Baby Mario was born this summer in a South Miami, Florida, hospital. Due to complications (some type of infection), baby Mario was in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for ten days. While in the hospital, Mario's mother Vera Delgado explicitly and repeatedly told the hospital staff that she did not want her son circumcised. She refused to sign the consent form for the circumcision surgery.

Despite all this, Mario was circumcised. On the eighth day of Mario's stay in the NICU and after Vera Delgado left her son's side to go home and shower, a doctor removed baby Mario from the NICU and circumcised him. Without consent. Without the parents being present. Without consideration that the infant was in the NICU and should not have to undure the stress of circumcision surgery.

It is 3 in the morning. The room is dark except for a sliver of light leaking in through the partially closed door. Other than the bustle of the floor nurses leaking in through the door, it is quiet in the hospital room.

Paul had his ninetieth birthday a month ago. Four months earlier he was a vibrant old man. He walked about two miles a day with a friend. An extrovert, Paul talked to everyone that he met as he wandered. He woke up one morning complaning that his right leg was not working. It hurt when he tried straightening it, and it would not move as well as it had. Shortly after waking Paul showed the classic signs of a stroke: one side of his face went slack, he could not talk and he was slurring his words, and he was very confused. We rushed him to the hospital.

A week later he went into a rehab facility. A month and a half later he finally came home. No longer could he wander about visiting his friends. He could barely maneuver with a walker. With three hours a day of physical therapy, Paul slowly regained some of what he lost, but he was wore out from the exertion.