Foreskin fixation - circumcision in the courts.

[marplots]

I understand that you don't consider the evidence to be compelling enough but I'm thinking that since you don't know yet what evidence would be in fact enough, you won't ever find it.

Or I might find it tomorrow. It works both ways.

Should I clarify again? I'm not pro-circumcision, I'm just not anti. Unless it's either or.

 

[332nd]

Because being a vegan is part of my cultural identity.

Knowing BBQ is part of mine... Neither requires cutting off a body part & causing pain.

 

[marplots]

This is more evasive relativist nonsense. Of course they're rational concepts; they're the only possible rational concepts available. Objectively, are we all individuals with individual agency and autonomy? Is that a fact that exists, or not? If the former, then we can rationally debate what is good or bad for the individual. If the latter; then there is no possibility of rational debate, since everything is merely elaborate justification of individual preference and privilege.

Fortunately for the rest of use, the evidence is strong that humans are discrete individuals, with individual agency and autonomy; and can thus be discussed rationally.

I don't think babies have either autonomy or agency. Their parents do.

Marplots
Surely, if it truly were about medical consequences, and those consequences were clearly adverse, it wouldn't have the support of the relevant medical discipline.

History has repeatedly proven this to be profoundly untrue. Your refusal to acknowledge this doesn't change the fact that youa re demonstrably wrong. The history of the Eugenics movement is more than ample refutation of your assertion.

Interesting. When presented with statements from the relevant professionals endorsing the procedure, you bring up science failures as a counter. I have heard such arguments before. The archetype goes like this:
"I disagree with what science tells me this time, so science must be as wrong as they were these other times."

Someone needs to set these experts straight.

 

[marplots]

Going by previous posts in this and other threads, marsplots has consistently denied even the possibility of objective evidence; preferring to cast everything in the light of post-modernist relativism, which denies the existence of objectivity, or at least human capacity to objective rationality; and attempts to paint everything as individual preference and groupthink. You didn't come to a decision based on objective facts and preponderance of evidence, your change of culture influenced you to change your worldview to adapt and conform to your new cultural milieu. Neither position is more objectively "true" than the other.

I think this thread is a perfect example of a failure to achieve an objective stance in a situation that is unclear, even if emotionally compelling.

 

[marplots]

Knowing BBQ is part of mine... Neither requires cutting off a body part & causing pain.

That depends on what you are BBQing. It wouldn't be an individual without a developed sense of autonomy and agency would it? That's right out.

On the other hand, if it's a pig or some other farm animal that has all the decisions made on its behalf by a thinking, rational and competent human adult, that's fine.

 

[marplots]

Clear and compelling only if you ignore the actual results; and the fact that it has been refuted in many respects. To start with, although the study did find a difference in the rate of penile cancer, the difference is statistically insignificant, and IIRC the margin for error was an order of magnitude higher than the actual difference. The part dealing with UTIs did not adequately control for differences in hygiene practices; and the difference is only significant in places and conditions where normal hygiene is difficult to maintain (eg. desert environments). I've briefly touched on the glaring flaws with the STD study earlier in this thread.

Consider it from my point of view for a moment. I don't see the automatic harm in body modification for cultural purposes. I also don't find any glaring long-term medical harm. When I look into it just a bit, I do find both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists endorse the practice, not just once but after two reviews of the scientific literature by committees, almost a decade apart. Am I to think the pediatricians have been misled by the anti-foreskin lobby?

Now, it may be that circumcision is a terrible thing - I grant the possibility. But I just don't see how you think I'm being other than a neutral party here.

I don't care if no one ever gets a circumcision again. I also don't see any compelling reason to disallow it. I'd feel the same way if pediatricians wanted to start doing after-birth appendectomies, or removing whatever cell tissue would eventually become wisdom teeth - given similar circumstances, to wit: they've looked at the reasons for and against and have input from the parents.

And I have another bias to add to the mix. I don't see anything in particular that is sacrosanct about human tissue or the body as it is currently laid out.

 

[3point14]

And I have another bias to add to the mix. I don't see anything in particular that is sacrosanct about human tissue or the body as it is currently laid out.

Could I get your opinion on FGM?

Do you consider it just another cultural thing that's entirely a decision of the parents of the child?

 

[marplots]

Could I get your opinion on FGM?

Do you consider it just another cultural thing that's entirely a decision of the parents of the child?

I had to read Wiki on it. This is my first reaction.

I can't tell. It sounds grim, but I'm not embedded in a culture that practices it. They say it's illegal in "most" of the countries where it's practiced. They mention that some women feel quite positive about having it done. Apparently there are several types, and doctors are involved in at least some of the procedures (the less traumatic type I).

