Roughly one million baby boys a year in this country are rudely welcomed into the world by the amputation, without anesthesia, of an integral, sexually important part of their anatomy. By definition, the removal of a normal, healthy, functional body part is mutilation. Pure and simple. These one million babies represent around 60% of all male infants born in this country, a figure that is down from a high reached in the 1970's and 1980's of around 90%. And what is truly astounding is that, while we become incensed over the female genital mutilations going on in Africa and other third-world countries far, far away, we ignore the routine mutilations perpetrated here against our own sons.
The sexism of this perspective is stunning. In fact, in 1996 the U.S. Congress, eager to appease feminist groups and appear to be the Great White Protectors of American Girlhood, passed a law against female circumcision or any other form of genital modification of girls below the age of consent. This was pure political theater, baby kissing, butt patting. As a society, we simply do not cut the genitals of baby girls in this country... only the genitals of baby boys. Passing a law against female genital mutilation (FGM) was a slam dunk for the politicians. They could look big and strong and macho and foursquare in favor of protecting babies... as long as the babies were girls, that is. In our culture, unlike other more civilized societies, it is perfectly acceptable to amputate the male prepuce against the shrieking protests of the victims. Our national chauvinism has blinded us to our own human rights abuses and genital mutilation against our sons.
in the United States there is a huge industry based on circumcision just like there is in certain parts of Africa and the middle east.
forskins are not just flushed away,but they are used in a variety of ways,so someone is making money off this barbaric practice. ome are used in a facial cream (ironically enough) that is supposed to get rid of wrinkles. Costs US$130. for a six week supply.
In fact FGM and MGM are THE SAME. Both can boast studies pointing to reduced HIV incidence (and the opposite). Both are done by coercion and force. Both are often loudly condoned by the victims. Both send hundreds to the morgue and thousands to the hospital annually. Both leave victims with an altered abililty to enjoy sex.
I find it amazing that, in a culture where almost no one would support tattooing a baby girl or boy, so many people support amputation of a functional organ.
I can just imagine what would happen if a parent said "My religion demands a cross or Star of David be tattooed on the child's forehead". It would be on the news, and the parents would be vilified.
Yet, tattoo removal is reasonable to acheive. Expensive, yes, and painful, yes. But it's done all of the time. But circumcision reversal is not so easy, and does not fully replace what was taken. Even where circumcision is done for a therapeutic reason, the issue (usually phimosis) could usually be resolved without removal of the entire prepuce, and possibly without actual surgery.
We (the USA) don't cry out against male circumcision because it's 'our' accepted brand of genital mutilation. We've only recently begun to examine it as a society, as far as I know. We’re still attached to it as a custom and don't see it as being aberrant yet.
Here are my reasons it should fall by the wayside, in some sort of order:
- It has never been shown to be necessary
- The object of the procedure is generally not the one choosing it.
- It’s permanent, barring restoration attempts.
- It’s a very unpleasant procedure.
- The advantages come mainly from societal conditioning.
There's neither a reason nor any reasoning for circumcision. I've heard a fellow atheist assert that parents fundamentally have the right--because they're the parents--to do whatever they want to their kid, because apparently being able to have sex and yield an infant is magic.
If the removal of the body parts of other people were to be discussed for any set of people and body parts other than children/infants and genitals, we would straightforwardly reject it: "No, you have no grounds upon which to have your fellow adults' bodies altered." "No, you may not have any of the toes of your baby removed." Apparently, genitals and babies are magic.
Circumcision started being done routinely in the USA to stop boys from wanting to masturbate. It was encouraged by Kellogg (of Corn Flake fame), who also encouraged using acid on the female clitoris for the same reason. When the US medical industry realised they could make good money this way, but public opinion was starting to turn, they changed the story and said it was for 'health reasons'. Watch the Penn and Teller: Bullshit! episode on circumcision. It's horrific what they do to these poor kids, without consent. The kids are strapped down, and go into a catatonic state of fear and pain.
Kellogg was beyond a loon. He bragged in his memoir that he had no sex on his honeymoon. Many doctors back then thought all sexual acts drained you of life-force.
For all of the fools proclaiming that being cut somehow makes a penis "clean" a foreskin is easy to take care of and you just wash it with soap and water like you would any other body part. Circumcision is not some magic bullet that will prevent you from getting STDs or transmitting them if you have them.
You get STDs including HIV by having unprotected sex with people who have them and from not using condoms or having safer sex. Like other people have written in this thread condoms and safer sex work far better than any genital mutilation does.
117 newborn boys die as a result of circumcisions each year. Hundreds of others survive botched jobs and are seriously deformed for life.
It is abuse. It is mutilation. It should be an adult male's decision. And as elective surgery, it certainly should not be covered by health insurance.