A proposal to ban circumcision for non-medical reasons in Iceland has generated a heated debate over whether banning the practice would amount to an attack on religious freedom. Iddo Porat argues that we should be suspicious of any majority proposed legislation which affects only minority groups.
This article is one of two pieces published by EUROPP on this topic. For an alternative view on the issue, see the other article here.
When the majority in a society suddenly gets an overwhelming paternalistic urge to protect its minorities from their own practices, one should be suspicious. When what is believed to be morally wrong and worthy of moral condemnations aligns perfectly with what only ethnic and religious minorities do, one should be suspicious. When majority proposed legislation detrimentally affects only minority groups while imposing zero costs on the majority, one should be suspicious.
This is exactly why we should be extremely suspicious of current proposals to ban male circumcision in Iceland and in other European countries. In these countries an overwhelming Christian majority wishes to ban the practices of two religious and ethnic minorities – Muslims and Jews. In Iceland, for example, Jews form only 0.1% of the population and Muslims only slightly more than that. Moreover, unlike in other countries, such as the US or Australia, in Iceland as well as in all the other countries in which circumcision ban campaigns have reached serious parliamentary hearings, circumcision is very rarely practiced outside of these two minorities.
Therefore, a ban on male circumcision in those societies would affect only minorities, and majority members would not internalise any of its costs. Finally, unlike practices such as wearing the veil which are done in public and one could argue (although quite tenuously) might affect the majority as well, male circumcision is done entirely privately and has no externalities with regards to the majority. Therefore, motivations for its banning coming from the majority are strictly paternalistic – thinking one can take better care of the children of the minority than the minority itself.
Why do such minority-majority situations raise suspicion? The reason is, that such decisions are made for the minority by the majority, in a context where the deliberative democratic process does not work. There is no deliberative process of figuring out what is good for us in society. Rather the majority decides what is good for the minority, which has no electoral power to affect the decision. The Icelandic example is again illuminating, as the MP that promoted the ban was quoted saying that he “didn’t think it was necessary to consult” Jewish and Muslim groups.
In that respect there is a crucial difference between male circumcision and female circumcision – for two reasons. First, because Muslim majorities also ban female circumcision. When Muslims get to decide their own fate, and have the power to regulate their own members, they invariably choose to ban female circumcision, but not male circumcision. In most Muslim countries in which female circumcision is prevalent (almost all are in Africa) there is a legal ban on it, including Egypt, Sudan, and Djibouti.
This means that when European majorities apply the ban in their societies they do not impose it on Muslims, but rather endorse a similar concern for the wellbeing of some Muslims (Muslim women) that most Muslims share in their own societies. Indeed, there is no objection to the ban on female circumcision from any mainstream Muslim organisations in Europe. This is in stark contradiction to attempts to ban male circumcision, which are strongly opposed to by all Jewish and Muslim organisations in Europe, and which are not present in any Muslim or Jewish country (or, for that matter, in any other country across the world).
Secondly, unlike male circumcision, female circumcision affects only women, which are a minority group in terms of power relations and a subjugated and dominated group (still) in most countries, including in those societies in which female circumcision is practiced. A practice that affects only women, and towards which there are claims of detrimental effects, should be suspected of emanating from majority-minority relations in which men decide for women. Indeed, this is the way female circumcision is reasoned many times, even by those who practice it – as a way of regulating, and even eliminating, female sexual desire.
There is no such equivalent suspicion in the case of male circumcision in which men basically decide for themselves. The fact that these are men deciding for boys does not change that picture. Male children are the most cherished asset of any male dominated society. They will become men, who will rule society, and all men were once boys, so that boys, for all intents and purposes are viewed by men as their own extensions. There is no reason therefore to believe that men, deciding for their own male descendants, would not internalise any danger or detriment that might befall them, or treat them in any way differently than the way they would have wished to be treated themselves as children. In particular, no male dominated society could reasonably be suspected of wishing to harm future males’ sexuality, and definitely this is not the way male circumcision is reasoned or understood in the societies that practice it.
For these two reasons we should suspect that attempts to ban male circumcision in Europe are affected by minority-majority relations and are the result of majoritarian paternalism and moralism, while bans on female circumcision are not.
