Summations Only

Well, try to use some peyote for a religious purpose and find out if it does.

Because of society's interest in protecting the child from the bad decisions of parents and doctors. But circumcisions aren't always done according to the "modern" procedure, now are they? Mohels, even in the present day, suck the infant's penis.

How is it an exception? It wasn't ruled as an exception; it was ruled as a completely unexceptional application of the wide-ranging principle that there's not a universal religious freedom exemption to following the law. Except where they violate the law, or violate someone else's religious freedom. What about the right of the infant to practice his own religion, which might be the Christianity of First Corinthians, or Catholicism? Or another religion that is opposed to the practice of circumcision? Why do the parents have the right to obstruct another adult's religious freedom in that way, via a surgical mutilation as an infant?

And when we stop, we won't. It's a perfectly circular argument.

But they're making it even when he's deemed capable of making it himself; circumcision is permanent. A circumcised infant is eventually a circumcised adult. Thanks to his parents, he can't ever decide to have his original foreskin not be circumcised. It's the rights of the adult being infringed upon, as well as the rights of the infant. What rights do the parents have to infringe on the religious expression of their adult son?

Or just some shaman noticed how old boys usually were when most of them survived the procedure.

Sure. And the legal principle at work is that parents have this right only when the decisions they make are in the best interest of their child. When a parent makes a medical decision to deny their child lifesaving care, or to reject evidence-based medicine for quackery, or submit their child to invasive surgery for nothing but cosmetic reasons, our society can and often does overrule the decision of the parent; parents have even lost custody of their children outright for making these decisions.The question is whether parents are entitled to make bad medical decisions for their child, and the answer is "no." They're not so entitled. Children are not the property of their parents; they're individual citizens of our society and they're entitled to have society advocate for their interests, even when that advocacy might overrule a decision a parent has made.

And they don't. We allow parents to make decisions on behalf of their children when it's in the child's best interest for them to do so. We don't allow parents to decide things for their children because parents own children, or have an inherent right to make decisions for another human being just based on the accident of heredity.Parental decisions are subject to an overriding "child's best interest" criterion. So the question is whether circumcision is in the child's interest; you've only ever tried to argue that it's in the parent's interest.

Not unilaterally. Society has a right to advocate in the child's interest as well. It's been demonstrated. Medical professionals came right out on the record and stated that it was a bad medical decision. At such time as you'd like to respond to that argument, it awaits you. Seriously? I have to explain the concept of reproduction to an adult? You see, when a man and a woman love each other very much... Absolutely! But that right is not unilateral; it's contingent on parents making decisions in the child's best interest. When parents make decisions that are not in the child's best interest, society may step in and overrule that decision. If a parent demonstrates a pattern of making those decisions, parental custody can be terminated outright.

But it's not solely determined by them. Parents don't get to unilaterally decide what's in the child's best interest. They're the first, but not sole, advocate for the interests of the child. But we intervene when they fail to do so. Nonsense. We step into that slope at the drop of a hat. CPS gets wind that you like science fiction novels? Be prepared for a home visit that puts your custody rights in jeopardy. (That apparently happened to a fan of Piers Anthony's novels.) Or maybe a rumor gets started that you abuse prescription drugs - you may not even find out you're under investigation until your kids just don't come home one day, because they've been taken to a foster home. As a society we're never shy about intervening in the parent-child relationship in order to make sure everything is on the up-and-up - unless we're talking about a parent who wants to cut a piece of his son't dick off. Really?His foreskin grew back, did it?

Despite your efforts, yes, we actually are discussing those, and other instances (such as male circumcision) where parents permanently disfigure their children.

What "medical reason"? Please be specific.

Sorry, "Child Protective Services." That's what we usually call it down here; it's the state outfit that intervenes when parents aren't acting in the interests of their children (whatever the parents may think they're doing.) I don't see how it's "individual choice" when, perforce, we're talking about the choices being made by one person on behalf of another. The individual choice one has in circumcision is whether to have one's own penis circumcised. Making that choice on behalf of another, by definition, is no longer an "individual choice." For his penis, obviously. What else?

I didn't claim that it was. This is just your traditional practice of being disingenuous, unfortunately. I didn't make any of these arguments, either. Try to keep up, Jon!

See it with your own eyes, then. Where is the foreskin on the penis on the right?