Quote:
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Originally Posted by Himbo
Human Rights for Everyone: the Importance of Nonconsensual Child Surgeries Here and Now Ryan McAllister, Ph.D.
In the U.S., could there be a surgery that:
1. Is performed almost exclusively on non-consenting minors,
2. Is illegal to perform on girls, but is promoted for boys,
3. Is performed with no or inadequate anesthetic,
4. Has no well-established benefits,
5. Removes a healthy, unique part of an organ,
6. Causes a lifelong loss of function,
7. And is performed over one million times a year?
Yes. That surgery is circumcision. Its significant, detrimental impact on male health and human rights is commonly minimized in our culture. I ask you to consider the following facts:
1. Circumcision of infants is never medically necessary, according to the merican Medical Association, Council on Scientific Affairs.
2. Circumcision is not recommended by any national medical organization in the world.
3. Circumcision has serious risks. These include but are not limited to infection, hemorrhage, scarring, shock, penile disfigurement, penile amputation, and death.
4. Beyond 100% loss of the function of the foreskin, the rate of surgical complications for this unnecessary procedure is estimated to be 2-10%.
5. Circumcision confers no proven health benefits. Few studies indicate potential health benefits, and these studies have serious flaws in terms of population selection.
6. Several large-scale studies show that circumcision increases risks of some infections and disease transmission.
7. An intact penis is easy to clean and care for.
8. The circumcision wound requires days to heal and is painful for the child during that time.
9. Circumcision removes several square inches of functional, healthy tissue. (The equivalent area in an adult would be about 15 square inches, the size of a 3x5 index card.)
10. Circumcision removes 10,000-20,000 specialized nerve endings.
11. Removal of this many nerves and this specialized tissue damages the ability to feel sexual pleasure.
12. Circumcision is associated with increased sexual problems later in life. These can include lack of sensation, chafing, lack of arousal, frustration, and problems due to insufficient lubrication.
13. Circumcision causes excruciating pain and often sends infants into shock. It involves tearing away and amputating highly sensitive tissue that was physically attached to the head of the penis.
14. Babies who have been circumcised are significantly more likely to have problems breast-feeding, and they demonstrate heightened pain responses months later.
15. Circumcision is associated with increased risk for depression.
16. Female partners of circumcised men may experience less pleasure during intercourse and may be subject to more frequent vaginal tearing and urinary tract infections.
17. Some Jewish individuals are opting for alternative ceremonies that do not require genital alteration, called "Brit Shalom".
18. U.S. infant circumcision validates female circumcision here and abroad.
19. The belief that male circumcision is valuable for hygiene reasons mirrors statements that female circumcision is necessary to keep women "clean" and "acceptable" for their husbands.
20. There is no hygienic justification for removing healthy tissue in any gender.
21. There is already a federal law protecting female children from genital cutting, modification, or piercing of any kind. Boys have a constitutional right to the same protection.
22. Involuntary circumcision violates human rights. Every individual has the right to an intact body, and should not be subjected to body modifications without his/her consent. Infants require special protection because they cannot speak for themselves.
23. A boy who is not subjected to circumcision will fit in just fine with his peers. Circumcision rates in the U.S. are falling, down from 90% in the 1970s to about 60% today. Internationally, the male circumcision rate is about 15%
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My responses:
1. That is absolutely not true. While it is not ALWAYS medically neccesary, there are times when it MAY BE medically neccesary. To use definitives such as this makes the argument less stable and also makes it seem emotionally driven rather than scientfically driven.
2. True, nor do most organization specifically NOT recommend it.
3. Everything has serious risks, including birth itself for the child and the mother. Riding a bike has serious risks including infected abrasions of the arms and legs, contusions/concussions of the head, potential for being hit by a motor vehicle and possibly death. So should we not let our children ride bikes?
4. The foreskin does not, itself, perform any "function". No more function that your ear lobe. I'm not syaing to lob off earlobes... just saying it's poorly worded. Again it sound personally motivated rather than professionally so. Also, 2-10%? That's a HUGE variance, and again seems extremely unscientific. 2-10%? I call bullshit!
5. Many studies indicate "potential health benefits". It's not as if there have only been 3 or 4 in the last thousand years or so. ALL of those have serious flaws? Again, I call bullshit.