A final worry might be brought up in response. What if all (or most) men in the relevant societies think they are doing something good for themselves and for their children, but are simply wrong? What if they simply make a factual mistake, which keeps affecting themselves detrimentally over centuries and millennia? In such cases paternalism, by those who can see the mistake and have a better ability to identify and assess it, can (maybe) be justified. But do we have any reason to assume this is the case with regards to male circumcision?
We might have had a reason to believe so if the only societies that allowed circumcision were societies with an underdeveloped medical profession and without freedom of speech and information, and all countries with proper medical research and free speech would ban it. The situation, however, is quite different. The US is not particularly weak on medicine nor on free speech. It defies all logic to assume that in such a country 81% of all men (and scores of millions more over the past decades) were subjected to a procedure causing serious detrimental health effects and serious harm to sexuality, and yet the entire mainstream medical community, having researched the issue once and again on a very large data base, with its members willing to subject their own sons to the procedure, is blind to these effects, and only Icelandic doctors are able to see them. One should adopt very far-reaching assumptions about the ability to silence information and manipulate medical research in a free society, and about the nonchalant way in which millions of people in a liberal free society treat the safety and health of their own children, to think this probable. The same could be argued of the UN World Health Organization, who strongly recommend male circumcision.
The only medical communities in which there is mainstream objection and calls for banning circumcision are in countries (currently only Nordic countries) where doctors are not concerned about the health of their own children, but about the health of their minority’s children. I would like to discuss as a final anecdote recent research published in the Danish Royal Society of Medicine Journal that found correlation between circumcision and autism, and also between circumcision and learning disabilities – the same doctor previously found correlation between circumcision and complaints of immature ejaculation. The study was conducted only in Denmark, which means that it basically compared the prevalence of autism and learning disabilities between Muslim and Jewish Danes and all other Danes. Such studies, to my mind, should be ethically prohibited, and definitely should not receive governmental funding. A similar study could have probably found correlation between circumcision and voting to the right (or the left), high (or low) levels intelligence, and an inclination to grow beards. Not only is it scientifically questionable (as several researchers have commented), it enhances stereotyping and prejudice.
Circumcision ban campaigns are misguided and lack scientific support. They are however also dangerous, whatever the motivations behind them. They target and demonise vulnerable minorities, touching on some of the most primeval fears from the foreign and the other – mistreatment of children, blood, cruelty, and sexual perversion. And, their popularity is on the rise. It is my opinion that liberal Europe should denounce them in the strongest of terms, before it is too late.
Please read our comments policy before commenting.
Note: This article gives the views of the author, not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image: Iceland’s parliament building (The Alþingi), Credit: Stefán Birgir Stefáns (CC BY-ND 2.0)
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Iddo Porat – College of Law and Business
Iddo Porat is an Associate Professor of Law at the College of Law and Business, Israel.
No one is suggesting that people that have reached the age of consent cannot make an informed decision to cut parts of their anatomy. To do otherwise makes it difficult to put a stop to female genital circumcision ((Otherwise known as mutilation) from taking place.
1) The proposed ban is not of circumcision, but of circumcision of children. The only people that are against informed consenting men being able to decide for themselves whether or not they should be circumcised, are the people that would take that choice away from them.
2) No-one complained when female circumcision was made illegal, even though some people regard it as their religious right or duty to cut their daughters. It’s illegal to cut off a girl’s prepuce, or to make any incision on a girl’s genitals, even if no tissue is removed , and even if the parents think it’s their religious right or duty. Even a pinprick is banned. Why don’t boys get the same protection? Except in surprisingly rare medical circumstances, everyone should be able to decide for themselves whether or not they want parts of their genitals cut off. It’s *their* body.
3) You say that “Circumcision ban campaigns are misguided and lack scientific support”. Three national medical organizations (Iceland, Sweden and Germany) have called for infant male circumcision to be *banned*, and two others (Denmark and the Netherlands) have said they’d support a ban if they didn’t think it would drive the practice underground.
“Routine” circumcision *is* banned in public hospitals in Australia (almost all the men responsible for this policy will be circumcised themselves, as the male circumcision rate in Australia in 1950 was about 90%).
