Summations Only

Well that's just nonsense. There is nothing in the law saying I have to give up my right to decide what is best for my body in all matters pertaining to my penis.If someone came up to me and attempted to cut off a part of my penis, not only would I be allowed to use deadly force to stop them, but I could then sue them for damages and appear in court as a witness for the prosecutors pressing charges for the offense.It's nonsense to say I don't get to make decisions about my own penis. Because I do. Huh? Why? What is so special about penises? Parents make choices on their children's behalves all of the time; that is one of the primary rights and responsibilities of a parent: to decide on behalf of their child(ren).Why do you want to interfere with this relationship and take some of these rights away when it comes to circumcision? What is so special about the penises of other people's children that warrants you sticking your nose into their family affairs? And it does. You can't circumcise an adult against their will without suffering some pretty serious legal and civil consequences.

jar says: But there is no parental "right" here. You cannot restrict something that does not exist.

Yes; a good reason to stop allowing parents the right to choose circumcision for their children. Me... an asshole? And here is you labeling circumcised men who are perfectly happy with their body and who they are as 'mutilated' and 'disfigured'. There are many ways to alter a genitalia. Circumcision is the removal of the foreskin from the penis. It's very straight forward. 'FGM' on the other hand is meaningless. It's like trying to have a discussion about whether 'male genital modification' is right or wrong when 'male genital modification' is being used to refer to everything from circumcision to full castration. How could the participants ever be on the same page?Throw out 'FGM'; just stop using it, and stick to terms that have meaning. And then, go start a thread about those things, since they aren't the topic of this thread.Jon

There is a parental right. Currently, parents have the right to circumcise their children.

Of course there is a parental right here, the right to make the decision about whether or not their male infant should be circumcised.

Since when do you or society get to decide every "need"? Are you going to tell me when my child "needs" new shoes?

Well, you yourself don't need a good reason to not circumsize your kid. But you will need a good reason to outlaw the practice, imho. I suppose you don't have to have one, but good luck with that Are there any other things that we outlaw just because there isn't a good reason for people doing them? I still don't feel like FGM has any place in this discussion. Are you not special pleading circumcision? But those aren't the reason why I was circumcised. They're irrelevant to me. And I don't think my circumsicion harmed me, so that isn't really weighing in on my opinion either.I can understand why you don't want to, and/or won't, circumcise your kid, but I still haven't seen a good reason why it should be outlawed.

For me personally, the curcumsicion was intended to help during the infancy stage. You can't really do that if you wait until past infancy.

Women love it.
It's a piece of skin that makes no difference what's so ever being there or not.
This thread is ridiculous.
What about the BJ's? You get more BJ's!
It reduces sensitivity during sex = you last longer...even better!I've been mutilated!- Oni

What's wrong with stopping at "preventing permanent, irrevocable amputations of functional body parts"? I'm not seeing the slippery slope, here. We protect children from their parents when their parents are causing harm to their children that we can prevent.I'd say the slippery slope here is on your side; if parents can have a son's foreskin amputated, for religious reasons or no reason at all, by a doctor or by just some dude, what can't they have cut off of their children?

Did you get to decide if it was circumcised or not? Nothing is special about penises, which is why I propose that we extend to them the same protection that we extend to all of a child's body parts, and prevent parents from being allowed to amputate parts for religious reasons or no reason at all, by a doctor or by nobody in particular. If instead of circumcision we were talking about a tradition of amputating a child's earlobes at birth, I'd be here making the same argument against it because it doesn't matter in the slightest what body part we're talking about; parents don't have a right to have it amputated for religious, cultural, or cosmetic reasons, or for insufficient medical cause.The question for you is what's so special about penises, that they don't deserve the same protection from needless cosmetic modification that we extend to all other parts of a child's body, in your view. You're the one special pleading for penises, not me. Sure you can, that's the problem. You just have to do it before they're able to defend themselves.

That sounds more like a rationalization rather than a justification. Indeed. But I wasn't saying 'lack of consensus leads to bad times', I was saying 'relying on anecdotes leads to bad times'. In fact, as bluegenes' article notes - on the subject of circumcision, anecdotes leading to consensus was a disaster:

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Two years later Dr Samuel McMinn published, in the Boston and Medical Surgical journal, a revolutionary report about an insane woman living near Tuscaloosa, who had taken a razor and amputated the whole of her external organs of generation. McMinn arrived at the scene and fully expected the woman to die from her massive wounds, but she survived. As her wounds healed, her reason miraculously returned. Fascinated by this outcome, McMinn speculated:

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And the results of this case may suggest a remedy. Whether it was the great loss of blood, the removal of the organs and the counter-irritation consequent that cured the patient is a question for the consideration of the profession. [9]

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The title he gave to his report, however, betrayed his own, and presumably the journal editor’s opinion as to the source of the cure. The report was dramatically entitled Insanity cured by excision of the external organs of generation.

