http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9349371/Zimbabwe-MPs-get-circumcised-in-Aids-fight.html Interesting
It is, maybe the media in this country would like to provide some ******* evidence to support these stories! Good find though!
Indeed. But I know an even better, pain- and risk-free way of reducing your risk of contracting HIV. Simply be careful who you have sex with, and use a condom.
I've always thought that's a dangerous message to send out. It encourages men to foro the use of a condow once they've had the procedure and i wouldn't be surprised if this led to a rise in HIV infections among females as a result.
I do see your point but while it is something to consider you cannot let it dictate what you do, if you do nothing no change is going to come. In the end it is a judgement as to where the "least" harm is done and what you are willing to pay for change, in my eyes it is well worth it. Just as it is well worth the women who die on a yearly basis because the female version happens in the middle east with broken glass, I am not willing to allow that sort of thing to happen in my country to save these women. It may seem harsh and it is but every time one makes a decision there are consequences and very often lethal ones, every time we decide to act or not to act someone dies somewhere. Of course there are going to be trouble from certain groups and religions have never been happy whenever a change has been forced down their throats, however this will not be the first or the last time the church will have to change according to the will of the people. We have just allowed gay marriages in our churches in Denmark, as we have a "state" religion they are subject to the will of the people, which pisses them right off. But these complaints are to be expected when you remove privileges they previous had regardless of how out of sync they are with the rest of legislation. You do know google is a thing XD http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020298 http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(07)60312-2/fulltext But they should really refer to the specific research they are referencing when writing such articles it cannot be right that the readers has to do all the work
I've sat this out for five pages thus far attempting to gauge reactions. And I almost never do this, but I think the situation merits this. Just what the hell is wrong with all of you? Now, let's quantify what I'm talking about here, as I've just made a rather inflammatory statement. Defining terms is what keeps this from turning into mud-slinging and name calling. I define a very wide difference between FGM and male circumcision. Not the least of the reasons is that FGM is often done in order to ruin the enjoyment of sex for females and keep them subjugated. I'm not a supporter of that by any stretch of the imagination, so that's one down. But the incidence of medical issue arising from circumcision is rather low, unlike FGM as well. Citing medical reason seems a shaky argument (over here, it's normally forced on parents by doctors, citing cleanliness reasons. Sometimes you don't even get the choice.) But what I've seen is people glorying in intentional religious discrimination, many of whom cry foul if anyone with a hint of religion even mentions that they have a belief. Not only that, but it's a really slippery slope here, one that goes right into the state dictating your beliefs (or lack thereof) and outright persecution like Nazi Germany. Is my son circumcised? No. My wife decided not to put him through any more than he had already been through with his groin (he's had three inguinal hernia repairs, and it's still there.) But I will tell you that the hospital handed us a sheaf of paperwork about it and strongly leaned on us to do it. So apparently doctors there and doctors here aren't talking too well. But past that, it is an intentional limitation of freedom of religion-and one that I could pretty much guarantee will result in more people being actually hurt than are now. It's pretty much impossible to stamp out religious practices without killing all of the religion's practitioners. All you're doing is driving the practice underground and breeding resentment for the areas where the law is in place. Rome tried this tack. They got outbred. In a move ostensibly "for the children," you're banning a core practice of Judaism and Islam, one which they will not let go-circumcision is nearly tantamount with salvation. This move basically says "we've just passed a law that says you can't be counted as righteous before God and so you can't go to Heaven." Whether you believe or not is immaterial. Attempts to do things like this before in history never end well. (Those who do not learn from history, after all...) I didn't have my child circumcised, because it's not a religious edict for me. But it is an edict for some, and it's a core belief-you can't have Judaism without it. I seriously doubt people considered that too heavily