4) You refer to the Frisch paper which found strong correlations between infant male circumcision and autism/ASD, and suggest that it didn’t try to account for covariates including cultural background, which simply isn’t the case. It isn’t the first such paper either. Bauer, Kriebel, 2013 investigating prenatal and neonatal exposure to acetaminophen, found that:
“For studies including boys born after 1995, there was a strong correlation between country-level (n = 9) autism/ASD prevalence in males and a country’s circumcision rate (r = 0.98). A very similar pattern was seen among U.S. states and when comparing the 3 main racial/ethnic groups in the U.S.”
“A strong correlation (r = 0.98) was found in the country-level data between circumcision and autism spectrum disorder prevalence rates for boys born after 1995 (when circumcision guidelines began recommending analgesics). The slope of this trend for the 9 countries with available data indicates that a change of 10% in the population circumcision rate was associated with an increase in autism/ASD prevalence of 2.01/1000 persons (95% CI: 1.68 to 2.34)”
http://www.ehjournal.net/content/12/1/41
Two peer-reviewed studies, published in quality journals, using different methods, and citing extensive references for two different proposed mechanisms, have found strong correlations between infant male circumcision and autism/ASD. If results like this had been found with any other elective intervention, it would have been prohibited already.
I find it very disturbing indeed that you think that studies looking at possible downsides to infant male circumcision, or any other surgical operation, should be “ethically prohibited”.
Congratulations on excellent article.
The following support and add to what you say:
http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/journals/15718182/24/2
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1073110517750603
All evidence-based policies now support early infant male circumcision and its not just because Jewish religion/God happens to have chosen 8 days postpartum as the best time.
The trend is definitely towards infant male circumcision.
Perhaps that is why opponents have ramped up their rhetoric in recent times, as they see their “cause” threatened by scholarly arguments.
And as usual, you link to your own papers. Co-authored with others, although it’s primarily people like Klausner and Krieger (one of your most frequent co-authors and who practices out of Washington state, which has one of the lowest circumcision rates in America), who are Jewish, or Douglas Diekema, one of the members of the AAP’s 2012 Circumcision Task Force, and who also recommended the legalization of a mild form of FGM in 2010.
Brian Morris is someone who repeatedly claims that the benefits of circumcision outweigh the risks over 200 to 100, and that atleast a third of all men who aren’t circumcised will suffer serious health issues, and many will die.
No medical organization on the planet (except perhaps in the context of AIDS-ravaged African countries, or the CDC, who has openly cited his work and claims) will endorse these figures. Next to none. These are ultimately his claims and nobody else’s. They have certainly not been taken up the medical community of his home country of Australia, where circumcision is banned in all public hospitals, over half of all Australian doctors consider it abusive, and is covered under no form of health insurance. The RACP has likewise acknowledged the foreskin contains the most sensitive parts of the penis (but decline to make absolute statements on the effects of removal due to variable experience in adulthood) and that infant circumcision can be considered a violation of individual rights. As of last year, only 4% of Australian infants were circumcised for non-religious reasons. The practice is nearly dead in Australia, and infant circumcision hasn’t been the norm for many years now.
New Zealand also abandoned RIC altogether in the 70’s, and has only persisted among ethnic and religious minorities. For this, Morris has disparaged NZ as a “backwards country.”
There is no medical organization on the planet that will also endorse Brian Morris’ belief circumcision should be mandatory, a view he has openly expressed (and emphasized he’s being very serious) on Australian National TV, or this, a comment of his elsewhere: https://noodlemaz.wordpress.com/2010/05/08/fgm-and-mgm-still-a-long-way-to-go/
“FAILURE to circumcise a baby boy violates his human rights and breaches the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which supports protection of his health against adverse medical conditions caused by lack of circumcision.”
To be fair, Brian Morris’ work is extensively cited in AIDS research by the UN and WHO. Among these works is a book chapter entitled “Male Circumcision: An Appraisal of Current Instrumentation”, co-authored with Brian Eley, openly identified as being a moderator of Circlist, a circumcision fetish website long known to contain pedophilic material, including erotic circumcision fiction involving young boys and even actual child pornography. In this paper, Morris and Eley recommend “low, tight” circumcisions that have the effect of making the penis smaller when flaccid, as shown by illustrations within the chapter (though not mentioned, this also entails making it smaller when erect, as the erectile tissue will be constricted by tighter skin), and recommends this as a preliminary circumcision style in AIDS prevention until more research is done.
