcasts about ways the U.S. healthcare system prioritizes profits over people’s basic needs. She cites routine (nontherapeutic) infant circumcision as a prime example of a practice that wastes money and harms boys and the men they will become. This Penis Business: A Memoir is her first book.