before signing up for this. But even though this is about things done to others (and over here you would be expected medically to do it anyway, mind) we have a whole bunch of people who have lived by Voltaire's famous words about defending the right to say something I don't like advocating the intentional suppression of someone else's faith. It just doesn't seem right to me. I don't have an issue with you disliking my religious preference. I don't tend to beat people over the head with it, because that's disrespectful. But I wouldn't support a move that removed the freedom for you to practice a core tenet of your way of life, because I wouldn't want the next thing to fall be mine because the precedent was there. For a bunch of people who are going around congratulating each other on how advanced you are, you sure sound like a pack of rednecks telling people to "speak American, cuz we're in 'merica" from my position. (Notice I used "sounds like," because I know you're not rednecks-we all say or do things that can make us seem something different to an outsider. And for the purposes of this conversation, I'm definitely an outsider.) I don't take issue at the idea behind it-having a care about children isn't ever wrong, in my book. It's more how it's implemented and what it means about society as a whole. I'm not a Jew, I've never seen one in real life (I blame where I live) but I can still support their freedom of speech. I'm not Islamic, and while I see the Qur'an as generally dangerous, the peaceful Muslims of the world should have the rights that others enjoy as well. I don't see suicide bombers as freedom of speech. But like the picture I posted of Christians guarding Muslims at prayer, even though they're technically the sworn enemies of Christianity I wouldn't remove their ability to worship so long as it wasn't going out and shooting people to get into heaven. I'll defend their freedom though it could end up costing me my life-killing a Christian is an instant ticket to Heaven, you know. But any time I remove a freedom from another, I leave the door open for someone to take one from me. In closing, I hope I quantified why I was so mystified by your responses cogently, and I'd like to point out that it was the argument I despised, and the people making it are all fully-actualized humans, consisting of many different individual facets and not simply one idea I find distasteful. I don't want to call names, and I don't want to have people think I dislike them now-it's just I see the argument far differently than you do.
Since the argument has persistently come back to religious freedom, I'd just like to reiterate that religion did not play any role in our decision - I am neither Jewish nor Muslim. Nor was religion a factor for any member of my family. We all were given information by our respective doctors (information for and against circumcision), and all of us made our decisions based on the medical information made available to us.
As was my decision for my son. We went into it armed with a lot of conflicting reports, and after forty-some odd surgeries we simply decided that another wasn't worth it. I certainly respect how you did it, but for other people groups it's roughly like attempting to put a bar and lock on the doors to the afterlife. People will not take it lightly.
Yeah, about that: get off your high horse, please? Though I am amazed it took this many posts for Godwin's law to show up First of all, prevention of the quasi-permanent mutilation of an infants body - irrespective of the medical risks - shouldn't be allowable in any modern society no matter how religiously significant it is. But stating that removal of the loose skin covering an infants glans is absolutely different to that of excision of the clitoral hood, ********, and inner ***** is flatly wrong and little more than a way for you to set up a straw-man argument. So whilst I agree with you on principle, that FGM carries different risks to that of MGM (see what I did there?), I would argue that it isn't a fundamentally different act: an adult is still choosing for the child how it's body should be permanently changed through a medical procedure. No matter which gender, mutilating the child's genitalia is still mutilating the child's genitalia, and it is still intrinsically depriving the child the choice of how they want their sexual organs to be treated before they even fully realise they have them. As well, I posit that this is what the argument should be centred around, not if the procedure carries any risk, or if X number of infants die as a result of it (though both are important), as the medical community is still out on if the benefits of circumcision (if there are any) outweigh the risks and downsides. This is not something any of us are qualified to argue over (unless we want to start quoting medical journals and discussing the methodology of the particular studies mentioned), so about about we stick to the reality of it, okay? Insofar as your