Correct, it also must be with the consent of the tattooee(? lol). Within the law there is no possible way for anyone to be tattooed without their knowledge and consent. Piercing is a little different and I'm of the same opinion regarding that where children are concerned. I've seen (and probably tons of you have as well) children as young as 1 with pierced ears and it disgusts me. In fact, now I think about it, it's worse than circumcision since it is 100% purely for aesthetic reasons and any parent doing so should face legal action. Sure the child might be happy about it later and might well have decided to have it done but at such a young age they have no information or experience to make a decision or convey any opinion on the matter regardless of said decision. It's a totally different situation to be fair. Those are elements of pure aesthetics and have no link to medicine or religion. Any parent choosing to have those things you mentioned done is unfit to be a parent, plain and simple.
But if we take away medicine and religion just for a second, then it's tantamount to mutilation. There is no conclusive evidence that not having a foreskin when said foreskin was perfectly healthy gives any medical benefit. Nature decided that foreskins were required after all. Now if the foreskin is going to cause a medical issue, then whip it off. Religion is the sticking point. Just because a tradition is thousands of years old doesn't necessarily mean it shouldn't be constantly questioned, revisited and criticised - as it is being right now. I'm not anti-Semetic, I think that all religions are guilty of strange, archaic practices that need to be evaluated as the human race evolves.
The general issue is that we can't decide if it's a true negative or not. If there is no clear-cut medical damage, then calling it mutilation is semantics of a sort intended to draw a certain response, not unlike PETA. According to the general driving force in medicine, circumcision is a positive thing. The dangers of the procedure must then therefore be A. trivial in comparison or B, far outweighed by the good it can do. An equivocation between FGM and male circumcision is not supported by any amount of evidence. FGM is a practice carried out with the intent to deprive a female of any sexual pleasure and to ritually humiliate her. It is a practice carried out with no medical benefit whatsoever, one that has intentionally designed negative effects and was deliberately designed to subjugate women. There is no logical way to draw a connection between the two of them save that one the surface they both happen to be about the removal of tissue from the genital area. Doctors are on the fence about whether even the "reduces sensitivity" argument is valid. It certainly confers no inability to engage in sexual activities, as certain types of FGM can, nor does it completely obliterate sexual pleasure, as FGM does. Nexxo, as for your comment on waiting till they're 18, I did notice this while studying, and upon asking my son's doctors during our decision-making process, they confirmed that this is what they see as well. According to the numbers, it would be safer to have it done as a child. Also, the observed median risk of serious complications being 0% really raises the question of the credentials of some of the people opposing circumcision on a medical level. Can you die from having a tooth pulled? Sure, but a handful of extreme cases do not define the normative group experience. A parent of a non-Jewish child may still choose to have their child circumcised, because they believe the health benefits have been clearly proven and they are attempting to provide medically for their child (a clear-cut case of an attempt to do right by their children.) The case, medically stated, is that it offers multiple measurable medical benefits, while incurring an extremely minor chance of any side effects. If a Jewish parent wanted their child to be circumcised, they would simply be adding the effect of the mental benefit of the chance of salvation (because circumcision doesn't save you, but it's generally a requirement to gain God's favor under the Mosaic law.) Not only can circumcision be beneficial to the recipient, as stated there are multiple legitimate medical uses for what is removed, and believe me, they never run out of need for graftable skin. When we spent six months living in the hospital with our little boy, we had trouble believing how man burn victims we saw-and those not because we live in the redneck capitol of the world. We saw children who were in traffic accidents, children burned by a brush fire, and one child whose father carried her out of a burning house to safety and had to be cut free of her father. Both survived, though just barely. That use alone would be able to justify it to me. The statements of potential harm by the doctors in the video represent a thought process that lies far outside the mainline view held by doctors around the world. They're considered to be a lunatic fringe, not a valid group with peer-reviewed evidence firmly in hand. What they're doing isn't science, it's scare tactics. We just went through this decision for our little boy. Incidentally, our son also suffers from some of the complications of not having been circumcised, and we're not told it's because we don't take care of him, but that it's simply common to male children who are not circumcised to have a higher incidence of UTIs. We may have to make the decision medically, simply to spare him more infections with an already poor immune system.
