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]

...dude. If people died from the ritual, we wouldn't still be doing it. If it was as harmful as you make it seem, we'd have stopped doing it a long time ago.

Of course it's irreversible! That's part of the point! Are you even considering where the tradition came from? Or why? Because it sounds to me like you're not, which doesn't earn you any points in my book.

Slavery, stoning of women, and tearing out beating hearts
Again with the jumping to bizarre conclusions to make your point. How is human sacrifice at all analogous to what we're talking about? Is the taking of a human life equal to a small piece of skin? If so, why?

Amputation is, frankly, not the best word you could use in your argument. It refers to medical procedure, not religious ritual.

So Jews that don't follow every single rule set down are more enlightened. By that logic, since I sometimes wear polyester and touch rabbits, I'm more enlightened than those Jews which do not. Right. The Jews and Christians and Catholics and Muslims and Amish who wrestle with their beliefs and ideologies all their lives aren't enlightened. The debates about the nature of God that my religious authority figures go through to try to figure out what and why they believe in mean nothing.

Thank you for effectively reducing what is one of the most important facets of my life - my family's culture and history - to a "barbaric practice." If this is how you raised your children, no wonder they can't accept anyone having any faith.

[cazique.livejournal.com]

Gotcha - I'm surprised that you'd use the "slavery, stoning of women and tearing out beating hearts" argument, and hannah's right to call you out for it. Do you really think those are comparable?

Not sure if hannah actually knows you - but I do, and I know you raised great kids (at least the one I know) and are a great mom and while I don't necessarily agree with all your choices I certainly respect you as someone making them. That said, I think this part of your argument and Julia's is pretty disingenuous.

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

I was using hyperbole to make my point. Granted, those aren't applied during childhood (except slavery). Perhaps footbinding, neck rings, and lip plates are better examples? But those are done in the name of beauty, not religious faith, so then again, maybe not.

I don't think stoning and circumcision are directly comparable, no. For that matter, I don't consider female and male circumcision comparable, either. But I do think they are all at different points on the same scale: violence enacted upon a person in the name of faith, with no escape for the victim.

I realize that my ideal of each person having as much autonomy over their own body as possible, even at an early age, is at odds with the mainstream. But you're right, I shouldn't have escalated the violation imagery to that level right off the bat... it was unnecessary and I apologize.

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

It's one thing to carry faith. It's quite another to force it upon someone else without their consent.

So you say some Jews already pick and choose among the religious rules, and don't seem to find a problem with it. If some older rules are considered useless in today's world, why can't another one fall by the wayside without the collapse of the entire belief system? You can't have it both ways... demanding adherence to some rules and claiming irrelevance of others.

If the way I raised my children lowers the tolerance of violence in the world, then I happen to believe I've done my job well.

Incidentally, I'm not attacking you personally. I'm engaging in a debate with you. Can you understand that there's a difference?

[kaberett.livejournal.com]

If people died from the ritual, we wouldn't still be doing it. If it was as harmful as you make it seem, we'd have stopped doing it a long time ago.

But they do (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision#Complications_from_circumcision) (final paragraph, NSFW images). Admittedly not many, but the list of other complications is, well, I wouldn't want to put somebody at risk of that lot without strong medical evidence that it would somehow make them better.

[canadianpuzzler.livejournal.com]

Complications are possible with any surgery, and the more involved the surgery (and the more vital the organs on which the surgery is performed are), the likelier and more dangerous they are.

I would not be entirely surprised to discover that the mortality rate from teen and adult non-therapeutic plastic surgery is at a level comparable to circumcision. (I don't know how to go about finding the statistics, however.) And while there is informed consent to the surgery from the patient, consent is often provided under significant psychological pressure from family members, friends, or society at large.

At least with circumcision, there is no long-term psychological pain involved. So which is more barbaric?

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

At least with circumcision, there is no long-term psychological pain involved.

That's not true.

A few quotes:

"The forcible amputation of a
part of an unconsenting child's healthy and functional genitalia,
regardless of gender, clearly has consequences on healthy sexual
and emotional functioning later in life. Many men are living with
these consequences and may not connect these problems to their
circumcision or are too embarrassed to talk about such issues."