argument over that whole "religious freedom" thing, well I would direct you towards Joshua 7:15. Would you feel happy about allowing a devout Christian to enact this religious practise? Would you still be ranting about your supposed "religious freedom" over somebody practising Deuteronomy 13:13-19? Should one applaud in a free and just society if Exodus 21:7-11 is followed by a bible-thumping Christian? Maybe we should respect all Middle-Eastern practises in the Western world in an effort to allow for "religious freedom", and violently force all women to be covered head to toe in a sheet? If you are prepared to make a slippery slope argument, realise that it can quite easily be used in either direction. Nobodies religious freedoms are being stomped upon; children's penises are directly not being mutilated by this law. Back down from your religiously-narrowed perspective and look at this from that of a purely secular bent, then see if you still support directly mutilating the genitalia of children without giving them a choice in the matter. Also, I feel it advantageous to nip an argument in the butt before you (or others) mention it: no, children are not "born" believing in their parents religious dogma, they're indoctrinated over an elongated period of time. This is proven time and again through adoption and the children taking on the religious belief of their newly found, non-genetically related parents. Such a fact is not a sleight against your idea of a god, but merely the truth of the matter. Thus I would argue that forcing permanent physical observance of a religious doctrine on those too young to know otherwise is tantamount to any form of physical abuse a parent could engage in towards their child, and should so be illegal - just like most all other forms of direct abuse towards children by the parent. In summary: whilst it is a nice aesthetic and warm fuzzy feeling to allow people to believe whatever in the hell they want to about reality, sometimes reality (oft held aloft by the secular world) has to step in and put the brakes on if those beliefs directly cause harm to another, particularly if the ones being harmed don't otherwise have a voice. Full disclosure: I am not circumcised, the rest of my family is. I've never had the impulse to chop off the loose skin covering my glans, nor do I foresee this thought coming through my mind.
Why not allow FGM freedom of religion is an argument? It's an important cultural and religious ceremony for some sub-saharan religions. Probably more so than in islam where the procedure can wait until puberty.
Well, the thing is, it's not firmly established that circumcision is a bad idea. (I'm gonna have to lean on others' work here, as I'm not a doctor, but I see a LOT of them these days.) This kind of kicks the argument you guys have been using in the teeth-namely, it says the WHO doesn't inherently see anything wrong with it. The term "mutilation" at that point is kind of like calling fish "sea kittens" so people won't eat them. There are statistically proven health benefits, and it's actually recommended in many circumstances. They go on to state that there's no measurable loss of sexual enjoyment (by multiple studies, mind you) but it DOES help prevent HIV transmission. The median complication rates FAR favor neonatal circumcision, with rates rising from the fractions of a digit in many cases to sometimes as much as mid-teens. It also seems to reduce the prevalence of HPV. Scientifically speaking, your argument doesn't have a leg to stand on. All that's left really is the fact that it's associated with religion. And that, of course, makes people really, really angry these days. Never mind that the thing you're railing against might actually have benefits, it's a religious practice, so it needs to go. Who's being logical here? The general stance of the WHO and just about everybody else is that it's a generally good thing, even if not absolutely mandatory (as I found nobody simply recommending it as a general course of action.) If it's generally OK, then shouldn't each person let their conscience be their guide? If it really were some horrible practice (which its gender opposite really is) we would have seen a sea change in the medical field, with it going underground and doctors refusing to touch the subject. Instead, when my son was born, doctors at one of the largest research hospitals in the world told us that even if we weren't planning to do it for religious reasons that we should look at circumcision, because the more studies they do the more positive they seem to find about it. Sure, I had to bring medical journals into it. Without them, we're arguing two opinions without any reason as to why we have them-our argument is because I said so. But the medical journals pretty much state that your view is completely, totally and scientifically verifiably wrong. I looked-I can't find an article that made any unequivocal statement about the danger of the procedure, or of lasting ill effect barring