mamarama - circumcision debate Part 1 of 2

It is good to see someone daring enough to take on such an entrenched lobby, and with such balance and grace.
I envy your equanimity. My own mother was heavily pressurised by our family doctor (who was Jewish). She resisted, but it made things awkward for the whole family for several years after that.
I am very grateful to her, but even half a century later I find it hard not to be outraged by the story.

Anyone that believes circumcision is a good thing based on statistics is a bleeping moron. Why? Statistics are created for a specific purpose, in this case, to suggest cutting off the skin on your member is good thing. It's like removing finger nails saying you won't get a cuticle infection.

In Europe, we don't have a circumcision "lobby" or industry promoting infant circumcision.

Evidence from UK and Europe shows NO medical benefit to circumcision. The largest survey of British men ever conducted (in UK) on the outcomes of male circumcision found NO benefit to circumcision for both viral and bacterial STDs (specifically, 11.1% of the circumcised men had any STD compared to 10.8% of the non-circ´ed men).

See "Sexually transmitted Infections", vol. 79, p. 499-500, Dec. 2003.

I believe it! I was surprised by how many parents bought into the medical reasons for circumcising.  It's just this weird American thing, as far as I can tell - almost as though "natural" has some negative, almost uncivilized, connotation.

mama, I try to discourage this destructive, unethical fad. Routine circumcision was imported to the USA (and to all Anglophone nations) by the British in the Victorian era.

However, the Brits started to abandon routine circumcision TWO generations ago (following studies by the late British physician Gairdner, finding no medical evidence to support it).

No British medical body wants its restoration to the UK. Most Europeans regard it as mutilation. People are happier left genitally whole.

"The baby should match the dad"? That's the stupidest reason I've ever heard. I hope I wasn't cut for that reason.

You'd be amazed by how many parents I have heard cite THIS reason as their primary one for circumcision. That and the STD thing (which is largely unfounded).

If all women's breasts were routinelty removed, it would eliminate breast cancer. I doubt it will happen though. The USA should be embarrassed that, as a developed country, it still practices this barbaric procedure - done without the permission of the patient i might add!

I am THIS woman, thank you - and I most definitely do not advocate mutilation or specifically circumcision. Perhaps you are not a parent, but concerning an infant born in a hospital setting it is absolutely the parents' decision whether or not to circumcise. The doctor who is pushing for the procedure is not going to take a "wait and see" attitude, so it's my job to try to be sure parents are prepared with the facts and stats.

"facts" and "stats" do not overrule the human's right to an intact body. The foreskin is not and never was a birth defect.The current "medical" system of "educating" parents to make a choice is bullshit, No doctor would advocate amputation of any other body part as a pre-emptive "cure" for diseases that are already easily preventable.

It's a joke that the medical community even considers it.