Circumcision ban getting people snippy.

[Sri Lumpa]

 

DélioPT said:

"Parents, who are religious, want it for their kids and that`s something that should be at least respected since what they are doing to their kids is no different than it would be done by themselves"
With themselves, i meant the kids. As in the result would be the same. I didn`t say the decision should be left to the kids. All i said is that i don`t see a problem in having the parents decide that.

That's what I understood. Replace themselves with kid in your sentence:

"Parents, who are religious, want it for their kids and that`s something that should be at least respected since what they are doing to their kids is no different than it would be done by their kids"

And my answer to your sentence makes perfect sense. If it wasn't what you meant then what did you mean (don't repeat the same sentence, try to express yourself with a different one please).

And yes, you didn't say the decision should be left to the kids, it is me who is arguing that it should be left to the kid (when he is old enough to be able to make such a decision so not a kid anymore).

And you don't see a problem with a person other than the one concerned taking a decision to undergo a surgical procedure in the absence of therapeutic necessity? So you wouldn't mind if I cut a few square centimeters of your skin to lower your risk of skin cancer, do you?

DélioPT said:

It`s not really a reversed situation. It`s a different one. No one`s life is in danger and no body is in danger of being crippled.

 

Sure it is, in one case you want a parent to have the right to force an unnecessary surgery on their child for religious belief, in the mirror case you want a parent to have the right to prevent a necessary surgery on their child for religious belief. 

The danger of being crippled or dying is not to compare to circumcision but because such a dire outcome for a lack of surgery is, in my opinion, a justifiable reason to force it upon a child that cannot make the decision themselves. If the lack of surgery had not such dire consequence then I would not see a need to force it on the child. Similarly, if the child is old enough to come to a reasoned decision himself and decides not to take the surgery then he definitely shouldn't be forced to take it as it is then his choice and forcing surgery on him would then be battery.

Now that I have clarified this (sorry if I caused confusion earlier), would you care to answer.

DélioPT said:

You know, not only religious people enforce a vision of the world, as they aren`t the only ones to put their kids through surgery.

Indeed, a lot of people in America seem to enforce their vision of the penile world on their sons for non-religious and non-medical reasons. However, the question is not whether they are doing it for religious reasons or not, for having something be religious is most certainly not a reason to forbid it, but whether, regardless of religion, they have the right to enforce such a vision of the world on a defenceless person.

 

DélioPT said:

Second, i honestly don`t think seeing statistics is the best way to evaluate the idea of having the operation or not. If you know that there is a risk, no matter how small it is, you either decide to do or not, based solely on the existence of such risk and consequences. Leaving it to chance might not be the best option.

Well, I go from a position of civil rights and one of them being the right of every human to their person. Consentless circumcision (such as when performed near birth as the child is too young to express coherent thought and thus too young to consent) violates that right, so for it to be justifiable there needs to be an overwhelmingly positive outcome as opposed to the lack of the procedure so all I tried was to show the lack of such overwhelmingly positive outcome without dwelling on the risks of the procedure.

However, if one does not care about the civil rights of underage persons, I can understand that they would prefer to examine both sides of the risk/benefit ratio. I showed that the benefit is, while present, rather paltry for circumcision at birth rather than circumcision when the child is old enough to decide for himself; but, as with any surgery, there is also a number of risks associated with it. I do not have statistics for them as I it is not the crux of my argument and thus I did not research it as much as the potential benefits but according to this (probably NSFW from 2:12) video  (@ 35s) the risks include: laceration, haemorrhage, penile amputation and urethral damage.

And that is not an anti-circumcision video but an ad for a new circumcision device that reduces these risks. Also note that I am not claiming that these risks are high as if they were you probably would have dozens of millions of people in the US clamoring for circumcision to be made illegal (in the same way that if the lack of circumcision was such a plague on malekind you would have dozens of millions of uncircumcised men in europe clamoring to have it be mandatory).

Note the haemorrhage one, if you do not know the word it means loss of blood. I find it particularly important in the context of infant circumcision as infants have a lot less blood than teenagers and adults and can die a lot more easily from the loss of just a few ounces of it; which is why they have to clamp the foreskin, to prevent the baby to bleed to death.

So if you ever have a baby boy on the way and only care about the risk/benefit analysis you should still do your research as the benefit of doing it before he can decide for himself are minimal and the risk are nonexistant.

Personnally, I would prefer if you based your decision on treating your child as a defenceless person with the same basic rights as you, even though some of those rights are curtailed until they are more mature, and to really ask yourself whether you have any right to cut a working part of your child's anatomy without his permission.

We used to routinely perform appendectomy, tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy on children too young to consent (though not as young as infants of course, as these are a lot more invasive surgeries) but these wholesale practices have mostly stopped and been replaced by surgery, IF NEEDED.

DélioPT said:

You say enforce religion, like other don`t "share" with their kids - whatever is the issue - their vision of the world. Everytime a parent raises a kid he is "enforcing" his ways onto the son. Being religious just gives you another mindset, if you will, for the same practice.

There is a difference in teaching a child what it is your believe in and why you believe it and forcing them to undergo a surgical procedure that cannot be fully reversed in pursuit of said belief.

If you merely teach them, then as they grow older and can reason they can believe it themselves, disbelieve it, or believe another person's teaching. Whatever the case may be, they have a choice.

If you force your belief on their body in an partially irreversible way (and only painfully reversible for the reversible part) then they have had no choice but were forced to participate in their parent's religion even if they later choose to reject it.

Ok, time for me to go to bed. good night (or day, as the case may be) and may nobody put a sharp instrument to your genitals today.