complication of the procedure, which incidentally has an astronomically lower rate of complication than even piercing one's ears. There were some noncommitals, as well as studies that were overturned and studies with conflicting outcomes. One of my child's doctors, when we asked them about it all, said that the moves to stop circumcision were something like deciding to tell people washing hands didn't really kill germs, and to spit to ward off the evil eye instead. I'll be honest-while I'm smart, I don't know everything. I ask my child's doctors all kinds of questions. Sometimes I'm flat wrong, and I learn something. That happens more often than I sometimes get credit for. But I was really surprised by that statement. It made an impression on me. So, as to the concept of "mutilation," we have this-doctors certainly don't use the term. They do advocate usage of an analgesic, which I'm all for. That's it. They do, however, warn new parents not to get their ears pierced. Just for the sake of disclosure, I have 2 00 gauge holes in each earlobe, an orbital piercing (now closed, broke the cartilage in the ear in a fight,) an eyebrow piercing, a lip piercing, a reverse eyebrow piercing. two tattoos, a branding and a magnetic implant. Those offer no medical advantages whatsoever, so they are adornments. I don't wear much in them any more as I am very prone to infections with my immune system failing. I was getting them maybe twice a month, even with scrupulous cleaning-it was the nature of the beast. I have been specifically instructed no more brandings, and if my magnetic implant migrates out I am not to have a new one placed. No piercing for permanent glasses, either. There is significant medical risk to me and no gain whatsoever, save aesthetics. Maybe we should have this argument about getting kids' ears pierced. We'd all be on the same page there, though. You can't have an argument that way. Now, let's pull random verses from the Bible and argue about them. First off, Christianity doesn't observe Mosaic law. This subject has been treated in this forum before. It was Nexxo himself that stated that the saving grace of Christianity is Jesus. So already, you're grasping for straws, but let's deal with them anyway. In Joshua, there is a strict commandment to not steal from the temple. Even if there's no God, and you simply use that temple to control the people, the implication here is clear. First, we set a penalty so bad we scare most people from doing it. This is tribalism, it worked real well then. If someone is dumb enough to do it, we make sure there's an example, so the whole society doesn't flip its collective **** and ransack the temple. We aren't talking a very advanced society yet, after all. In Deuteronomy, you know, if I were God, I'd have big flashing statues of me placed everywhere so you'd KNOW who was in charge. But God doesn't do that. But if you look at the issues concerning conversion in hunter-gatherer, early agricultural and tribal/feudal societies, you'd notice that new religions are really disruptive. In fact, they destroy villages, often leaving the land without the necessary ability to support the people left behind. Pyrrhic victories. If you are the God of a people group, and your goal is propagation of that people group, this is about the only way to preserve that people group. It is noted elsewhere that any person may join with the Hebrews, so they have other choices. While I'm not sure I would do it, honestly given about how advanced people were then it makes sense. As for the passage from Exodus, while we don't have slaves any more, slavery was a part of normal life. We also can't sell each other off, but back then it was a common thing to pay off debts. The rather complex system of Jubilee as well as the layers of laws around taking care of slaves are basically a concession to the realities of life then. Apparently I can't stop you from taking slaves, but I can at least tell you not to mistreat them. Compared to any of their neighbors, this is the life of luxury. A Canaanite sold in similar matter would be worked to death, often used for the master's pleasure and then tossed aside when he saw someone better. Life was short, brutal, and dirty for a slave. But the Jews instead are told to take care of their slaves, and that if you take one cause you like her, congrats you're married, and you owe her the debts of marriage. Now she's your wife, and have fun with that, because that's what you wanted. The concept of multiple marriages is covered in various and sundry other parts of the Bible, but one of the most important quotes is when Jesus reminds them that Moses only permitted divorce among the Hebrews because he couldn't get them to stop any other way. Humans are fickle like that. If you have more rebuttals, I'll get to them in the morning. I take more and more pills for everything, and they make things tougher and tougher as the day wears on. I'm on the opposite side of the world from most of you, after all.