I'm with you there. It's healthy for society and a good thing that religion is being scrutinised so much recently, it will help stigmatise practices are inherently harmful which in turn will help reduce the number of people practising them. I'm all for circumcision if it is needed medically, what worries me is parents making the decision to have it done because they think that it is the right thing to do medically without having a detailed knowledge of the pros and cons.
Where do you stand on letting a Rabbi bite off the foreskin? That seems to be a practice in some sects but i'm sure most people would find it abhorrent. If one form of circumcision is permissible because of religious decree then why would some not be? Being a biblical scholar Kayin why does having a foreskin appear to be an issue for Judaism and Islam but not for Christianity?
Those following that practice latched onto an obscure and contested interpretation even in Hebrew. I'd rather see mohels trained medically, as well as tested and equipped with analgesic. Just because I recognize their right to religious freedom and the general harmlessness of circumcision doesn't mean I want to toss it back to the Dark Ages and forgo cleanliness or proper practice. By the same token, I accept others praying for me while I'm sick, but I still seek a doctor's attention. As to the issues with Christianity versus Judaism and Islam on circumcision, Islam finds it good, but not necessary. It's not a commandment of Mohammed, it's a "generally useful/good practice" (that's the best way to translate that word) and the person is often seen as holier. Incidentally, more Muslim men choose that later in life. So the real issue is Judaism and their deal. Circumcision is a symbol of the suzerain treaty they entered into with God. Under this agreement, the suzerain (God) agrees to certain conditions of protection (you will be My people, and I will be your God) in exchange for fealty (you shall have no other gods before Me) and service (love the LORD your God will all your heart, mind and body.) The symbol of this suzerainty is circumcision, and it's considered a prerequisite to acceptance under the suzerain treaty that the Israelites hold with God. A non-Jew male who wishes to convert to Judaism must be circumcised if they are not already. This is before they will be admitted into the group. To call another man uncircumcised is the Hebrew equivalent of throwing a shoe, or the best Western analogy would be the ostracism from calling a person on the street a pedophile. It really goes that far. Christianity believes that the suzerain treaty held by Abraham and his descendants was fulfilled with the perfect sacrifice made by Christ, and so are not bound by Mosaic law. The Noahide laws are commandments to all humanity, as opposed to the agreements made with God's chosen people. With the suzerain treaty fulfilled, we are left with the Noahide laws and the teachings of Christ Himself, though He was pretty explicit about that people should worry more about their hearts than their dicks. Jews, however, reject that Christ was the intended perfect sacrifice, believing in a kingly messiah (Jesus was a priestly messiah, one of the requirements for the kingly messiah to show, but not divine. He is revered as a good teacher but a bit off in the head.) This intended kingly messiah will turn the tide of power back towards them, and usher in a new era of peace. Christian scholars tie the lines in Isaiah referencing this to the accounts of Revelation of the return of Christ. While I tend to agree with that interpretation, I also stand by honestly very little is known. There are some awfully specific prophecies in there, and while they fit the life of Christ, we surely haven't seen the others for later come to pass. (If you make a prophecy broad enough, you can just about be assured it'll happen. The more and more specific it becomes, the less the likelihood of it being true, unless of course you really were a prophet.) It basically comes down to if you believe in Christ's sacrifice, the old covenant was fulfilled and there is a new agreement on more equal terms. If you reject that Christ was the Messiah foretold but still adhere to the tenets of the suzerain treaty then circumcision is a necessary part (though not all) of salvation. I hope you guys appreciate I do all of this with no caffeine any more. I can't even remember the last cup of coffee I had.
