Circumcision

[jedusor]

I can't believe this is even debatable. I can't believe that in a society we consider civilized, I have to actually present a structured argument against cutting off pieces of babies when they're born.

Comments

[hannahrorlove.livejournal.com]

Seriously?

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

There are religious and cultural practices I am willing to refrain from expressing an opinion about no matter how much I object, because they're not my religion/culture and they don't affect me personally, and I'm trying to be less judgmental of others in general.

Deliberate wounding of children is not one of those practices.

[projectyl.livejournal.com]

Starting the debate with a loaded attack post isn't going to win anyone over to your side, Julia. You probably already know this and don't care, but I have to point it out.

Do you feel as strongly about, say, cutting umbilical cords? If not, what's the difference except for the ceremonial aspect?

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

... umbilical cords aren't useful in later life, will drop off anyway, don't mark one out in any way[1], and are cut off for medical reasons? And there are issues of consent? Etc etc etc.

[1] Well, belly-buttons are something that get a bizarre amount of obsessing done over them in the media, but ignoring that.

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

In addition to Lizzie's points, cutting an umbilical cord causes no pain to the baby.

I'm not trying to win anyone over to my side. I'm aware that a post like this will cause comments, but my intention is to express my horror at the procedure and incredulity at the fact that debate is even necessary, not to foster that debate.

[pr1ss.livejournal.com]

what what what

In a world of ceasarian section, episiotomy, "prophylactic" mastectomy, and hysterectomy and my current favorite, that most labors are induced with drugs, because you know, there is no air in there, and a baby could suffocate

how can you even notice circumcision?

Get rid of all of those and then I may BEGIN to think about whether a tradition that is important to me should be discontinued.

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

Consent. Consent consent consent.

Why is it important to you? It's not a visible cultural marker. It applies only to boys. By my understanding, the Torah is not meant to be set-in-stone, but is a living document to be reinterpreted with each generation. I am not as familiar with the relevant sections as I might be, but... really? This practice is so important to you that it overrides issues of consent and bodily autonomy?

Furthermore, as far as induced labour goes, my gut feel says that that statistic is very US-specific. And, again, consent!

Also also, people are capable of noticing several things at once! There is a lot wrong with the US medical system, but that doesn't mean that small things can't be focussed on (though I am relieved that they at least now no longer recommend routine circumcision).

[all-ephemera.livejournal.com]

I personally see no reason for it, except in the cases where it's medically necessary (which generally is not known immediately) such as when the urethra does not extend quite far enough.

There are certain, more liberal, Jewish centers in which a prick of blood is substituted for circumcision.

Should I have sons, I hope to be able to sway my husband to leaving the child uncut, but there's many years of custom behind circumcision and although it's less common than it was, it is still the majority in the US.

[pr1ss.livejournal.com]

We also inflict similar amounts of discomfort on babies with blood tests and vaccinations. Babies go into full panic mode just because of the impersonal handling and the cold temperature in the examination room. Judging by their screams and body movements, having blood drawn from their feet is extremely painful.

This routine health care could be looked at as scientifically necessary, or as cultural tradition. It's really a mix. Newborns don't need blood screening right away, vaccinations could probably be delayed until just before the child will be in daycare or school.

What's scary about circumcision is that it removes some skin. To some adults, that is terrifying. I suppose terrifying is the reason it is done at all. Just like medical care. Medical care is our modern version of physically damaging rituals that usually do not kill you, but easily could.

[ojouchan.livejournal.com]

Before I even replied I wanted to read the comments in your thread. Wow. A lot of this is some pure vitrol. Personally I believe in circumcision. If a parent doesn't want to do it, so be it. Doesn't bother me.

What does bother me is your lack of knowledge about genital mutilation. Honestly to compare circumcision to FGM is ridiculous. It means you have very little grasp of what *that* practice actually is. FGM goes from cutting off the clitoris completely( often with a RUSTY razorblade or other unsanitary implement) to the sewing shut of the vagina or labia majora. It is excruciating unnecessary pain done to a little girl to teach her that she's shameful. She is usually awake, and in many cases she dies in fear pain and infection.

