Is Circumcision Right or Wrong?

[sgtbaker]

I didn't say that very well, I realize. Look, I was so easily embarrassed, that I couldn't even look while I hung up my husband's underwear on the clothesline. I really didn't think I'd be able to teach my boys how to take care of their foreskins. I was just a kid myself.

And I've said I was wrong, so please don't flog me for things I cannot now change.

I have pretty much the same position as you. Not to mention, when my obgyn brought it up, he didn't speak as if this was something parents considered, he spoke as though it's something that parents just did. If I only knew then, I would have made different choices.

 

[Abooga]

Hitchens debating circumscition with a rabbi. Absolutely brilliant!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx_ov2NiNo4

 

[Arcade22]

We had a baby boy recently. I did some research and asked some questions.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has this policy statement on the subject.

Based on the facts presented in that policy statement, along with the shared experiences of an older male relative who was circumcised as an adult, we decided to get our son circumcised (using DPB anesthetic). I watched.

So what happens when your son grows up hating you because you decided to mutilate his penis?

 

[Bram Kaandorp]

So what happens when your son grows up hating you because you decided to mutilate his penis?

"We did it because we love you."

That should suffice to alienate even the most parent-loving of children.

 

[slingblade]

Wow, do you two even have sons?

My boys don't hate me. We've talked about this. And they certainly don't feel mutilated. They feel, in fact, like everyone else in their peer group. They don't know anyone their ages who's uncircumcised, either.

Could you possibly appeal to emotion any more strongly? Because I think I could manage to get even more pissed off than I already am. Go ahead. Try.

 

[Lowpro]

This is as legitimate as Osama Bin Laden giving consent to killing a few Americans. Hmm, or Bush giving consent to killing a few Iraqis.

Can't drink from this well anymore...

That no permanent damage be done to a person´s body until he is of age to decide about it himself.

Well no crap sherlock this idea is obvious, let the person decide for themselves. Only that's not how the situation is EVER handled. An infant will never be able to make a decision because they're an infant. You have to have the parents issue decisions by proxy.

Look this is a stupid argument because we both agree, but you're just toxic to talk to JJM.

 

[I Ratant]

I think you'll find that the Christian insistence on circumcision is unique to just one country.. Outside the US, circumcision is seen as a distinctly Jewish or Islamic tradition, not a Christian one. Circumcision was actually banned by the Catholic church, and I suspect the main reason for the Church's reversal on that stance was that so many of their American members insisted on doing it anyway.

.
I'd never heard of jacking off as anything but a sin, when I was snapping mackerals.
Even the occasional nocturnal emission was a sin.
Since engaging in a regular program of self-abuse, the nocturnals haven't occurred.

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

Wow, do you two even have sons?

My boys don't hate me. We've talked about this. And they certainly don't feel mutilated. They feel, in fact, like everyone else in their peer group. They don't know anyone their ages who's uncircumcised, either.

Could you possibly appeal to emotion any more strongly? Because I think I could manage to get even more pissed off than I already am. Go ahead. Try.

Agreed. What a stupid argument, and I'm not even pro circumcision. I don't know anyone who hates their parents or even cares that they are circumsized. While internet forums tend to light up about this issue, I really don't think it's something most people really care about one way or the other. All the guys I know who I've talked about it with who are circumsized are fine with being circumsized, and all the guys I know who I've talked about it with who aren't circumsized are fine with it too.

You could just as easily say, "Well, what do you do when your kid has to get a circumcision for medical purposes later in life and hates you for not circumsizing him as an infant?"

Your kid could potentially hate you for anything you do. For instance, Arcade, there are posts you've made on this forum that if I was your kid and I read them, I would think you were much worse a person than someone who circumsizes their child.

So what do you do when your kid finds out about your internet posts as an adult and hates you for it? Huh? What are you gonna do then?

 

[Bram Kaandorp]

Wow, do you two even have sons?

My boys don't hate me. We've talked about this. And they certainly don't feel mutilated. They feel, in fact, like everyone else in their peer group. They don't know anyone their ages who's uncircumcised, either.

Could you possibly appeal to emotion any more strongly? Because I think I could manage to get even more pissed off than I already am. Go ahead. Try.

I have no children, but I can imagine that if a son who wasn't happy about his circumcision asks his parents "Why did you do this to me?" (I'm not talking about those sons who don't really care or are happy about it, so don't worry, I'm not talking about you), and the response they get is "because we love you", then it might not go over very well.

It isn't meant as a suggestion, but simply as a remark.

 

[I Ratant]

Lowers the risk of UTI, lowers the risk of carrying certain STDs, eliminates possibility of tearing and other similar problems. Moderate benefit.

PKU test is state mandated; I was not given the actual probabilities of any of the diseases being tested for in order to compare benefits.

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Is lowering the risk from very slight, with a properly cared for member (taught good personal hygiene, and proper selection of partners), to somewhat less than very slight any reason for the mutilation?

 

[slingblade]

I have no children, but I can imagine that if a son who wasn't happy about his circumcision asks his parents "Why did you do this to me?" (I'm not talking about those sons who don't really care or are happy about it, so don't worry, I'm not talking about you), and the response they get is "because we love you", then it might not go over very well.

It isn't meant as a suggestion, but simply as a remark.

Then, thinking critically, do both of us a favor and imagine the son who never brings it up because he isn't fussed by it. And who, when his mother asks him about it one day says, "Well I can't miss what I've never had. Maybe it would have been nice if you'd waited, but then again, I'd have felt like a freak in school, because none of my friends were snipped. So, no, it doesn't bother me."

There. Try imagining that conversation, too. Be fair.