So, while emotionally I react with disgust, it's hard to say I'd prevent them from doing something they want so much, in service to my own squeamishness. WHO comes down solidly against it, so there's that.

If the procedure were offered for my newborn daughter, I'd fight mightily to resist.

If all that seems waffly, it's because I'm expressing how I feel in more-or-less real time. It's not easy to set aside ones emotions and cultural biases with such stuff. I probably won't ever manage it.

Let me ask you. Would you allow a young woman (say 15 or 16) promised in marriage (who was now intact) to have the procedure done if she wanted it?

 

[The Norseman]

Going by previous posts in this and other threads, marsplots has consistently denied even the possibility of objective evidence; preferring to cast everything in the light of post-modernist relativism, which denies the existence of objectivity, or at least human capacity to objective rationality; and attempts to paint everything as individual preference and groupthink. You didn't come to a decision based on objective facts and preponderance of evidence, your change of culture influenced you to change your worldview to adapt and conform to your new cultural milieu. Neither position is more objectively "true" than the other.

Ah, okay, that helps. I've read other circumcision threads here and I don't remember them well enough to take that history in account.

Or I might find it tomorrow. It works both ways.

Does it though? If you don't know what that vital convincing data is, how then will you know when it comes along tomorrow?

Should I clarify again? I'm not pro-circumcision, I'm just not anti. Unless it's either or.

Okay, your default is "do what society/culture does" but "leave people alone until they can make their own decision" isn't enough to overcome your culture in this respect. I was born and raised in the US, too. My parents had me circumcised, too. I still think that "don't cut people's bits off unless medically necessary or you're an adult" outweighs my cultural biases for routine circumcision.

And I have another bias to add to the mix. I don't see anything in particular that is sacrosanct about human tissue or the body as it is currently laid out.

Any surgical procedure carries additional risk over that of leaving well enough alone. Why risk it based on outdated cultural values?

 

[marplots]

Does it though? If you don't know what that vital convincing data is, how then will you know when it comes along tomorrow?

I'll know because I'll have changed my stance. That's how we always find out what convinces us. We get convinced and then see how it happened.

 

[luchog]

I don't think babies have either autonomy or agency. Their parents do.

So babies aren't actually fully human, they're just sub-human tissue? When do babies become fully human, in your world, and gain human autonomy and agency? Does this apply to all babies equally? Or are there different lines for different people, say, those with developmental disorders, or for different classes or ethnic groups?

I think that is where the fundamental disconnect is, since I and most of us here appear to consider them fully human, and subject to all the rights thereof. The fact that their agency is not fully developed requires that parents supply their own, overriding the child's agency and autonomy on a limited and temporary basis, but only when doing so is in the best interests of the child's life and health.

Any other way opens the door for infanticide, abuse, enslavement, and numerous other atrocities. And before you get all dismissive again, and pronouncing slippery-slope fallacies, history has provided numerous examples of these exact problems. Hell, there are enough of these still existing in the modern world.

And I have another bias to add to the mix. I don't see anything in particular that is sacrosanct about human tissue or the body as it is currently laid out.

And yet again, you're deflecting and demonizing by imputing motives that don't exist. Care to point out where anyone made this claim?

Again, since you seem to have trouble grasping it, it has nothing to do with human tissue or the human body as it is; it is strictly about individual autonomy and agency, the rights of humans to have control over what happens to their own bodies and lives, as long as they do not infringe on the equal rights of others. It's the most fundamental of human rights. I'm having difficulty understanding why you seem unable to grasp that; and have to constantly resort to manufacturing motives that don't exist.

 

[marplots]

And I have another bias to add to the mix. I don't see anything in particular that is sacrosanct about human tissue or the body as it is currently laid out.

And yet again, you're deflecting and demonizing by imputing motives that don't exist. Care to point out where anyone made this claim?

I just did. You quoted me making it. Is it a straw man if I'm offering information about my own bias? Strange.

Again, since you seem to have trouble grasping it, it has nothing to do with human tissue or the human body as it is; it is strictly about individual autonomy and agency, the rights of humans to have control over what happens to their own bodies and lives, as long as they do not infringe on the equal rights of others. It's the most fundamental of human rights. I'm having difficulty understanding why you seem unable to grasp that; and have to constantly resort to manufacturing motives that don't exist.

I think I understand that. But babies don't have autonomy and agency, do they? I assumed we agreed on this. If we don't, my apologies.

If you think "individual autonomy and agency, the rights of humans to have control over what happens to their own bodies and lives" is applicable to infants, I'd like to understand exactly how. Maybe I am just confused by the language.