Here have a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_cutting

Now while I'm being link Claus also have this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm aware of the circumstances under which genital mutilation occurs in some cultures. That doesn't mean circumcision isn't the same practice, albeit to a lesser degree.

[lonesomepolecat.livejournal.com]

Circumcision is _exactly_ the same thing.

It's done to boys for the same two reasons as it's done to girls:
* To mark the child as being part of a group that does such things.
* To interfere with sexuality (in various parts of culture, both of them have been used to stop people either masturbating or getting pleasure from sex).
* Some have a notion of it helping with hygiene. Teach your kids how to clean themselves people! Also, the chances of such an infection are vastly remote in this day and age even if proper hygiene is not practiced.

If it wasn't condoned in a large part of the culture, male circumcision would be just as horrific as female circumcision. It would be nice if it were just as illegal as it serves no purpose what so ever.

I understand that some people feel that it's their religious right to mutilate boys, but as a culture we've decided to make it illegal to do similar things to girls and we often reject religious norms (e.g. in western society it's not OK to kill someone because they killed a family member, nor does the government chop off peoples hands for theft) because they're harmful, misguided and outdated.

Paul

[cazique.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of people out there who would replace "cutting off pieces of babies when they're born" with "killing babies in the womb." they call themselves pro-lifers, I prefer the term anti-choice, but I can't help but tell you that this is a bit what you sound like.

Against circumcision? don't have your kids circumcised.

Seriously, you're smarter than this. And, there's so much more important stuff that your really powerful brain should be working on.

(Including - to infuse a touch of levity here - thinking about themes and structures, right? It's February!)

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was thinking about that earlier today, the comparison of abortion to circumcision. It's a valid point.

Watching the interactions of people in the comments to this entry has given me an idea about the use of the representativeness heuristic in initial social interactions for my honors thesis. Hope that's important enough for you.

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

I can't believe that in a society we consider civilized, I have to actually present a structured argument for respect and tolerance.

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

Injury of newborns is not a practice I respect, no.

[rebbyribs.livejournal.com]

You might consider arguing against Routine Infant Circumcision (RIC) rather than all circumcision.

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

I wasn't aware that there was a specific term for it. Of course I have nothing against circumcisions that people choose to have done on themselves, or any other kind of voluntary body modification.

[ertchin.livejournal.com]

First of all, just to be open about it (although it shouldn't affect the validity of the rest of my comment), I agree with the anti-circumcision point of view.

I fear that a lot of heat is being generated in these comments due to arguments that are, flatly, not logical. The two big ones seem to be "you're being needlessly hostile" and "you're not respecting a religious practice". The first is only a valid argument if you feel that there is never cause for being hostile towards a practice that one finds abhorrent. The second is only a valid argument if you feel that anything that's a religious practice cannot also be something that's morally wrong.

If your response to the first response is "but it isn't abhorrent" ... then you should have argued that in the first place. If your response to the second response is "but those other practices are actually wrong, while this one isn't" ... then you should have argued why this one isn't in the first place.

A further point: yes, slavery and human sacrifice are pretty demonstrably worse than circumcision. But the reason those are being presented as supporting evidence is that some on the other side aren't even engaging the argument of circumcision possibly being a violation of rights. The underlying question is "if you won't address whether or not X is violent and wrong, then where is the line where it becomes reasonable for violence and wrongness to trump religious or cultural practices?"

Finally, "if you're against circumcision, don't have your kids circumcised" is simply a bankrupt argument. If you're against the beating of children with two-by-fours, then don't do it to your kids. Is that different from circumcision? Yes ... which is why you can't just plug anything into "if you're against ____ then don't do ____".

[canadianpuzzler.livejournal.com]

This question is specifically for Ert: Given that it is now possible to do surgery in the womb before a child is born, do you believe it is wrong for circumcision to be performed in the womb, before a child is born?