Well, there is a clear cut physical damage (even if objectively speaking not very significant, although the owner of the penis may understandably disagree). These positive things could be achieved in less invasive ways however: good hygiene and not screwing around. It is not a necessary procedure, but an elective one. It may be safer, but the issue is one of medical necessity and valid and informed consent. I understand that it is an act of care by loving parents, but the issue remains one of medical necessity and valid and informed consent. There are other ways to obtain graftable skin. Just as we don't sign babies up for blood donation, we should not sign them up for tissue donation. Adults with intact foreskin can always line up at the burns ward if they are feeling that generously inclined.
By the time a young man become sexually active (age 15 and above) he can chose to undergo the procedure once he's 18 years old. Other than that soap and water and no promiscuous behaviour is the best and most prudent approach, not that of cutting of parts of the penis. If health concerns and religious views holds any merit (as you and others seem to believe) then the child, when having become of age, would go ahead with the procedure anyways as a result of having reached the same conclusions in accordance to their own abilities rather than that of having it imposed onto them. No need to impose a procedure if it holds any merit. That's a backwards and cancerous approach. You seem to confuse religious freedom with religious imposition, you then drag in health benefits to further strengthen an already weak argument, mentioning sexual transmitted diseases: which no babies or children would ever be subjected to in the first place.
I think it's pretty clear that there's many more downsides than benefits when it comes to (non-medically necessary) male circumcision. The video posted before was excellent in describing why. Also, just because people who have been circumcised say they still have adequate sexual pleasure doesn't mean they wouldn't have had better pleasure had they had a foreskin intact (I fail to see how you can lose thousands of nerve endings and not be affected adversely, other than people who 'can't lose what they never had'). Nevertheless, the issue is how you then try to reduce this practice, especially considering this is not a general population issue but something specific to a religious group. Do you: a) Ban it totally unless for medical necessity (so no doctor or medical specialist could legally perform them unless for medical urgency) b) Ban it but also encourage the religious leaders and parents to change their stance, because banning circumcisions on infants is in the interests of their children and that going underground or abroad is potentially dangerous. b) Keep it legal but encourage the religious leaders and parents to not have them because it takes away the child's right to choose, could potentially cause them harm, and there's no medical necessity for them to be carried out. Now then, because a total ban would be done with complete lack of consent from the religious communities, who would in all likelihood be opposed to it, AND because you cannot guarantee that it will reduce child circumcisions, because it would potentially be performed illegally or abroad (which could cause more problems for children than if it was left legal), I do not therefore believe a ban is the right way to approach this issue. I can see people supporting a ban using an argument like this: push the issue as a human rights one - kids born in the UK have a right to bodily integrity and circumcising the very instrument which makes them 'male' is a direct violation of this right to bodily integrity (you could argue this is already in the 1998 Human Rights Act). By banning it, many religious parents will either not bother continuing the practice (because of the legal/economic challenges they now face if they want it done), and so circumcisions of young boys is reduced and a message is sent to the religious community that this practice is antithetical to modern human rights (because of advances in science). Over time, the religious community will cease to support this practice, or at least encourage the act to be done when the child can 'consent' at adulthood. Thus, many more male children have been saved from the snip, because the ban is successful in reducing them (because it restricts where they can take place) and because it has influenced the religious community into changing it's position anyway. It sounds like a nice argument, but it fails in my opinion because of how little support it has in the religious community (which is seen when they describe it as the greatest attack on their freedom since the Nazi's), which will inevitably mean they will continue to carry it out but under potentially worse conditions or just fly abroad for the ones who can afford (and if it's not an EU wide ban that means a cheap flight or even train journey for some). Furthermore, if they see this as fundamental to their religion, you just further alienate the religious communities in Europe who are already pee'd off with things like the Burqa ban. They'll just see it as a further encroachment of their religious rights. I know many will just say 'who cares if it stops a child from being snipped?', but when you consider social policy you have to consider all the potential outcomes and unfortunately a ban in law doesn't always mean a ban in reality (as we know all too well about drugs). You just cause more problems for something that can't be stopped unless there's support from the people who carry it out. This is just my opinion of course, and I could be wrong.