This chapter has been cited not just in AIDS research, but also a paper entitled “The ultrasonic harmonic scalpel for circumcision: experimental evaluation using dogs.” As the title indicates, this paper involves the circumcision of dogs to test out a technique on humans. The study also released footage. Although it has no sound, the movement indicates these dogs were not under anesthesia.
Putting aside how exaggerated the claim “All evidence-based policies now support early infant male circumcision” is, you act as if Judaism/other religions have nothing to do with impediments to bans and such. Hardly surprising, given how blatant it is- whenever bans crop up, they are opposed almost exclusively on the grounds of “religious freedom” and little to nothing else. It defies any shred of intellectual honesty/sanity that things like one world religion that traditionally mandates it be done in infancy has nothing to do with it, and the tremendous historic stigma associated with circumcision bans. The 2011 ban attempt in San Francisco was countered with claims of “religious freedom” on the part of Christians- even though Christian has no requirement for circumcision and has long been looked down upon by most Christians (and never practiced by them), it’s seen as such by many American Christians. It seems as if that all one has to believe in this regard is if you think your religious traditions require it, and you think a ban threatens your religious freedom, that’s all that’s needed.
In fact, the author of this article- a professor from Israel- openly recommends research into the harmful effects of circumcision be prohibited and not receive government funding, not just because of it being scientifically questionable (citing a paper by you and the Jewish AIDS researcher Wiswell), but “it enhances stereotyping and prejudice.”
But again, it must be said it’s not just religion. Many medical industries are deeply invested in the practice, foremost among them America’s. The Iceland debate recently saw the inclusion of Ty Erickson, an American OBGYN who’s performed hundreds of infant circumcisions defending the practice and preaching the “health benefits” at the main debate center. He is so far the only American medical professional I’ve seen directly insert himself into foreign debate, and is more than likely tied to a major American medical organization. Any foreign ban threatens the practice and the livelihoods of scores of American doctors, so it’s not surprising we’re seeing this now.
You can be seen in a similar vein, since you’ve absolutely failed to keep the practice alive in Australia, and work primarily with American, African and UN/WHO researchers now.
Thank you for a well written rebuttal to this “head in the sand” article.
Brian, Morris, as a doctor, you don’t normally support ritual circumcision. This article is written in defence of a religious/cultural practice, not a medical one. A ban on circumcision would not prohibit medical circumcisions.
South Africa has a legal ban on male circumcision, but allows it to be practiced medically. South Africa also has a fairly high circumcision rate. “Minority” tribal groups are not contesting the ban on circumcision, just carrying on with ritual circumcisions regardless – and causing deaths and injuries in a number of cases.
Theoretically, Jews and Muslims would be free to have their sons circumcised in Icelandic hospitals as long as they could provide a medical indication. This could include the prevention of HIV – as South African circumcision is designed to prevent.
The level of nonsense here is unbelievable.
unlike male circumcision, female circumcision affects only women…..
How can anyone take this seriously?
Your argument sounds, well, nice, but it kind of falls apart if we look deeper into it than only a glance.
Treating Muslims as a single entity is completely idiotic. See the war being the Shia and the Sunni that has been going on forever.
So, as per your argument, the religious majority of Muslims banning a practice which is practiced by a religious minority of Muslims (for example the Bohra), should still be looked upon with the same suspicion as other religious majorities banning practices of religious minorities no?
I also like to point out there was nothing democratic about the FGM ban in for example Egypt. The West forced them to ban it, Egypt complied but continued to do their thing in the shadows. According to Unicef 91% of women are still circumcised in Egypt. So your “argument” that if left to their own devices Muslims will naturally ban FGM is a bit weird, since they’re obviously not doing that.
“They will become men, who will rule society,”
Will? What proportion of the male population actually “rules” society? If the writer hasn’t noticed this barbarism is inflicted upon infants, the most vulnerable human beings alive.
Pitiful justification.
Ayn Rand said wisely: “The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”
In this case, we are talking about performing a body modification – one that is destructive, irreversible, and medically worthless – on an individual who has never consented to it. And that is defended by some on the insane basis of “his parents want it, therefore it is right.”