[lonesomepolecat.livejournal.com]

I'm just glad it's becoming less fashionable. Hopefully it'll become illegal some day (although there's sure to be a "religious exception" in there).

Have you seen Penn & Teller's take on it?

Paul

[draughanten.livejournal.com]

I would just like to point out that there are several medical and health benefits to being circumsized, without going into too much detail. . .

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

IIRC the main one is that it reduces sexual pleasure, thereby reducing the risk of masturbation and the associated medical issues (blindness, sterility, death, going to hell, etc). That's why there was the puritanical drive for near-universal circumcision in the States, right?

(There is arguably a benefit as far as transmission of HIV goes, but that is only under specific circumstances, doesn't seem to be what you're talking about, and really, spread of HIV would be much better managed if the bloody Vatican stopped spreading lies, but that's a rant for another day.)

[all-ephemera.livejournal.com]

I'm all for freedom of thought, and for freedom of religion, and I'm not a fan of circumcision. I don't think it's necessary and I don't agree with it. However, I am also not part of a strong religious faith of which this is a practice, either.

That being said? I'm wildly disgusted by the attitudes on BOTH sides of this argument presented here. But I'm more disgusted by the attacks made on someone's faith.

Just because you choose to not have faith does not give you the right to assume that something is wrong. Being without faith in a specific religion does not give you the right to attack - and that's what went down, don't flatter yourselves - someone who does hold that faith. You are not all-knowing, nor all-powerful, and the attitude of condescention about someone's faith is one of the things I despise about most atheists I know, and I am one.

No one here is going to change someone else's mind because clearly everyone here is convinced of their own righteousness and feel justified. Basically this post and all the accompanying comments has served to do nothing but be a soapbox for differing sides to gnash their teeth from atop of, and insult one another. Way to go. This is so far below you all.

[draughanten.livejournal.com]

Oh thank you. . . . you said, far more eloquently, albeit far more forcefully, what I was rather clumsily trying to. Wow, I think my grammar there was atrocious, but I'm not entirely sure. Ah well, that's what not sleeping earns me.

[bookishfellow.livejournal.com]

As an impending parent who is planning to sign off on a circumcision within the next couple weeks, I can say you have offered me nothing to convince me not to do so. "Why are we even arguing about this?" is not an argument, it's an assertion of moral superiority. If you want to try to convince me, go ahead, but you're going to have to do better than that.

[gerald_duck]

OK… so.

Why do you think circumcision is a good idea? Or, if you think it's a neutral idea, why do you accept circumcision, rather than doing nothing, as a sensible default?

Even if you, now, think circumcision is a good idea, do you think your son will feel the same way in decades from now? That is, after all, the timescale over which your decision matters, and the person most affected by it.

[hahathor.livejournal.com]

I'm curious, Julia, as to why you felt the need to post this. Were you specifically trying to start an argument? Were you attempting to insult the observant Jews on your flist? I first I thought this was a response to a school assignment, but now I see that you've simply decided, out of the blue, to announce to all your friends that something many of them believe in deeply is offensive to you.

I really want to know what you hope to achieve by this.

[projectyl.livejournal.com]

Yes. This. This is what I was trying and failing to say yesterday, and what I think Tahnan was saying when you deflected his comments.

Holding an opinion which differs strongly from that of many people you know is fine. Publicly expressing that opinion, even to an audience you know to include those people, is fine, although you have to expect and accept debate when you do so.

Publicly expressing that opinion in a way charged with the subtext "anyone who does not agree with me is morally inferior to me" is very, very not fine, and that's what you done here whether you realize it or not.

Saying "I can't believe this is even debatable" is the same as saying "This should not be debatable" is the same as saying "Nobody should hold any opinion other than mine". That's why words like "disrespect" and "intolerance" have made their way into the discussion. If you'd left that angle out of the OP, perhaps replacing it with something like "I find it sad that...", this comment thread would still have exploded, but it'd be maybe half as long and a quarter as angry, and you wouldn't have come across as (forgive me, but I have to call it like I see it) a zealot.