 

[slingblade]

.
Is lowering the risk from very slight, with a properly cared for member (taught good personal hygiene, and proper selection of partners), to somewhat less than very slight any reason for the mutilation?

Go back in time to when I was 19, and my cervical-cancer surviving mother, and both of my obstetricians and my pediatrician, were strongly recommending this to the first-time mother and 19-year-old married girl I was then. Tell me then. Because I wasn't hearing your point of view from anyone, back then.

Go back to when no one had yet heard of HPV, and so my mother thought it was my father's nastiness about his person that almost killed her.

Go back, and deal with these appeals to emotion as well. Then maybe you can see why doing so now for the opposing viewpoint isn't any better an argument.

 

[Bram Kaandorp]

Then, thinking critically, do both of us a favor and imagine the son who never brings it up because he isn't fussed by it. And who, when his mother asks him about it one day says, "Well I can't miss what I've never had. Maybe it would have been nice if you'd waited, but then again, I'd have felt like a freak in school, because none of my friends were snipped. So, no, it doesn't bother me."

There. Try imagining that conversation, too. Be fair.

I have no children, but I can imagine that if a son who wasn't happy about his circumcision asks his parents "Why did you do this to me?" (I'm not talking about those sons who don't really care or are happy about it, so don't worry, I'm not talking about you), and the response they get is "because we love you", then it might not go over very well.

It isn't meant as a suggestion, but simply as a remark.

The highlighted part shows that I can imagine such a conversation, and that I won't bother you about that. If a child is not bothered by his body, why should I tell him he should (unless if he's actively hurting himself of course)? In short, no hard feelings.

What I tried to do was to see how I might react in a situation if I were unhappy about my circumcision (I am not circumcised, hence the thought experiment). I also understand that I will never fully understand the underlying motivations and such, since I live in the Netherlands, where circumcision just isn't as prevalent.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Lowers the risk of UTI, lowers the risk of carrying certain STDs, eliminates possibility of tearing and other similar problems. Moderate benefit.

PKU test is state mandated; I was not given the actual probabilities of any of the diseases being tested for in order to compare benefits.

PKU, I see from Wikipedia, has a US incidence of about 1 in 15,000, and if undiagnosed can result in mental retardation, brain damage and seizures. It also can't be prevented, obviously, by sensible sexual behaviour. UTIs are pretty trivial, causing short-lived discomfort and responding well to antibiotic treatment; they occur in typically 1% of boys, whereas the rate of complications from circumcision is typically 2%, again from Wikipedia. The only "certain STDs" that may have lower transmission rates in circumcised males are HIV and HPV; condoms are vastly more effective at preventing both, as well as most of the ones that circumcision doesn't affect. If you think the two procedures are in any way similar in terms of cost/benefit, then you're fooling yourself; the PKU test offers concrete benefit for minimal short-term and zero long-term cost, whereas on balance the medical profession can't claim that circumcision offers any benefits at all.

Dave

 

[slingblade]

Well, sorry guys, but I've just read post after post about what a foul mother I was and how I deliberately mutilated my children, and it didn't seem that anyone was bothering to understand why or how it might have happened.

One can only read so much of that before one takes off the gloves and comes out swinging.

 

[Bram Kaandorp]

Well, sorry guys, but I've just read post after post about what a foul mother I was and how I deliberately mutilated my children, and it didn't seem that anyone was bothering to understand why or how it might have happened.

One can only read so much of that before one takes off the gloves and comes out swinging.

Have you also read the reasonable posts stating that circumcision can be necessary in some cases? Because they are there.

I don't oppose circumcision in its entirety. I oppose circumcision when there is no direct medical necessity for it.

Cheers

 

[Dave Rogers]

Hey everyone, how's the debate going? I did not expect it to go so far.

From experience, it'll go a great deal further, and after about twenty pages of acrimony nobody will have changed their mind.

Well, sorry guys, but I've just read post after post about what a foul mother I was and how I deliberately mutilated my children, and it didn't seem that anyone was bothering to understand why or how it might have happened.

Slinglade, it seems perfectly clear to me that you made what you honestly believed was the best decision for your children on the basis of the information you had available, and that's the most anyone can ask of any parent. As you say, the information you had wasn't the best, but (a) that's not your fault, and (b) clearly it wasn't a big deal for them.

Circumcision without a specific medical cause, given the information that's currently available, seems to me to be about as minor a wrong as it's possible to do to someone while still negating the possibility of ever putting it right; but, however close to the line it may lie, it seems perfectly clear to me that it's on the wrong side of it.

Dave

 

[Professor Yaffle]

Well, sorry guys, but I've just read post after post about what a foul mother I was and how I deliberately mutilated my children, and it didn't seem that anyone was bothering to understand why or how it might have happened.

One can only read so much of that before one takes off the gloves and comes out swinging.

Sling, there are plenty of us reading who *do* understand (or at least one anyway), but just don't care to get involved in yet another circumcision thread.

 

[Bram Kaandorp]

From experience, it'll go a great deal further, and after about twenty pages of acrimony nobody will have changed their mind.



Slinglade, it seems perfectly clear to me that you made what you honestly believed was the best decision for your children on the basis of the information you had available, and that's the most anyone can ask of any parent. As you say, the information you had wasn't the best, but (a) that's not your fault, and (b) clearly it wasn't a big deal for them.

Circumcision without a specific medical cause, given the information that's currently available, seems to me to be about as minor a wrong as it's possible to do to someone while still negating the possibility of ever putting it right; but, however close to the line it may lie, it seems perfectly clear to me that it's on the wrong side of it.

Dave

Totally seconded. I wish I could put it as elegantly.

 

[slingblade]

So....I can go back to my corner now? Cuz I was happy there.