A PORTLAND, Oregon, mum who tried to circumcise her 3-month old son after reading the Bible, is facing assault and criminal mistreatment charges.
Keemonta Peterson, 29, used box cutters and a pair of pliers in the botched attempt to ritually mutilate the child.
Keemonta Peterson
After the 3-month-old boy suffered two hours of uncontrolled bleeding, she called 911 and the baby was rushed to a hospital where he was initially listed in critical condition. According to this report, the boy appeared to have recovered with no permanent injury.
Peterson told police that she got the idea of circumcising kid from the Bible, then turned to YouTube to watch instruction videos.
According to the prosecutor at Multnomah County Circuit Court, a doctor described the baby’s condition upon arrival at the hospital as life-threatening, and the pain as immense.
Peterson had been locked up since her arrest March 8 and held on $550,000 bail. At a hearing Tuesday, the prosecutor tried to persuade a judge not to make it easier for Peterson to get out of jail pending trial.
But Peterson’s attorney, Scott Raivio, argued her bail should be reduced. His arguments were supported by a Close Street Supervision deputy, who noted Peterson has strong family support and had been attending mental-health counseling three times a week before she was booked in jail.
Judge David Rees lowered Peterson’s bail to $5,000. She posted $500 — the required 10 percent — and was released yesterday to the supervision of the deputy.
She has been allowed to see her four children, who are staying with family members, during supervised visits. A trial is provisionally scheduled for June.
Hat Tip: Daz & Sister Talitha
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
April 13th, 2011 at 9:17 am
The scariest part of this piece? “She has been allowed to see her four children” … the movie “Idiocracy” is looking more and more like prophecy. The most hopeful part? Her son will be able to look at his scars and say “I’m not going to be as damned STUPID as my mother was!”
April 13th, 2011 at 10:08 am
The scariest part is that this woman has 4 children! Crazy believers seem to be out-breeding the saner bit of humanity.
April 13th, 2011 at 10:16 am
The Judiciary should start as it means to go on. How about a arresting the Jewish Mohels and the Islamic equivalents and so irradiate this stupid and barbaric tradition?
April 13th, 2011 at 10:52 am
The agony of that poor child scarcely bears thinking about and over such a length of time. Of course, this is only one of these atrocities that come to light. How many more bible inspired abominations go on every day?
April 13th, 2011 at 11:30 am
As a mother how can she inflict such pain on a baby, she should b protecting her children from harm…throw away the key!
April 13th, 2011 at 12:21 pm
A lack of education plus religion = barbarity!
April 13th, 2011 at 12:28 pm
strange! – she isn’t jewish is she?
April 13th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Why has this woman been singled out? Unless there is a sound medical reason for it, both male and female circumcision should be made illegal.
April 13th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
OregonLive More details emerge about Portland Mom who is accused of trying to circumcise her baby at home
I wonder if there’s a possibility she’s has her head filled with nonsense by Black Hebrew Israelites. Apparently they’re active in Portland.
The Village Voice just did a good article on them, if you’re interested.
http://www.villagevoice.com/20.....-prophets/
April 13th, 2011 at 1:07 pm
Another religious idiot with dead eyes and vacant expression; so many of them look that way. If she got away with this she may have tried FGM on her daughter! I agree there should be a World-wide ban on FGM and MGM with severe penalties for those who perfom this barbarous act.
And another thing: YouTube hosting a diy tutorial, why are they not being told to take this stuff of their site?
April 13th, 2011 at 1:49 pm
@ brian t
idiocracy is possibly one of the most terrifying movies I’ve ever seen, though not as scary as jesus camp.
But yeah circumcision should be banned altogether unless for sound medical reasons and then carried out by a properly trained doctor.
April 13th, 2011 at 3:13 pm
More on child mutilation in the name of an invisible monster that lives in the sky…
http://ovo127.com/2009/10/22/t.....irst-time/
April 13th, 2011 at 6:28 pm
Our god is perfect, infallible and without flaw. Except he just can’t get the hang of genitals, so we have to fix ‘em with the nearest sharp object.