And in some cultures it's normal for girls to be married off to respectable men (much older men!) in the community as soon as they come of age at 12 or 13. Making something customary does not make it right. It should be a criminal offence to subject any minor to physical harm. You shouldn't be allowed to piece the ears of a 2yo girl any more than you should be allowed to give a 2yo boy a Prince Albert. You should not be allowed to smash their thumbs with hammers or mutilate their genitalia. No mother should be allowed to stick needles through their babies eyeballs or their ear lobes. It should be just as wrong for me to circumcise my own son as it would be to circumcise a random adult by force. Elective piercing, tattooing, tooth filings, scarifications, circumcisions etc. should all be restricted to medical and self determined cases only. It's bad enough that people in this world have to put their kids through the necessities of elective surgeries to improve / extend their lives of them. Minors should be protected from archaic butchery in the name of fashion, beauty, faith or custom. Disclaimer: I have two young kids, both of which have been through necessary surgeries and only today I was in Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital arranging for my wonderful little girl to have the first of many spinal surgeries she'll be having over the next decade or so. Our family goes through this because we have to. My daughter goes through this because it's the only way she'll grow up free of pain. As a couple we make this choice for her as is right and proper. She's a right little princess and I'm sure she'd love to have her ears pierced (Mine are) but there's no way she's getting it done as I don't have the right to inflict that on her. How many chav parents were getting their little 2yo girls ears pieced in Clare's Accessories while we were in London today? How many little Jewish fellas were having their little fellas hacked about? How many girls out in Africa were having their ******** removed? We can't prevent all that ills with the world, but surely in the 21st century we can stop little babies having bits of their penises cut off?
Who's the "We" who can't decide? My mind is made up. Circumcision for non medical reasons on a minor is ( in my opinion ) of a similar severity to tattooing their face, amputating their little toes or blinding them in one eye. It's wrong. It's cruel. It's only tolerated because it's associated with one of the major western religions. If it was only performed among inhabitants of a small tropical atol there's no way it would be made legal in Europe.
OK, apparently I'm not on the same internet here. The WHO actually says that prophylactic circumcision is a good thing, and has a 0% chance of severe side effect, but it's clearly a bad thing and it's screwed up all the time? Did I miss a memo here? Besides, even if it weren't a religious thing it's something that parents can do to save their child a lot of grief down the road. Doing it at an adult age raises the risk by a nontrivial amount, results in a higher rate of UTI, can raise the chance of penile cancer (the risk drops after the removal of the foreskin, but the chances still accumulate while it is there.) It even helps in the prevention of AIDS (by the logic that has been used on me in the past, there's no reason to expect people to use protection or not be promiscuous.) But all that matters nothing, because someone got butthurt cause they read a study that was retracted about a possibility of somewhat deadened sensation. Oh, and people who practice a religion do it, so it's now automatically bad. By that logic, hey we breathe too-should you stop that? We as parents abrogate the rights of our children in multiple ways that are intended to save them from harm or pain. If given the choice, my son would certainly not agree with all that we have had to put him through because we knew what he could not. We have made decisions that hurt us to watch because we knew it would be beneficial to him overall. We have also denied procedures that would result in dubious outcomes. He didn't get a second G-tube because the first was so messed up that he'll be permanently scarred over almost his entire stomach. We could not in good conscience allow that to happen again. But when we sat down with multiple doctors, all of them urged us to do it, and cited a LOT of medical reasons why (and some are unique to our case.) We elected to wait and see, and sure enough we're running into problems. We did tell them that we could see the merit, but we felt so bad for him at that point another procedure, no matter how simple or routine was more than our hearts could take. They agreed, and we have not yet made an appointment to have it done, but we're seriously considering it because he's already exhibiting signs of trouble. This is less about the religious freedom to do it for me as it is about people choosing to ignore well known and proven benefits to seize upon a few people's issues with religion and self-image. If it bothers you that much it's