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

[pr1ss.livejournal.com]

I was told by my nurse-midwife that I did not have a choice about c-section. To not consent I had to threaten to leave the hospital, threaten a lawsuit, and then, when none of that worked, threaten extra-legal personal action. The last one worked! I haven't met anyone else who was able to resist medical recommendation, I mean, "not consent". Brutal persuasion techniques and cultural norms are not easy to go against.

What I see is routine assaults on women's bodies. Some are because of panic that pregnancy won't go well. Sometimes it doesn't. Drugs and surgery don't guarantee a live birth.

Soon you are into a new demographic. The -your female organs will kill you with cancer- age group. Depending on the luxuriousness of your medical insurance, this can start as early as 30, but certainly by 40.

I would love to see someone as smart as jeduser apply research and indignation to to keeping women of all ages as intact as they want to be. We aren't a bundle of pathologies waiting to strike, and the routine medical treatment which is done without what I would call -functional consent- mutilates our bodies multiple times, and in more places than genitally.

I realize that I have digressed from the topic of jeduser's post. It just truly bothers me that there are so many articles debating the ethics of circumcision, and relatively few even questioning far worse practices that only affect women.

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

Brutal persuasion techniques and cultural norms are not easy to go against.

I am aware of this. I am aware that there is a lot of unpleasantness that happens. Nonetheless, in spite of endorphins etc, there is at least the possibility for real consent.

Soon you are into a new demographic. The -your female organs will kill you with cancer- age group. Depending on the luxuriousness of your medical insurance, this can start as early as 30, but certainly by 40.

To which, being from the Internet, I say: lol, already there.

I am in the UK. There is the NHS. This week I am going for an apointment to get a referral to a genetics clinic for yearly check-ups. Family history, you see, with my mother just having started chemo. I am therefore unlikely to be able to talk terribly coherently or usefully on this point, other than to say "thank fuck for her medical insurance via her work, because it meant we got diagnosis and treatment significantly quicker". Nevertheless, thank fuck also for the NHS.

It just truly bothers me that there are so many articles debating the ethics of circumcision, and relatively few even questioning far worse practices that only affect women.

Oh, it bothers me too. Believe me, it bothers me too, on a personal as well as political level[1]. And I'm betting it bothers jedusor, too - but that's not what she's been told to research and present a case about, and there lies yet another problem. However, this is the thing in front of her.

[1] YKWIM.

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

It's not a school assignment, although rereading the OP, I see how it seems that way. By saying that I have to present a structured argument, I just meant that in normal conversation, chopping off baby bits is not automatically assumed to be a bad thing.

But yes, you're right that there are a lot of things to get indignant about, and this one happens to be the one that's really bothering me right now.

[gerald_duck]

Judaism would get a lot more respect if it relied on persuasion and reasoned debate for recruitment rather than coercing minors using mutilative techniques from three and a half millennia ago. Discuss.

The ritual of circumcision was invented almost contemporaneously with the creation of the Code of Hammurabi. I don't see anyone still suggesting that anyone who accuses another of a crime should be put to death if the accused jumps in a river and floats, even though that's an equally venerable tradition.

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

Judaism would get a lot more respect if it relied on persuasion and reasoned debate for recruitment

I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that, but as you know a) I should be asleep and b) I should be finishing off this question sheet...

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

There are plenty of Jews who don't engage in circumcision, and there are plenty of non-Jews who do. I don't think talking smack about the religion is productive.

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

Ngh. That's also slightly complicated FWIW - in the UK, circumcision really Just Doesn't Happen outside Judaism, to a first approximation, which is our frame of reference.

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

(Er, and Islam.)

[lonesomepolecat.livejournal.com]

In many US hospitals it's assumed you're going to have boys circumcised and you need to argue with the staff before the baby is born to ensure it doesn't happen.

Similar to the point about trying to force an unwanted C-section. Hospitals are often a place of unnecessary coercion.

[gerald_duck]

This illustration may surprise. Note the big dark blobs over Islamic countries — the culture and the religion are intertwined to be sure, but Islam is responsible for a very large proportion of circumcisions. Possibly the majority.

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry to hear about your birthing experience. I do know how hard it is to buck the trend... I've had four homebirths, and have attended about 35 other births, mostly in the hospital as a doula, hired specifically to help guide and protect as natural a birth as possible in such a hostile situation.

There IS choice out there for laboring women. It IS possible to have a good birth... even in a hospital, even when things don't go according to plan. The driving force is fear. When you banish fear from your decision-making algorithm, things become a lot clearer.

I'm so glad you're working to fight against the current status quo! Keep it up, and perhaps instead of belittling other efforts to spare innocents from unnecessary procedures, enlist them as cohorts in your own battle. We're really all advocates for the same goals: access to knowledge-based and compassionate health care for everyone.

[pr1ss.livejournal.com]

Mamagotcha, working as a doula is probably the most revolutionary thing that you could be doing. And your 4 home births, very cool. My second child was born at home. When my HMO realized I hadn't been kidding about transferring to home midwives, they launched a series of calls to talk me into coming back. Including a very insistent call a few weeks after, to try to get me to describe the labor in terms of "problems." My only answers, that it was "fine" and "not dramatic" were not well-received.