This is absolutely unethical, of course. No decent, civilized person can accept this reasoning. Parents are guardians of their children, not owners of human-shaped cattle. Their authority is not limitless. It does not include a right to perform physical abuse – which circumcision certainly is.
It is generally overlooked in the heated discussions around the protection of children from the loss of a functional body part to non-therapeutic religious circumcision that a child also has a religious right to practice religion and a right to make a decision for himself whether he should sacrifice a functional, useful, and valuable body part so as to comply with the tenets of a particular religion when he reaches maturity.
Circumcised males have various physical, protective, emotional, and sexual deficits that the author has not mentioned. There are campaigns against child circumcision even in his native Israel that he also overlooks.
A child, once circumcised, cannot uncircumcise himself if he does not adopt the religion of his parents.
International human rights law provides protections for the minority against the majority and additional protections for the minor child who is too weak to protect himself. The Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) has condemned non-therapeutic child circumcision as a serious violation of international human rights law since 2010.
The proposed ban on non-therapeutic circumcision is an effort to protect the child’s autonomous religious rights. This is a right long recognised under the international law of human rights. It is time to put this protection into effect.
Our international physicians’ charity believes Mr. Porat is disingenuously looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Majorities have always made decisions affecting minorities. Laws exist to protect elements of the larger society from those minorities who would endanger themselves or their children. A minority of UK people ride bicycles, but the majority might require they wear helmets. The notion that making a decision which affects a minority is suspicious in and of itself is an (embarrassing) red herring.
The proposed Icelandic restriction on non-therapeutic, merely cultural, genital cutting of boys protects them from physical harm, full-stop. A recent study in Utah in the USA found an 11.5% complication rate in a cohort of 6,298 boys. And this was a study of circumcisions performed in sterile conditions by medical personnel. A nearly 1-in-8 complication rate for a necessary, lifesaving, surgery is troubling; the same rate for an unnecessary, optional, amputation surgery on a child who has not consented is a complete and utter disgrace.
What then is the rate of complication for circumcisions done in religious settings by untrained operators, using septic devices, in barely sanitary -let alone sterile- settings with no back-up medical personnel on standby?
The proposed Iceland restriction (and there will be more to come from Europe our physician group hopes) endangers no one, and can only be seen to affect those adults who prefer ancient whims to the safety of their children. No one should feel sorry for those so besotted.
Moreover, as we presented to the Althingi, Judaism has evolved a welcome ceremony for boys, Bris Shalom, that many hundreds of rabbis accept as sufficient. And the Islamic circumcision tradition, is just that, a mere cultural choice lacking even a claimed divine mandate.
The issue is not the rights of adults (who may believe whatever they wish) but the human rights of children to an intact body. That is the correct end of the telescope though which to view the problem.
John V. Geisheker, JD, LL.M
Executive Director,
General Counsel;
Doctors Opposing Circumcision
Seattle, Washington, USA
First off, thank you, Mark Lyndon, for addressing the majority of my concerns with this article in your delightfully insightful comment above.
Now, one more statement that deserves to be challenged: “In particular, no male dominated society could reasonably be suspected of wishing to harm future males’ sexuality…”
That is exactly the reason that circumcision became popular in the USA in the first place. It exploded in popularity to become the norm as a means of preventing boys from, or punishing them for, masturbating. How can you describe the attempt to eradicate male masturbation as anything other than “wishing to harm future males’ sexuality”? This isn’t just something that can be “reasonably suspected”, it is a historical fact.
If adults want to tattoo their bodies, have plastic surgery or circumcise their bodies…that is their adult right…
Parents do not have the right to so life permanently alter their children’s body…A religion that says male children should have face tattoo’s might be ignored if in the Amazon jungle but it won’t and shouldn’t be tolerated in the West..
It must be said that Muslims have no justification fighting any bans, or what should be more accurately described as an age restriction with specific medical exceptions. This is because Islam does not require circumcision. And even if it did, there is also no set age at when it must be done. Circumcision of males in Islam ranges from infancy all the way to adulthood. The fact Muslims are able to unquestioningly fight circumcision age restrictions on the grounds of violations of religious freedom reflects the absurd degrees to which European governments capitulate to such arguments.
