Male circumcision

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[quote="hanyo"

That is different because that isn't mutilation. Poking a little hole is different than cutting parts off.

.[/quote]

Horsefeathers!

It is only the foreskin that is trimmed. The main shaft of the organ is in no way cut off. And sexual function is not impaired. Look at the size of Ultra Orthodox Jewish families. Orthodox Jews raise football teams, not families. And because of the laws pertaining to the female period, the patriarch is on top of his missus two solid weeks out of very months. Rabbi Minsky Pinsky can give the Rebitzen six and half or seven inches of the law of God (be fruitful and multiply) often, especially on the Sabbath. For the other two weeks it is hands off and no hanky panky. So sexual function is not diminished nor is reproductive effectiveness.

And the tool is clean and shiny. No smegma.

ruveyn

It's still mutilation and shouldn't be done until the person it is done to is old enough to consent to it. At that point they can do whatever strange body modifications they want.

You can always chop it off later but you can't really put it back on.

Last edited by hanyo on 25 Oct 2011, 8:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

A Jewish revolt in America would be highly amusing, but times and attitudes are different now, there will be no revolt. The current generation are mostly closeted atheists or identify as "culturally Jewish" (they are after all at the higher end of the intelligence distribution). When the law comes down there will be a few angry rabbis, but noone will really give a s**t. I expect the Muslims to react more angrily but the atmosphere in America being what it is, that will probably only strengthen the ban, in fact it might make circumcision very uncool.

Parental rights over their child is a tricky subject to get around I know. Should a parent have a right to decide what vaccines to give their children? What if the child then catches a preventable disease and dies? Did the parent abuse that child? It's not a clear cut yes/no answer.

When it comes to circumcision it seems a rather easy distinction. Let's assume that the health benefits are all true and are not fabricated or blown out of proportion by pro-circumcision activists (almost entirely circumcised men in denial).
-- Is the child likely to get penile cancer between the age of consent and birth? No. The chances are miniscule.
-- Is the child likely to be having unprotected sex with someone who is HIV positive between the age of consent and birth? No. (If yes, that kid needs to be put into foster care).
-- Is cleaning and appearance a good reason to perform a medical procedure. Sure, why not. Is it right to choose for the child? No. What if I think a large scar across my child's face would look cool?

Came across another pro-circumcision fact, urinary tract infections are less common in circumcised men. I thought, ah a real tangible benefit (not that I've ever had one fortunately). Hehe scrolled to the bottom of the page to read the footnote, "Proper hygiene gives just as much protection against urinary tract infections and swelling". Guess that one's out of the window.

Can't be bothered to list risks/complications and decreased sexual function stuff again. Nor the benefits of retaining ones foreskin. There is no good reason to irreversibly circumcise a child, when the procedure can be done later in life with the man's consent.

No revolt. Just short boat ride out to the S.S. Mohel heaving to just outside the jurisdictional limit of the U.S. Jews are not going to take a prohibition on circumcision lying down. If necessary they will take a short boat ride when their infant boy is 8 days old. The sea air will put him fast asleep, just the thing for the procedure.

History has taught a stark lesson: don't f**k with the Jews. Sampson taught that to the Phillistines.

ruveyn

There is no chop it off. The length of the tool is left intact.

ruveyn

It's still mutilation. They are cutting part of it off. If it wasn't supposed to be there it wouldn't have grown there.

I guess we should give up removal of the appendix, tonsils and adenoids not to say anything of warts, wattles and jowls.

It is not mutilation. It is improvement. The trimmed tool can stay up long and stronger than its untrimmed counterpart. The ladies should be pleased. Less premature ejaculation. And... no smegma.

ruveyn

Then we can change the laws to say a circumcision is evidence of past abuse and separate the adults from their children. I think that would more or less put a stop to it.

Not even close to being comparable. All of those are reactionary procedures and no one who's posted so far is against circumcision when it's in response to a medical issue.


All patently false except perhaps less premature ejaculation due to reduced sensitivity and for the last time smegma is only an issue when there is a general lack of personal hygiene.

Trawling through studies now, the data and conclusions are all over the place, it really is a mess. The studies will have you believing a circumcised penis is anything from a super-penis to a dried up worthless husk of a penis. Unsurprisingly there seems to be MASSIVE bias on both sides.