April 13th, 2011 at 6:45 pm
That poor little baby! This is the most depressing article I have ever read on this site. I hope the child is given to someone with an actual heart (or at least half a brain). God forbid this monster of a woman ever raises or touches another child.
April 13th, 2011 at 7:55 pm
At least God is OK with all this…
April 13th, 2011 at 9:04 pm
Reminds me of a Sci-Fi story I read as a teenager (30+ years ago), in which Christian missionaries had arrived on a planet inhabited by simple yet peaceful beings. Years later, when a supply ship returns, the crew find the formerly peaceful beings have adopted crucifixion as a means to prove the sincerity of their new-found belief.
I don’t recall the author or the title of the book. It certainly got me thinking about the unbelievable *harm* that religion has caused throughout history. The harm goes on, as this post shows.
April 13th, 2011 at 10:15 pm
The real warning of this article is that religious belief is dangerous to a forward, progressive and healthy society because normally moral people will do or think immoral things based on their religious belief.
Example: Circumcision is immoral to perform on males. Why? It’s mutilation for one thing. For those who need education, it’s a natural protective sheath to protect the tip of the penis.
Now let’s talk about female circumcision. Most Christians will gasp as the horror of the thought. Yet these same normally moral people (Christians) will act in an immoral way and have their male babies circumcised or claim that male circumcision is medically acceptable and don’t regard it as mutilation.
(We know that some Muslims believe that male and female circumcision is an acceptable form a mutilation for their children based on their religious beliefs.)
I rest my case: Religious belief is dangerous to a forward, progressive and healthy society because normally moral people will do or think immoral things based on their religious belief.
April 13th, 2011 at 10:30 pm
@ Tozza:
The Streets Of Ashkelon by Harry Harrison. The natives crucify a Christian missionary, to test his Bible-stories. That one and Heinlein’s If This Goes On… are the two that got me thinking about the same things.
April 13th, 2011 at 10:31 pm
She did not read it very well as Paul says you don’t gotta do it.
Of course I read the Paul part but it was rough getting ‘ya dont gotta’ out of the weird backward english they use.
April 13th, 2011 at 10:45 pm
Re The Streets Of Ashkelon For anyone interested, it’s available to read in its entirety as a loss-leader for the anthology it’s contained in. Well worth reading.
April 13th, 2011 at 11:17 pm
It would be helpful if stories like this were actually tagged Circumcision.
April 14th, 2011 at 12:09 am
Anyone interested in sci fi with an anti theistic slant should check out “the age of ra” by james lovegrove, it’s about humanist freedom fighters taking on the egyptian gods who have taken over the world, there’s a sequel called “the age of zeus” and another out soon called “the age of odin”.
April 14th, 2011 at 2:03 am
Eric K said:
“For those who need education, it’s a natural protective sheath to protect the tip of the penis.”
It has also been argued by people with better credentials than either of us that it is something that forces us to piss on ourselves unless we are erect. I was informed by my exwife’s physician that since we opted out of circumcision, we would need to pull back the foreskin and clean inside to prevent bacterial and fungal infections.
I understand your point, but, I think you assume that evolution is perfect. It is not, it is a work in process, for example dewclaws in dogs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewclaw
In humans, penis aside, there is the appendix, tonsils, tail bones and a list of others:
http://www.creationinthecrossf.....rgans.html
I would ask all of you, is removal of tonsils to be considered mutilation? I have heard of cases of doctors performing the procedure because they were working in the area and the patient was sedated.
In the case of this mother, I agree with all of you, that religion is the culprit here. She could have pulled back her son’s foreskin and washed inside when she bathed him, and everything would have been fine. It was her interpretation of her fairy guidebook that influenced her to make a stupid mistake. But, I would try to toss her a little bit of mercy until all the facts are known. Desperate people who have superstition in their minds do insane things. Imagine if this ecomonic climate has left her with her back against the wall, and her prayers have not been answered. Perhaps she thought an act of faith would turn it around. Circumcision is elective surgery, and no public program would pay for it, regardless of her circumstances.