even reversible. It has been since Roman times at least. We think nothing of removing the tonsils as a prophylactic measure, and that's a lot more involved than this. I hold the opinion that there's nothing I won't do to try and make my son's life easier, because he's gonna have it pretty damn bad. I hold the potential to allow my son to avoid painful and disfiguring issues higher than the slim possibility that somewhere down the road he might be potentially upset about it (if he even realizes he has a penis. We're not guaranteed that.) I'm not saying that everyone should run out and do it right now. We are in a unique position with the other attendant medical issues our son has, and in his case they strongly recommend it, for reasons we didn't have to wait long to see. I recognize that it is your duty to provide for your child as you see fit, and this decision is best left to your child's doctor and you. I just can't agree with the equivocation that a procedure seen by the medical community as positive and safe is somehow horrendous and fraught with a high complication rate because a doctor who isn't highly regarded for his opinion says so. As the procedure by the numbers is safe, a family should let their conscience decide. A family may happen to be Jewish, and yet seek the procedure in a hospital because they are interested in the known benefits of the procedure and not because they wish to "impose their religion on him." If we didn't want to do that, we'd have to have everyone's children taken away and raised by robots, because kids pick up not only what their parents think, but their friends, teachers, extended family, TV, et cetera, ad nauseum. I tried to find a scientific study on dissatisfaction rates, but I couldn't find anything that was a proper study and not something with an agenda to push. But what we're seeing to me appears to be the tail wagging the dog-someone somewhere said it might be true, so it's happening to me. Kind of like the upswing in depression medication when they started advertising it in magazines and on TV. Before that, I don't find any record of issue, because from what I can tell people didn't give it too much thought. I was one of the last mandatory circumcision babies born in my area (my younger brother was not, and he had to undergo it at two years) but I honestly never pay it any mind. I have better things to do than worry about if my dick looks right to other people. My wife is happy, I'm happy, we obviously have a child so it seems pretty damn functional to me. It seems for all the world like someone is intentionally stirring up trouble just for the sake of trouble. BTW, folks, history has proven again and again that you cannot force a change of heart on a religion-at best you get lip service and at worst they destroy your empire and rebuild it in their image. If there is a change, it must come from within, and as the holy books of Judaism, Islam and Christianity were all written thousands of years ago, good luck with that.
I think that we are at risk of losing the rational forest for the emotive trees here. Let's recap. In no way do I subscribe to the views of those who militantly argue against circumcision as some form of serious, high risk mutilation, but neither is it a 100% risk free procedure (100 baby boys a year on the wards at Birmingham Children's Hospital attest to that) and benefits notwithstanding, it is not a necessary procedure. The latter is an important point. Many procedures have benefits and relatively few drawbacks, but that does not mean we should do them. We should, for instance, not remove the breasts of women past child-rearing age. Although the procedure is quite safe (our local hospital does mastectomies as a day operation) and it reduced the risk of breast cancer from 11% (which is a LOT higher than the risk of penile cancer) to 1%, it is generally not a necessary procedure: the vast majority of women live out their natural lives with basically healthy breasts. So even when women want it done as a preventative measure (for reasons of breast cancer anxiety), it is not necessarily offered --even though they are of consenting age. There are other, less invasive ways to manage the risks that circumcision addresses. STD is not going to be an issue until the child reaches age of consent anyway, and penile cancer has a 0.00067% lifetime risk. Religious reasons are not medical reasons, so they don't make the grade when it comes to decision making about medical procedures.
As always thank you for your straightforward and clear explanation. To further my understanding of the issue I have another question? Let's say it was decided that infant religious circumcision was outlawed but at age 16 the individual could legally provide consent and have the procedure. If a Jew died before having the operation does that effect their chances of salvation? Apologies if I have badly worded the religious terminology.
I had my foreskin removed as a baby, the scar left is terrible-all uneven round the end lol!! It has never bothered me, but i wish it was my choice though.