On female circumcision, you act as if only Muslim countries banned them. In reality it’s banned in nearly all of Africa, which includes nations with Christian majorities. You also act as if the bans were organic. No country on earth explicitly banned FGM until the 1960’s, and the vast majority of the bans date from the 90’s. They’re the result of tremendous international pressure from Western governments and Western-derived activism in these countries, and even still FGM is common and widely supported in most of them, and bans are poorly enforced. There has been no parallel interest in confronting male circumcision in the Muslim world on the part Western governments and activist organizations, hence why there’s been no bans or challenges to it whatsoever.
The only Muslim nations that ban it are in Africa, which largely reflects the nearly century old activist work and international attention. In Malaysia, it’s classified as a medical practice and has increased in recent years (where already over 90% of Muslim women were circumcised.) Although there has been pressure there, bans have not lasted and it’s variously just led to less invasive practices being more common. “Most Muslims” and non-Muslims who practice FGM do not share this concern over well-being, often especially the women. The fact no Muslim group in Europe endorses it likely just reflects the countries of origin and FGM is banned in many European countries.
Even more remarkable is how you’ll claim that there is no parallel intent (of harming sexuality) behind male circumcision, but this is almost a given for people who try to make FGM out to be worse than circumcision. It’s a deeply selective ignorance of history and lack of interest into cultures that practice circumcision even now. Moses Maimonides in Medieval Judaism is well attested to have defended circumcision on the grounds that it reduced lust. There are Orthodox Jews who still openly attest such things, such as in the article “The Mark of Truth A Compendium on Circumcision” on Chabad.
As a medical practice, circumcision likewise originated as a Victorian measure to curb masturbation, believed to cause any number of physical and psychological ailments. This variously had a pronounced religious element, whether the influence of Jewish Doctors and Mohels (who attested it harm sexual function) and in America, where it was taken up by the Seventh Day Adventist John Kellogg and came to be wrapped in puritanical religious notions. I’m sure it’s also been done (and still is done with this intent) in parts of the muslim world.
Putting this aside, in traditional African cultures, female circumcision is generally viewed as an enhancement, as it’s seen as a transition into womanhood- as is male circumcision in these same societies. It is NOT always done with the express purpose of harming sexuality, far from it.
Worst of all are your surreal claims that men aren’t interested in harming their sons in any way. This is out of line with many, many, many years worth of sociological and anthropological study. People throughout human history have frequently done exactly this. Objectively harmful practices can frequently become normalized through desensitization and conformity, or a desire to repeat trauma. This claim is an extension of the deeply sexist, misandrist rhetoric behind FGM and male circumcision being in no way comparable. The article “The Geography of Genital Mutilations” details how there’s a very strong correlation between patriarchal culture and circumcision (moreso than FGM.)
You then find it very difficult to believe that if circumcision was so harmful, it wouldn’t still be popular in the US and of course that the AAP wouldn’t be so favorable towards it, and think there must be some conspiracy behind if it’s so bad. You fail to mention the AAP has had no consistent policy on it, or how national medical bodies elsewhere view it. In Europe, Canada, Australasia etc., they are overwhelmingly far less favorable if not outright negative. Or the fact some countries, like Britain and NZ, dropped circumcision altogether, or that it is nearly dead in Australia. Countries that dropped it (or it ended up in the minority) did so before or while the circumcision rate in America peaked, and during the period of the highest rates (the 70’s-early 80’s), it became standard policy in many US hospitals to circumcise newborns without even asking. Circumcision is a virtually unregulated surgery, as well described in “The Completely Unregulated Practice of Male Circumcision: Human Rights Abuse Enshrined in Law?.” There is also a pronounced religious element to circumcision in the US, such as the fact 20% of American doctors are Jewish (see also this element in the 2012 AAP statement), or the favorability towards it among Evangelical Christians.
It’s not just Icelandic doctors who are able to see these harmful effects. The fact the US upholds circumcision to a degree nearly unparalleled in the developed world does indeed bespeak to something about how information on it is disseminated and the cultural forces behind it. And since circumcision generally doesn’t cause “serious detrimental health effects” (which FGM always entails, of course) and the bulk of men in the US are circumcised before sexuality maturity, this, combined with desensitization, the private nature of the US healthcare system etc. it’s not hard to explain the US circumcision rates (but much more could be said).
