@Flying: A competent individual should be able to make that choice on his own behalf. I do not believe it should be allowed on infants or children - incompetents. Of course, it’s ultimately a family/religious matter so some enclaves may continue to permit aggressive practices such as circumcision. But it’s not just the Jewish community saying “we reserve the right to practice this” - after all, I’m sure that the incidence of circumcision regret among Jewish males is much lower than in the general population precisely because it’s an integral part of their identity within their own community. What pisses me off is the medical establishment trying to gin up justifications for an ancient and - in my opinion - barbaric religious ritual. I’ve read that some modern Jews just have a ritual cut made rather than going all the way around. Many old customs have had to be discarded as human moral awareness has become more sophisticated and I think it’s high time we identified circumcision as one of those customs that’s up for retirement. And I hope there’s a special place in hell for the AAP.
A decision to circumcise is not principally different from a decision to immunize. The parent is doing what he perceives to be the best for the child.
I have asked this question before: how do we figure out what is the case of abandonment/child abuse (in Blockian sense) and what is not? For instance, is snipping the tongue frenulum a case of child abuse?
It’s not a custom. It’s a commandment given to us by the source of all reality. Or so we believe.
Making a ritual cut is not a proper way of circumcision. It’s confusion of the concepts. The person who was circumcised in a hospital, without proper religious procedure, needs to be circumcised again. Since this is obviously impossible, they do the ritual cut (not really a cut, a pin-prick).
Whaver. As I said before, it’s a pointless discussion. It’s very difficult to make someone who doesn’t see a religious point of view understand it. And each religious point of view is unique. I also did not get it in my atheist years.
I.e., I am following my source of information (British Journal of Medicine) that says that tongue frenulum, when too short, can impede nursing. But you think it’s a barbarous practice… according to your sources (American Journal of Pediatrics). And your sources think my sources are a bunch of whackjobs, and vice versa.
What’s next? How do we figure out whether I am abusing my kid or not? Do we follow a local custom? But what does that have to do with anything? Just because most of my neighbors are AJP subscribers, I get to have my kid taken away from me (G-d forbid), or at least forbidden to do a procedure which (I believe) will help him to nurse?
@FlyingAxe: I completely respect your position. My primary beef is with the medical establishment trying to gin up medical justifications for it. You and I agree that’s nonsense. Without the propping of the medical establishment, we know the incidence of circumcision would drop drastically to mostly just those who do it for religious reasons. While I still think it is aggressive, as another poster pointed out, there are bigger fish to fry.
From what I understand, when you get circumcised you are actually getting rid of a lot of nerve ends that can cause greater and fuller orgasms, that with a circumcised penis you are not fully feeling what you could during sex.
That being said, I’m against circumcision. I don’t see any real medical or health reason to have it, it’s only from a cultural/ritual aspect that it’s performed, but for some reason even in our “age of reason” we still do it.
I consider circumcision to constitute aggression if done without the person’s express permission, no matter how young he is. If I ever have a son, it will be up to him to get circumcised (which means he won’t be circumcised as an infant).
I consider it aggression to take out my daughter’s bugers with a suction bulb without her permission (which, in many occassions she does not give on the account of the process being unpleasant).
But I still do it – because what can I do? I want my daughter to breathe.
There’s certainly a difference of degree between doing a thing that’s uncomfortable but not damaging versus doing a thing that’s both uncomfortable and permanently disfiguring. I wonder if the degree matters, though? Are both types of actions not forms of aggression? I don’t have kids, so it’s easy for me to say this, but I do think that once a child is old enough to have the ability to voice a rational opinion, it seems like it’s important for her to be consulted in her personal care like that. It would be helpful for her to be aware right from the start that she has the right to a final say over what happens to her own body. Probably a lot easier to recruit her good behavior during the event, too.