"He added that masculine self-image, as well as
shame, denial, repression, and fear of ridicule are factors that
inhibit men from acknowledging their circumcision harm to themselves
and discussing it with other men."

"Dr. Odent also cited
infant circumcision trauma as being counter-productive to a healthy,
nurturing newborn environment. He stated that such early genital
trauma has undoubtedly damaging, but as yet unstudied, lifelong
effects."

[tahnan.livejournal.com]

Look, I'm sorry, I've been staying out of the discussion of the facts of circumcision, since the actual issue of circumcision isn't why I got angry at Julia, and in many ways these details are a distraction.

But this is too much. In a word: it's bullshit. This is a biased survey done by someone with an agenda, rather than a neutral scientific study. And those quotes are so exaggerated as to be melodramatic.

"Many men are living with these consequences and may not connect these problems to their circumcision or are too embarrassed to talk about such issues"—let's see now. "Many"? How many? And: this is a classic case of an undisprovable claim; if I say, for instance, that circumcision had no negative consequences for me, an adherent of the survey can claim that it did and I just don't know about them (or am denying them).

"infant circumcision trauma [is] counter-productive to a healthy,
nurturing newborn environment. He stated that such early genital
trauma has undoubtedly damaging, but as yet unstudied, lifelong
effects"—once again, it's undisprovable. I don't think my newborn environment was non-nurturing, but how can I prove it wasn't? Indeed, how could the parent of a circumcised three-week-old prove that the child's environment is nurturing, especially when the circumcision proves that it's not? And the claim that there are "undoubtedly" lifelong effects, even though we have no idea what they might be, is about as rationally convincing as an appeal to a Divine Creator who said so.

Once again: I'm not really per se all that interested in arguing the pros and cons of circumcision. But to be honest, Gotcha, I'm seriously disappointed to see you invoke unprovable assertion and circular reasoning as if they're genuine arguments.

[gerald_duck]

"If it was bad we'd have stopped doing it a long time ago" is an obviously flawed argument, regardless of what the "it" is.

Our state of knowledge and understanding continually advances; so too do medical practice and ethics. If you don't like slavery or stoning as examples of things that were done for millennia but that we now realise are wrong, what about leeches, flat Earth, sexual inequality, killing twins at birth, trepanning, torture, and so on?

If it comes right down to it, what about not circumcising? People had avoided circumcising their young for many millennia when Abraham came along. If people died from not being circumcised, they would have been doing it; if being uncircumcised was as harmful as you make it seem, they'd have started circumcision a long time ago.

[gerald_duck]

People keep creating analogies between circumcision and other obviously bad things. You keep countering that these analogies are unacceptable because circumcision isn't as bad as that.

Your reasoning fails, however, to demonstrate that circumcision isn't bad at all. Agreed, circumcision isn't as bad as those other things, but it's bad nonetheless.

You seem to be admitting yourself that the only thing distancing circumcision from all that other stuff is the degree of the wrong, not the nature.

[gerald_duck]

There is a place for theological debate, granted. However, there is also a place for saying that something is wrong whatever the precepts of any particular religion might think.

This has to be the case. We no longer live in theocracies, so the rule of law has to trump religious principles. If you think that's unreasonable, you should think carefully about how and why you're protected from others' religious beliefs. Either you think we should revert to a mediaeval-style bloodbath, or your arguments implicitly rest on a presumption that your particular religion is somehow more special and sacred than anyone else's.

[canadianpuzzler.livejournal.com]

The rule of law has to trump religious principles

The rule of law did trump religious principles in the former communist bloc, and if I'm not mistaken, even the secular thinkers there were deeply unhappy about it. There was no place there for saying anything was wrong unless the state said there was. Individual freedom has to trump the rule of law unless the rule of law exists to preserve and enhance individual freedom.

We live in a free society. That's why freedom of religion is enshrined in our law, and it is that same freedom of religion that allows you to choose "no thanks" instead of having religion forced upon you.

If you think it's unreasonable for others to be free to practice their religious beliefs even when you think that it is wrong for them to do so, perhaps your arguments implicitly rest on a presumption that your particular brand of non-religion is somehow more special and preferential than anyone else's religion is.

(And I should mention while I'm here that not only do you claim to know both my thoughts and my arguments before they are presented to you, your either/or is a false dichotomy.)