You're irreverent and opinionated, and I love you dearly for it. But please, please, please be careful that when you air your opinions, even somewhere as out-of-the-way as an online journal, you do it without belittling the opinions of others.

[elgecko.livejournal.com]

Were I to post in this style, about any female issue, I'm sure it would rain on me for days from every woman who read it. I'd be blasted as unqualified to comment.

I am a man. I am a Jew. I am circumcised.

I am NOT mutilated.

I am NOT dysfunctional.

I don't think I've seen a man make this "reduced sensitivity" argument. I am definitely not of reduced sensitivity or function. It would actually be uncomfortable for me to have any more sensitivity or sex drive in general than is presently the case.

[gerald_duck]

I'm a man. I'm making the reduced sensitivity argument.

I'm uncut. I'm also bisexual, and may therefore have had more detailed and frank discussions about this kind of thing with cut men than most. People who've had personal experience of both cut and uncut are very rare, however, and adult circumcisions will tend to be for religious or medical reasons.

Then again, how many people do grow up wishing they'd been circumcised? I get the impression it's a lot fewer than grow up wishing they hadn't.

[thatwesguy.livejournal.com]

Many smart and kind people have upbraided you here for being intolerant.

Nonetheless, I disagree with them. Accepting circumcision without comment does indeed seem to be to be wrong, which is admittedly difficult to reconcile with my intolerance of organized religion and my strong revulsion of being (correctly) labelled a hypocrite.

[elainetyger.livejournal.com]

I skipped this when I first saw it, because there were already about 100 comments and I didn't have the time. I still don't, really, but references to it keep popping up on my f-list.

I wasn't offended by your vehemence of opinion or that it dropped out of thin air, because you are a college undergraduate and this is the kind of discussion that comes up in such circles... I refer both to the dark ages when I was in college and stayed up all night arguing with my Communist housemate as well as more recently when my daughter would call me with Unshakeable Opinions.

Also, I don't get so offended, because I am used to these deep disagreements with family members. My Catholic mother thinks I am going to hell for being an atheist. My born-again Christian father thinks my mother and I are both going to hell. I think all religion is delusion, but we are all deluded in one way or another and everyone believes in at least one impossible thing before breakfast, like the Alice in Wonderland character. We tend to not speak of these things anymore at family gatherings as it will not get anywhere but Bad. So I learned to just say OK to whatever my daughter's latest Opinion was.

Maybe the way you said this would make also just say OK to you if you said something in this vehement manner to my face, because it's not worth getting into it, but it doesn't feel like vehemence to me as your own journal entry. It would be different if it were expressed in an lj community that didn't exist for the purpose of anti-circumcision. I guess some other people, though, feel uncomfortable with it.

There are lots of things my friends post about doing that I would never do, that I wouldn't tell anyone even if I did them, or that I think they're stupid just plain WRONG to do, but I don't have to wake up next to them, so whatever, it doesn't bother me.

FWIW, before my daughter was born in 1984, I discussed with the doctor what to do beforehand in case she was a boy. I believed in non-mutilation, but the books I was reading had differing opinions... infections if the boy didn't clean up well, lessened sensitivity as a possibility... The doctor told me that he thought there were pros and cons either way, and that he recommended that whatever way the father was, the baby should be the same way so that he had less problems in the normal trying to grow up to be like dad. I didn't have a partner then, but it seemed likely that my eventual partner would be circumcised.

As it turns out, I did marry a circumcised Jew, and it is highly unlikely we will ever have a son, but we would probably not circumcise him if we did; I give us more credit at being able to explain differences now than I did myself at age 21 and confoozled.

I saw this and thought of you

[gerald_duck]

$2.3M awarded in suit over botched circumcision:

“This case does point out one of the dangers of circumcision that every parent must seriously consider when having the procedure done,” Llewellyn said. He contended that parents are not told of the risks of the procedure.