6. And several studies have indicacted that lack of circumcision does the same.
7. So is a circumcised penis.
8. It's called neosporin PLUS. And the procedures used today are significantly different than those used even 20 years ago.
9. Uhm... in an infant it's BARELY one square inch. They lose roughly the same amount of tissue when the unbilical stump falls off. Of course, that's not healthy tissue, but it's also not a LOT of tissue by any means.
10. Specialized nerve endings? I'm not a biologist, but wtf is a specialize nerve ending? Nerves only sense up to a couple of different things... pressure, pain, heat... Do these nerve endings somehow specifically sense vaginal entry? Again, these points sound increasingly unscientific. Also, there are not 10,000 in the infants foreskin, and the body is WELL knwon for it's ability to adapt. I'd imagine that a large number of those that develop over childhood still develop, just NOT in the foreskin. Hmmmm...
11. Bullshit! Bullshit! Bullshit! How many circumcised men have to post about this? There is NO WAY POSSIBLE to determine whether circumcised men or uncut men feel MORE sexual pleasure. Two uncut men may feel TOTALLY DIFFERENT amounts of pleasure as could two cut men. There IS... NO... WAY!
12. Does ANYONE have links to specific data regarding this? I've seen this argument several times, but I've never, ever, ever seen anything stating that a) Any cut man has had these specific problems due to circumcision, or that b) no uncut man has EVER had these problems. How do you show an increase? Statistics only support what the provider wants them to support.
13. Anesthetic anyone? Also, many of the tens of thousands of nerve endings have not yet developed. Oddly enough, my son was healed within 3 or 4 days, and he NEVER fussed about it during that time. Was he in shock for DAYS while it healed? Again, this maybe not bullshit entirely, but it's overstated.
14. Again, where is proof of this? Our baby breastfeeds just fine. Also, how would circumcision prevent this? They still feed from bottles, obviously. So it's not the reflex that's broken. Is this argument trying to say that the baby resents the mother and therefore will not feed from her breast? What kind of Freudian crap is this? Seriously? Can anyone apply some LOGIC to their arguments for a change... please?!
15. You have GOT to be kidding me. I need to link this again:
There is a different between a causal relationship and a coinciding relationship. If this study was done in America, and the majority of men are circumcised, this correlation could EASILY be drawn. It does not, however, show cause. Again with the science and logic, I know. It must be a dying aspect of medicine.
16. Again, I'd like to see these studies. Regardless of ease of cleaning, if you took two men who were SLIGHTLY unclean (hadn't showered in 36 hours), there is a greater chance of bacteria on the uncut men, due to the nature of bacteria to grow in warm, damp, dark places. Bacteria = UTI. Also, vaginal tearing? None of my partners have had this issue. I'm only a data set of one person, but I fail to see how this, again, follows logic or biological precedence.
17. So?
18. Not really. As dicussed previously, these are two completely different procedures done for different reaons. Female "circumcision" is generally performed with the intent to prevent sexual pleasure in the female to make them more subserviant to the males and prevent them from having affairs. How is this the same? How does one validate the other?
19. Again, "clean and acceptable" generally means lack of sexual pleasure and is a control thing, having little or nothing to do with ACTUAL cleanliness or hygiene.
20. *sigh*
21. Again, this is where the argument falls apart completely in American society, especially since we are PRIMARILY conservative (even our left is considerably right of the left in many places). As soon as you start calling a good, red-blooded American father a monster for mutilating his sons gentitals, your argument no longer matters, regardless of how good it may be. Congress, Judges, the President... likely none of them would ever pass such a "protection" measure due to the vehement nature of anti-circ folks.
22. Bullshit... what large public body feels this way? The UN? No... the WHO? No... The JOB of a parent is to make decisions for the child. This kind of argument is, in my opinion, as big a pile of crap as those that feel TV and rradio should be censored more or that video games cause violence in children. Why do so many people want parents to stop parenting??? We've been doing it since the dawn of mankind... I don't see the benefit in letting society raise our children.
23. If this is a parents sole argument for circumcision, then that's pretty sad. It may be PART of an argument, but certainly not the only reason.