naturalplastic wrote:
Which comes back to my point--if it does no demonstrable harm, why interfere?
Ya mean in the vast universe of "peer reviewed data" that shows dramatically that there are no health benifits you are able to cherry pick a few that show the opposite? Where did you find this fringe stuff to cherry pick for "believing in"?
I didnt say that I advocate interfering with it.Im not arguing one or the other. Im comenting on the nonsensical way that you are arguing it. I didnt say you should stop people from doing dumb useless irrational stuff. Im saying call a spade a spade.
My point is: dont talk nonsense and portray the decision to have your kid circumcised as being the result balanced rational options. Its done for irrational emotional symbolic reasons only. The alledged 'health benifits' (even if they really existed) are after the fact rationalizations to justify a cultural practice that exists for purely symbolic reasons.
There is only one alledged health benifit that Ive every heard of: the 'smegma' that collects on uncircumcised penis supposidly causes cancer. Theyve injected smegma into human prisoners-and the prisoners never get cancer from it. So the only real alledged benifit of the practice is proven to be a myth. So there are no benifits (slight risks, but no benifits) End of story.[/quote]
We've had this argument before, naturalplastic. My point has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not parents' decisions on circumcision are based on consideration of rational options. I have maintained for decades that there is no demonstrable medical reason for or against infant male circumcision. My argument is that if you cannot demonstrate harm, then why interfere? What's so hard about that?
Now there are posters who posit that consent and security of the person are relevant. However, I take the view that these all fall squarely within a parent's ambit of discretion. Parents have full authority to exercise consent on behalf of their infant children, and are required to keep the security of the person within their decision making. But parents are not required to exercise perfect judgement. Parents make mistakes and they are excused for that, provided that their conduct was reasonable.
Where there is a compelling cultural reason to circumcise a male infant, I can see absolutely no reason to interfere with that, unless circumcision is medically contraindicated. Where there is no compelling cultural reason, then I think that the argument becomes less clear--but my position is almost always, where ambiguity exists, then discretion ought not properly to be restrained.
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--James
24 May 2014, 10:23 pm