And shockingly, with greater access to free information, we have been seeing a decline in circumcision, to the point it’s close to 50:50 among births and the minority in many states.
European medical organizations are not solely concerned with “the health of their minority’s children.” A significant minority of ethnic Germans are circumcised, owing to practices introduced by America during the Cold War; this has been a major force behind German medicine’s opposition and has spurned opposition elsewhere in Europe. You try to frame it as purely a focus on religious minorities, as if there’s also no concern about circumcision elsewhere. Much of this opposition has been spurred by the AAP’s activities, such as their 2010 FGM position or their 2012 statement, or the silence the international community has towards circumcision of boys, as the German Pediatrics Association has noted.
You choose to act like circumcision bans lack scientific support by homing in on the autism study, as if there’s nothing else. One could make a better case FGM bans have had far less scientific support. Harvard research Carla Obermeyer noted in 1999 that much of the evidence about the devastating damage of FGM was based on poor data or nothing at all. Subsequent research, detailed in “Genitals and ethnicity: the politics of genital modifications” and “Seven Things to Know about Female Genital Surgeries in Africa” show that, while FGM is indeed harmful, the popular perceptions (which have guided government policy globally) largely have no basis in reality. Much of the perception of the harm of FGM has been based in sensationalism, hysteria, moral panic, treating the most extreme procedures as the norm, Western folk theories about the clitoris, and profound distortions of the cultures in question- propaganda, in other words. Yet now boys and men are held to extraordinary standards of evidence where it seemingly has to be proved beyond the slightest doubt they’re harmed when part of their genitals are removed without consent or immediate medical need, and the biggest opposition repeatedly comes from arguments of “religious freedom.”
“Mistreatment of children, blood, cruelty, and sexual perversion”- every single one of these has been behind circumcision and still often is. That’s clear from basic history, anatomical, histological and neurological evidence, mountains of testimony and incalculable pieces of visual evidence. Just look at articles like “Turkish boys are circumcised with no anesthetic” or “The death and deformity caused by male circumcision in Africa can’t be ignored.” You seem to think these are really with no basis in reality and are just a tool to denigrate Jews and Muslims. There is no other practice remotely as blatantly harmful and barbaric that is defensible on the grounds of “religious freedom.” The evidence favoring a ban on this practice dwarfs most of what went into past FGM bans at this point. The fact bans repeatedly fail on the grounds of “religious freedom” are a testament to the unfathomable lengths governments are willing to capitulate to two religions who think their practices are beyond any question (Islam especially.) The suffering of hundreds of millions apparently just can’t compare to the religious right to cut children’s penises, which is still a point of ethical debate nearly a quarter of the way into the 21st century. All it really shows is the moral bankruptcy of international “human rights” considerations and the power religious lobbying holds in this world.
(Of course I don’t blame this 100% on religion- I also blame it on all the corrupt medical organizations who enshrine circumcision as a sane medical practice and push it wherever AIDS crops up/refuse to let go of it in America, and the “human rights” organizations that operate on the radical feminist theory/grotesquely sexist lie only females are victims of genital mutilation.)
Men, regardless of religion, are indeed beginning to speak out about long-term physical, sexual, emotional and self-esteem consequences of their non-therapeutic circumcisions. See the Global Survey of Circumcision Harm [www.CircumcisionHarm.org] There are many reasons why men have heretofore failed to speak out about their circumcision harm, which are similar to those seen among female victims of genital cutting. Among them are ignorance about the valuable functions of the lost genital structure, lack of familiarity with how to identify physical damage (many assuming that scarring, skin bridges, tight erections, genital sensory deficits and other anomalies are ‘birth defects’), not wanting to be seen as ‘unmanly’, and denial that one has been harmed. Questioning or speaking out against circumcision in some Islamic cultures can also be seen as apostasy, sometimes warranting death as a punishment. So it’s not surprising that only now, with the advent of the internet and global media, men are becoming better educated and speaking out against genital cutting practices that did not benefit them and will not benefit their sons.
Justifying male genital mutilation (circumcision) by pointing to religious freedom is no different than justifying human sacrifice, which is also a religious practice. Religion is not a valid excuse for violating human rights.