Kayin go back and see the video posted by Malvolio (P5) and watch the part after 29 min. where he essentially picks the research done on HIV prevention completely apart so even the health benefits should be considered dubious including the part saying that it prevents UTI as the parents in that survey was told to retract the foreskin and wash the babies penis with soap, thereby significantly increasing the risk of UTI in the participants with intact foreskin. Essentially these supposed benefits are irrelevant as the question here concerns the right of the individual to decide over their own body and what changes there are to be made, you could remove other parts of the body resulting in health benefits including the appendix but we don't do this because there is no need for it, we also only remove wisdom teeth when and if they are a problem. Kayin I would also like to know of other such procedures that is decided upon healthy children that includes removing a permanent part of a child as I really can't think of any, but I can think of many that are illegal. It is not an attempt to limit your right to practice your religion it is an attempt to limit the ability of others to force a change on someone who has no say in the matter.
Just for the record, I have only been calling it that because I feel it is mutilation if you are doing it without the child's consent and without any clear medical benefit. Oh and I agree with all of your other points
Yes, actually according to them it would. There are multiple instances of corpses being circumcised at the last minute to make them adherent to Jewish law. lp1988, I've addressed that. That person has been generally ostracized for those views, and they do not agree with mainline science. The facts and figures I've cited were from mostly the World Health Organization, and they have no vested interest in a person having a procedure performed because they don't get a dime for any of it. It was even ruled more cost effective than sex education and handing out condoms. Not that I think either should be avoided in areas of high HIV prevalence-I'm not completely stupid. Also, we see a lot of prophylactic tonsillectomies here. Doctors also advocate in families that have a markedly high incidence of breast cancer (I believe it's 3 or more direct relatives) for double radical mastectomy. Things might be different over there, but just getting your tonsils and adenoids out early before they pose a problem still happens a good bit here. Some hospitals still do routine circumcision. I had parts of my knees removed early on because with my severity of knock-knee I wasn't expected to ever be able to run otherwise. Was that true? Dunno, happened before I could walk. Can I run? Well, I could when I was a child. Not well mind you, but I also have hip dysplasia on both sides and ankle and foot deformities. (I know, I'm a bundle of sunshine.) Maybe this is a difference in attitudes between Americans and Europeans. Almost nobody here holds the attitude you guys do, and to be perfectly honest, if you raised the question of would the child want it later everyone, doctors included, would laugh at you. We don't see it that way here. We see it as we do what is in the child's best interest (which I have mentioned multiple times before discussing this with your child's doctor, and proceeding in a sterile environment if you chose to do it) because the child cannot choose what is in their own best interest. Case in point, that knee surgery I told you about. If you all knew how painful that was (and still is) you wouldn't want to choose it for yourself, but at the same time I know now if I hadn't had it I may not have even walked properly. There was a lot of if in there-which is something nobody likes. Guinevere, I completely respect your decision-remember at first we've made the same for our child. We have to live with harsh realities, such as he'll never walk, and a lot of ifs, like will he wear diapers forever or will he ever be able to talk. In fact, in some ways I agree with more of you than you think. But like the statement from the WHO, don't stop a potentially useful procedure from being implemented because someone pitches a fit (with dubious numbers.) It reminds me of the completely stupid flap we had over here over vaccinations, because a freaking celebrity said it might cause autism. Anyone who had the least amount of training in the area knew it wasn't true at all, but man, a celebrity said it. You know those guys are experts in all kinds of stuff, like politics and ethics. I'm sure they know medicine too. But with all the actual health benefits, and the remarkably low rate of complications, allowing a Jewish child to be circumcised (and I would advocate only by a medical professional) doesn't seem to be a big deal for me. For all the kid knows, they might have done it for health reasons-there are lots of kids that get it done because of stuff like phimosis or strictures even when the parents are great at cleaning up the kid. It didn't start with Egyptians for no reason. There's also the rather low attrition rate from Judaism-there's not a whole bunch of people voluntarily leaving the fold. I'm digressing here, but considering the potential fallout from not doing it within that culture (a simple cry of uncircumcised has caused people to lose jobs, be ostracized in the community and have to leave and start elsewhere, as well as the family being barred from synagogue as well) I'm not sure I'd feel good telling them they couldn't, knowing it tore out a core tenet of their religion and barred them from heaven. It's basically legislating that Judaism has to die.