I’m surprised that YouTube has a video on do-it-yourself-circumcision. I would think they could be sued.
Regardless of the eyes of the law, I think it’s possible she’s as much a victim as a perpetrator. It’s so much simpler for god, he can just kill ‘em all and sort them out later, freethinkers have to sort this shit out, case by case.
NeoWolfe
April 14th, 2011 at 5:08 am
As long as she isn’t saying horrible things to the kids, there’s nothing wrong with her having supervised visits with them. She’s mentally ill, not evil. Ostracism probably won’t help her.
April 14th, 2011 at 5:29 am
neowolf-no, she couldn’t, and wouldn’t have needed to. The human foreskin does not start to separate to all it to be pulled back until sometime around a child’s fifth birthday. Had she pulled it back to try to clean it she would have caused him much pain, and possible permanent harm.
April 14th, 2011 at 6:34 am
She took a box-cutter and a pair of pliers to her baby son’s penis, then let him bleed and scream for two hours before finally taking him to hospital, and you think she’s a victim!? If she’d done this for any other reason than a religious one, no one would even think such a thing, but oh no!, because religion’s involved, she’s absolved of any responsibility to think for herself. The only things she’s a victim of are her own gullibility and stupidity.
April 14th, 2011 at 12:04 pm
To answer the question above, I have my tonsils and am very glad of them. Unless they start to go wrong they serve an important function fighting disease.
I would put tonsilectomy, circumcision and tooth extraction on the same level. Removing them has both benefits and drawbacks. Sure, you have to wash under your foreskin. This takes twenty seconds in the shower and ten in the bath. Likewise you have to brush your teeth. I knew a woman with dentures who was overjoyed with the extra convenience.
April 14th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
@Daz Thanks. Will re-read The Streets Of Ashkelon via your link.
April 15th, 2011 at 1:54 am
Harry said:
“I would put tonsilectomy, circumcision and tooth extraction on the same level.”
Interesting. Did you know that tonsillitis can be fatal. So can appendicitis. And so can a dental impaction, in fact it was common before antibiotics. And when circumcision results in death, it is because of inadequately trained practisioners without sterile capability.
While it is quite true that tonsils, adnoids, and appendix are all part of the lymph system, there is only clinically unproven anecdotal congecture that removal of any one of them has any long term negative effects. Evolution works through elimination by murder. Do you suppose it’s sending a message to those who are listening?
Modern medicine has eliminated much of natural selection. The inevitable result is the derailing of evolution. But, as soon as you mention the word, eugenics, they call you a Nazi. I guess we’ll have to ride their moral standards to it’s inevitable end, extinction.
NeoWolfe
April 15th, 2011 at 10:25 am
How does the fatality rate of tonsillitis compare to the fatality rate of tonsillectomy? They’re both non-zero.
April 16th, 2011 at 1:04 am
Harry,
True, and as this threadhead testifies, circumcision is a non-zero. But you failed to address my point. That it can be construed, but of course, not proven, that evolution is trying to murder those whose vestigial lymph glands, that no longer serve a purpose, which are trying to function as they originally did.
As well, it could be argued that if everyone with a serious dental impaction died of the infection, eventually human teeth would become better. Maybe not a straight Crest smile, but the weakness would be eliminated. Medical science has interfered with the process, albeit, with the best of intentions.
Conversely, if one assumes that a foreskin is a vestigial feature of human anatomy, cutting it off also interferes with the same process. I don’t have one, so, I can’t testify as to it’s advantages, but, I can say say it worked well for me when I was trolling for sex. Female circumcision on the otherhand denies a woman of EVER enjoying sex, and unlike male circumcision, she is forced forced to piss on her injury. Now, that’s barbaric!!!!
NeoWolfe
April 22nd, 2011 at 1:04 pm
I hope this woman burns in hell, Cause in America we don’t burn our children or cut them up because they don’t know the Bible this is completely ridiculous and this woman should be burned and cut all up for hurting an innocent child……http://freedomist.com/2011/04/.....e-assault/
April 23rd, 2011 at 10:12 am
@neowolfe – blah blah blah blah – sheesh.