Religious Special Pleading

I thought we had established that prohibition doesn't generally universally prevent a practice but it does have an inhibitory effect in certain cases, circumcision included. It's unnecessary. I'll do you a solid though. I'll include 'Ringo is not aware anyone wants to engage in the practice' as a criteria.a) stoning adulterers, homosexuals and those that work on the Sabbath
b) slavery / indentured servitude
c) Flogging adulterers and unbelievers
d) removing the hands of thieves
e) human sacrifice (what if the victim consents? What if they were 'brainwashed' all their life into that consent?)
f) beating children with rods
g) Declining to employ people of the 'wrong' religion.
h) Marrying children off and the consummation thereof
i) Footbinding
j) Beating one's spouseSo - what's next? Let's do 'beating one's spouse'. That's certainly something that people do in the US. Why should that remain prohibited? I don't see why we can't inhibit the practice. But prohibition does inhibit the practices. I don't expect it would happen with many. See female circumcision as a comparison. I claim only that prohibition of circumcision will inhibit the number of circumcisions. I told you to pay attention to the scope. You claimed I could control whether we took parents away. That's not strictly true, but in so far as it is, I can also assert control over the numbers by inhibiting the practice by making it illegal.

You said I could control taking parents away from their children. Did you mean I could only influence it? Whether its taboo depends on the society and / or cultural context - even within the US. Some people disagree with you. And it is working. Are you saying we should allow it? Yep. It's what is observed. If Doctors stop performing it, if insurance stops covering it -- it's inevitable rates will decline in the US.

Well there you go, quite straight forward really. Well, it is. It was lawful in the 19th Century to beat one's spouse. The US outlawed it in 1920. The justice system started to take it more seriously in the 70s and prosecutions went up. Marital rape was legal in some states in the 1990s! That's disputable. It was made illegal in the 1920s, but most people, the legal system included, seldom bothered prosecuting it because, though it might be distasteful - it was essentially socially acceptable. It took 50 years after the legal prohibition for society to put its foot down and begin to make it a social taboo, and even then it took another couple of decades to complete the process. Not only is it quite clear to me - it also gives people recourse to get abusers out of their lives, gain custody of children etc. Yes.There is some interesting area when it comes to addiction - as legalizing something may help fight addiction for a variety of reasons. But I said this back in Message 288:

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The Queen of England used cocaine in the 19th Century. Doctors used it. Labourers regularly used it, soldiers used it and so on. I expect consumers have probably decreased since the late 19th and early 20th Century - if total consumption has increased I expect this is a function of increased production due to agricultural and technical improvements ... even if consumption hasn't changed - or gone up - it wouldn't change my original comment from over a month ago

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you can't jump from what is true of nouns to what is true of verbs (murder, abuse etc).

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Circumcision has been the main goalpost here from the outset. My primary concern is with regards to non-therapeutic neonatal circumcision. That's what I want to prohibit above all else. Once that's done we can start discussing the exact age at which non-therapeutic circumcision is appropriate.