As far as I can tell, the only autonomy and agency being interfered with is the parents'. At least it would be if circumcision were disallowed.

 

[Seismosaurus]

I don't know the answer. And that's a serious answer, I really don't know.

It's also kind of a horrific one.

The questions assume, without merit, that "these things are like that thing"

No, it really doesn't. Chopping off body parts is just that.

If the counterargument is about other cultural practices which we may jointly dislike, how does that advance the conversation about this cultural practice?

The point is that it's NOT simply a cultural practice. That's just the excuse being used for doing something horrific and then pretending that it's not.

There is one cultural practice I have said I support broadly: a caring parent making a decision for their child, with the guidance and support of a medical practitioner. Isn't that enough?

No, it absolutely is not. Not if that caring parent and medical practitioner arrive at the conclusion that mutilating the child is a good idea. In fact I'd go so far as to say that you are by definition not a caring parent if you make that decision, any more than a parent who wanted to mutilate their child in other ways could truly be called a caring parent.

Here's a hypothetical in return. How would you feel about circumcision if you were a faithful Muslim in a Muslim country, were circumcised yourself and everyone around you was as well?

I would be utterly forlorn that my parents were such heartless bastards that they would put their religion ahead of the welfare of their child. Or that they had been conned into mutilating my body for spurious reasons handed out by a medical practitioner who should have been struck off for abusing his patients.

That's rhetorical, because I put it to you that, unless you were such a person, you'd have no idea of how you'd feel about it.

Pretty sure I do. But assuming you're correct... what of it? If I was a different person then perhaps I'd think differently... so? If I thought that way, I'd be wrong.

It's no different to saying that I shouldn't condemn murder because if I'd had the right kind of childhood - abusive, etc - then I might have turned out to be a murderer. I suspect not, but even if I grant it... so what? If I'd turned out to be a murderer then that doesn't demonstrate that murder is something that we should shrug off as just something some people do and some people don't.

 

[Edx]

The quality of the pro-circumcision position folks...

 

[ddt]

Interesting. When presented with statements from the relevant professionals endorsing the procedure, you bring up science failures as a counter. I have heard such arguments before. The archetype goes like this:
"I disagree with what science tells me this time, so science must be as wrong as they were these other times."

Have you noticed that those statements were all from US American medical associations? Now try to find such a statement from a Canadian association, or a British or an Australian association - countries where circumcision once was popular too - or a continental European association (where circumcision has never been popular outside of Judaism).

Someone needs to set these experts straight.

Probably, yes. Circumcision, in the US, is a solution looking for a problem. First it was promoted because it would curb masturbation (ooh, evil!), around 1900. Then, when masturbation was no longer taboo, UTI became the "problem" to be solved, and now we've turned to HIV, with flawed studies from Africa which, even if true, would not apply to the US.

 

[Butter!]

I didn't even know there was a circumcision debate until recent years. It was so normalized, it never even occurred to me to question it. Then I looked into it, and lo and behold. It does seem like there aren't actually too many compelling reasons to circumcise a child without a medical complication, and plenty of solid reasons NOT to do it. Add on top of that concerns about bodily autonomy (yes, parents make decisions for their kids all the time, but this is an irreversible, permanent, and frankly unnecessary medical procedure - the line must be drawn somewhere, this might be a good place to start), and it's safe to say I've pretty much changed my position on the issue.

Aesthetically, circumcised knobs are more pleasing to me, but that's no kind of reason to perpetuate the "tradition." And I suspect they're only more pleasing to my eye because they're what I'm used to encountering. So if I ever have a male child, I will leave the decision up to him. Four years ago, I'd have let them snip him without a second thought, thinking it's just "what people do."

Thank goodness for all the information we can access nowadays.

 

[The Norseman]

I didn't even know there was a circumcision debate until recent years. It was so normalized, it never even occurred to me to question it. Then I looked into it, and lo and behold. It does seem like there aren't actually too many compelling reasons to circumcise a child without a medical complication, and plenty of solid reasons NOT to do it. Add on top of that concerns about bodily autonomy (yes, parents make decisions for their kids all the time, but this is an irreversible, permanent, and frankly unnecessary medical procedure - the line must be drawn somewhere, this might be a good place to start), and it's safe to say I've pretty much changed my position on the issue.

Aesthetically, circumcised knobs are more pleasing to me, but that's no kind of reason to perpetuate the "tradition." And I suspect they're only more pleasing to my eye because they're what I'm used to encountering. So if I ever have a male child, I will leave the decision up to him. Four years ago, I'd have let them snip him without a second thought, thinking it's just "what people do."

Thank goodness for all the information we can access nowadays.

Yay! Welcome back!