With regards to premature ejaculation, circumcised men apparently last an average of 0.7 minutes longer. Woo. Not really worth the loss of sensation though in my book. Still shouldn't do it to infants.

I support it.

For an adult, the procedure is more complicated and more painful. With infants, the circulatory structure of the foreskin and the shaft is not well developed and pain sensitivity is less. For adults there is more bleeding, more discomfort and more chance of infection. There are some medical conditions in which removal of the foreskin is indicated (these are theraputic circumcisions, rather than preventive or ceremonial circumcisions). Jews and Muslims (later on, based on the Jewish views) have been doing the procedure for thousands of years. If it was as bad as its critics imply, it would have been abandoned.

People should mind their own business.

ruveyn

Arbitrary rituals are an integral part of religion, you should know this. Tradition is a poor excuse for upholding barbaric practices.


An ironic statement considering your support of forced mutilation on infants.

Let's assume that's true, what if the child grows up and dislikes being circumcised, there's no going back for him, (until they grow fully functional foreskins on the backs of mice or something). Was it really right for his parents to choose for him?

Oh please, at worst we have sexual mutilation of children on a massive scale. We should not mind our own business, we should, can and will intervene in the near future, just as was was done for women. There will be whiners, people coming up with ridiculous arguments, like looks and cleanliness (exactly what happened for female circumcision, men piped up saying they preferred how circumcised women looked). But in 50 years time, we'll look back in disgust at our antics.

Neither is prevention of breast cancer and it is not best practice to surgically remove the breast tissue of all young women so that is a poor argument.

I have just read of complications of male circumcision, skin bridges and penile adhesions. So many men have to have follow up procedures over the years to correct things later on.

People are hoisting all sorts of canards in this debate, so perhaps we all need to take a step back and consider the extremism of our points of view.

So let's set out some facts on which I hope we can agree.

1) This debate excludes medically necessary circumcision.
2) Roughly one billion men on this planet are circumcised. They continue to enjoy healthy sex lives, with no apparent deficit. So, too, do the roughtly two and a half billion men who are not circumcised. There is no clinically significant impact of male circumcision on the sexual function of men who undergo the procedure for non-medical reasons, whether neonatally or as adults.
3) There are men who resent the loss of their prepuces and some of them present psychological symptoms as a result. There are men who present physical defects that are a direct result of improperly performed circumcisions. The frequency of these presentations is small--these men form a small minority of circumcised men.
4) Neonatal circumcision is demonstrably safer than adult circumcision.
5) Neonatal circumcision presents measurable health benefits, but those benefits are insufficient to justify neonatal circumcision on their own.
6) Circumcision is a long standing cultural among Muslims, Jews and a variety of other cultures.
7) Parents are legally competent to consent or to withhold consent to medical procedures.

These aren't presented as arguments, simply facts upon which an argument can be built.

First let's deal look at the issue of marginality. Just as the health benfits of neonatal circumcision are too marginal to justify its routine practice, so too the risks of neonatal circumcision are too marginal to justify an outright ban. If marginality is relevant to one side of the argument, it must be applied equally to both.

Next, it seems to me that the routine circumcision of male infants as it was practiced in North America in the twentieth century is a thing of the past. No paediatrician is going to recommend circumcision for its own sake.

But finally, an outright ban on the practice seems to me to be an excessive reaction. If routine neonatal circumcision is a thing of the past, and neonatal circumcision is medically neutral in respect of the relative balance of risks and benefits, then the only significant aspect left is cultural practice. So it is not unreasonable to conclude that proponents of a ban primarily seek to impose a limitation on a recognized religious and cultural practice.

The comparison to female genital mutilation is, I suggest, misplaced because that procedure most assuredly has a significant clinical impact on the sexual health of the woman. Similarly the straw man about amputation is misplaced, primarily because of the demonstrable deficit involved in the comparisons.

So, it that a resonable limit that is demonstrably justifiable in a free and democratic society? I come down on the side that says, "No." As a physician, I would never recommend circumcision to the parent of a newborn, male child. But neither would I refuse to perform the procedure in the face of a request in bona fide to peform it.