Mutilation, as per definition, is the correct term for a procedure that alters the physical form that can be argued (from certain perspectives) to be aesthetically displeasing and detrimental to the body. So using it is not a bait-and-switch tactic to make it sound worse than it is. You love straw-man arguments, don't you? Anyway, onto the point: even if it does have some health benefits, there is no medically viable reason to preform surgery on most infants, religion or no. If you are going to argue from the point of "Some studies have found it has minor benefits, maybe, so let's let anybody force their newly born child through it!", then why not argue for the institutionalized removal of everybody's tonsils? Using anecdotal evidence, given the fact that I had severe trouble with mine when I was younger and required having them removed, and yet show no determinable detriment from it, then parents should be advised to force their child through a medical procedure to remove a seemingly benign body part. This is an absurd view point to take, and one which stands on equal grounds to that of circumcision. The only difference is that one happens to be unfortunately tied to religious dogma. From a purely secular perspective (which is what I was arguing from - though how you construed that into hating the Jewish and Islamic faiths, I don't know) parents should not be allowed to preform unnecessary medical procedures on their children. It doesn't matter what the reasoning: if it isn't medically necessary, then it is for aesthetic purposes and therefore is child abuse. The below is very quite graphic, but covers a lot of the points we are talking about, and is backed by a large group of medical professionals, research, and has absolutely no religious overtones.
Firstly don't quote the Bible, it has nothing to do with this. I read through the Wikipedia link that you posted, it doesn't appear to draw the same conclusion as you. It states that circumcision is a cost effective and viable solution to aids infection rates in sub Sahara Africa. Are we really reading the same Wikipedia article? Did you get to the bit about psychological effects of circumcision? And you have no right to adopt such a self-righteous tone, your post is very condescending.
Let's not get into interpretations of how people meant to come across, everybody. We're all just passionate debaters. Let's keep it civil. @Kayin: I don't think anyone is arguing against religious freedom (well, I'm not anyway). I think we are arguing, essentially, against religious imposition. The child is not given a choice to opt in or opt out of a bodily modification of a rather intimate nature, that will be permanent long after this child possibly changes its mind about the religious beliefs it embraces. Most religions have some rite of passage around puberty in recognition of the fact that a child cannot really choose its faith. Even that seems rather early to make a free and informed choice, although I acknowledge that back in the day one would have been considered a young adult. Perhaps nowadays circumcision should be a religious choice made at age 18 (nothing says commitment like having a piece cut off your junk). In short, if Jews, Muslims and assorted Christians want to practice circumcision that's fine with me --as long as the person is old enough to give valid and informed consent. Beyond that medical rules apply and such interventions should only take place if there is a clear medical reason for doing so. I'm sure that in the US some doctors feel really strongly about this, but benefits have to be weighed against risk and against alternatives (good personal hygiene and non-promiscuous sexual practices being obvious ones. I mean, people can die of a tooth infection raging out of control but we don't pull out all our teeth in response --we simply brush regularly) and theirs being a private health service I cannot help but wondering whether they just like to keep a nice little source of income going --about $700,-- per procedure, apparently adding up to a nation-wide yearly business of $500 million.
Are not Jewish baby boys circumcised on their eighth day of their lives, in the home, by a designated practicising Jew rather than by a medical professional? In which case how would any prohibition be enforced in these cases? Also, how is the practise of religious circumcision any different than branding/tattooing/piercing for example? Jewish boys are circumcised an an outward symbol of their connection to God, which however you cut it (sorry) is tantamount to permanent alteration of said person's physical appearance. Just to counter my own argument, I'd far rather a boy be circumcised in week two of his life and then be brought up in a loving, caring home than be left uncut then abused or mistreated in a dysfunctional home. There are worse things that can happen to a child.
Because tattooing/branding/piercing is a concious choice made by the individual based on their own viewpoints and wishes.
Sorry, just to clarify what I meant, how is the parent's choice to remove a boy's foreskin any different to the parent's choice to brand/tattoo/pierce said boy instead? Or cut off one of his toes? In my opinion tattooing is less destructive (although one could argue just as permanent), yet I believe it is restricted by law to over 18s at least in the UK...
I think he means when parents get their daughters/sons ears pierced/tattooed or whatever. They're still a minor and thus can't really decide for themselves over these issues. In some cultures, like in Spain or Latin America, it is customary for the parents to pierce their daughters ears when they're very young (still a baby).