The genital mutilation of infants is not an exercise of religious freedom. It is exactly the opposite: a deliberate destruction of religious freedom – the religious freedom of the child. For that reason alone, it should be prohibited.
It’s so utterly refreshing reading all of these comments.
I’m from the UK so thankfully, my parents left my intact.
My heart really hurts for all of the little boys who have been mutilated, particularly in the US where it’s so pervasive and almost not even up for discussion.
I really like the religious freedom argument in terms of the child being free to follow or NOT follow the religion of their parents.
If circumcision is so great, let the kid decide when he matures.
Those who would propose to ban circumcision of male infants and yet support present abortion laws, please answer me this:
How is it that a pregnant mother has a right to present herself to the abortion services in order to have her son torn to pieces in the womb without any consideration for that child’s right to live, and yet if she should present her healthy child at day 8 for removal of his foreskin she should be criminalised and the child’s rights should suddenly take precedence?
I see them as two separate issues, especially since two bodies are affected in a pregnancy. It’s strange that people will try to protect a non-sentient embryo that doesn’t even have a brain yet though, but they don’t think a new born baby has a right not to have parts cut off its genitals (unless it’s a girl that is).
Do you really expect people to care about a child being torn apart limb by limb in a society that has not yet learned to care about slicing off part of a child’s sexual organs?
People first need to recognise bodily integrity of children as a human right and this needs to be enshrined in law over the simplest and most obvious things such as not cutting of ears, not stretching necks, not crushing feet, and not mutilating the genitals. Once society has accepted that as being right, it can consider the abortion issue in a clearer light.
If you think a baby loves to be cut, then then go and ask 1million intact men, if they would like to be cut, free of charge. You know what? Well run away, because he may tell you to fork off!
“They target and demonise vulnerable minorities, touching on some of the most primeval fears from the foreign and the other – mistreatment of children, blood, cruelty, and sexual perversion.”
Indeed – a circumcision ban is proposed to do just this: end the mistreatment of children, blood, cruelty, etc that is circumcision. Minority children should have this right too. No one’s seeking to ban Islam or Judaism. They’re seeking to ban genital mutilation.
The high number of circumcised adults who resent being circumcised as babies indicates that parents are not the best people to make this decision, but the individual concerned. And yes, many circumcised Americans report this resentment.
If people above the age of medical consent wish to be circumcised, they should be free to do so, but it should be their choice. People should also be free to choose their religion. Even children have the right to opt out of religious practices – in most developed countries, children would not be FORCED to attend religious services or classes against their will. Why should this not apply to genital surgery?
Of course minority and religious groups should be consulted, but I’d pose this question: would they circumcise a boy against his will?
Such a question could only apply to Muslims who normally circumcise boys rather than babies, but if they answered yes to this question they would be denying human rights. Still, in Islam circumcision is not mandatory, just a preference. Muslims are perfectly free to be circumcised over the age of medical consent.
In Judaism, the age of ritual circumcision is set at 8 days, so such a question could only be posed to slaves, for whom Abraham also decreed circumcision. If Jews answered yes to this, of course, they would be denying human rights too, and these are the ethical problems we face when translating ancient practices to modern conditions.
Routine infant circumcision is the only restrictive practice we allow parents to choose. Tattooing and other ritual body modifications on children are banned. It makes sense to ban circumcision too – for everybody. Children in minority groups should also have this right. They can be free to choose circumcision when they are old enough to medically consent.
It is a ridiculous situation where it is recognised as abuse to tattoo you child’s foreskin, yet it is not seen as abuse to entirely cut the foreskin off. It would be seen as abuse to remove any skin off the backside, for example, even though that would regrow, but not seen as abuse to cut off the sexual organ skin that will not regrow.
People supporting non-consensual genital cutting really need to examine their attitude to other people – particularly toward the most helpless: infants.
Just an analogy: Circumcision does not have many negative health impacts. Neither does scraping the skin off your child’s palm.
To say that banning infant circumcisions would be an attack on religion is ludicrous. An infant does not subscribe to any religion; they are too young to understand what it means. Certainly, a grown person should be free to choose their religion and to choose to get a circumcision if they like. We are saying DON’T do this to helpless infants. Let them decide this for themselves when they are old enough.