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Ten years later, in 1855, Dr William Taylor published a similar report involving a cigar-maker from Philadelphia who had gone insane and hacked off his penis and testicles with a broken bottle. [10] Although he bled profusely, his wounds healed, and his reason returned. No further proof was needed. A revolutionary new surgical approach to masturbatory insanity had been established just as the innovation of aseptic surgery was opening new vistas for surgical ambition. Orthodox American medicine now embarked upon the wholesale amputation of sexual organs as a the preferred cure for a wide range seemingly unrelated conditions. In mental hospitals inmates were castrated on a massive scale in order to stop them from masturbating and thereby restore their sanity.

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The full quote is that parents should determine this in cases where

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there are potential benefits and risks

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It also states

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data are not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision.

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That is, in full. Don't do it as a matter of routine, the benefits for so doing are not sufficient. If it is one of the circumstances where there are benefits, the parents should decide.The other American link says:

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The statement affirms that ACOG like the American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend male neonatal non-therapeutic circumcision.

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I picked different fields and nationalities as this is an international discussion and is not unique to one particular field. We're not saying that circumcision is never an option, but it should only be an option where there is a particular benefit to doing it. The risks of getting infected are sufficiently small, and the consequences for getting infected are generally small and easily fixed so that most relevant professional organizations recommend against circumcising to avoid them.Also there is the undercurrent of 'circumcise your baby, it might make your life trivially easier as a parent.', which surely introduces a conflict of interest. I'm not saying that is in play all the time, but selfish assholes can be parents too.From the APA statement:

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Circumcision has been suggested as an effective method of maintaining penile hygiene since the time of the Egyptian dynasties, but there is little evidence to affirm the association between circumcision status and optimal penile hygiene.

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In one study, appropriate hygiene decreased significantly the incidence of phimosis, adhesions, and inflammation, but did not eliminate all problems.29 In this study, 60% of parents remembered receiving instructions on the care of the uncircumcised penis, and most followed the advice they were given. Various studies suggest that genital hygiene needs to be emphasized as a preventive health topic throughout a patient's lifetime.

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I'm afraid your mother was probably badly informed. I'm not blaming her for it, of course. I have no idea if the doctor is to blame either - I'm not sure what consensus on the matter looked like when you were born. I did see one paper from the sixties which criticized the hygiene/cleanliness justification. I wasn't suggesting they recite stock phrases. I gave an example of the kind of advice the doctor should give that is in line with the opinion of relevant professional experts. He should not be giving his personal opinion on the matter dressed as advice.I agree that there are some particular cases and some particular individuals for whom circumcision is a genuine option.'Increased risk of certain infections' is weighed against 'increased rates of meatitis' and all the other risks and benefits are weighed by those professionals I linked to. They say the normal risks that are present are not sufficient on their own to justify circumcision.

That would depend on your definition of "amputation". Would trimming your child's fingernails without his permission be acceptable? Something that they might miss in the future. Go ahead and point out on the street which men are circumised and which are not. Then ask the ones who are circumcised if they'd rather not be. If they look at you as if you're a raving lunatic, take that to heart.

No you can't. Well then they aren't so much an adult, are they? Good. Then you should have nothing against allowing parents to exercise the same freedom over deciding what happens with their child's penis as they exercise in deciding what happens to their child's teeth, tonsils, birthmarks, extra toes, and so forth.Unless, of course, you do think penises are special; so special that you think we need to restrict a parent's right to make decisions for their child in the particular case of penis modification.If there's nothing special about penises, why should society care one way or the other?Jon

I'm not seeing that she necessarily was. They say they have little evidence to affirm it, not that it is wrong.And it makes sense to me that if your strapping diapers on babies, then you can get shit stuck up under the foreskin. Removing the foreskin would help you keep it clean, regardless of whether or not a rigorous scientiifc study can affirm that with evidence. Um, how many doctors have you been to? That's just how medicine is practiced. Most of the time, the doctors are dealing with very little infromation and have to make guesses at the cause and then check to see if their recommended treatment even did anything. Looks to me like most of medice is advice base on opinions... in fact, if you don't like what your doctor recommends, then you can go get a second opinion. You've certainly made a good case why somebody might not want to circumcise their kid, bravo, but I'm still not compelled to agree that this is something that needs to be outlawed. I wonder how many women decide to circumcise their son because they prefer the appearance of a circumcised penis, themselves, and therefore are just doing it for cosmetic reasons...