Why do you care what I decide to do to my son's penis when he is born?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We fully vaccinate on time and my mom and dad are both doctors - I trust the medical establishment an awful lot, considering! I'm a lawyer, so I can't claim the family medical degree, but I absolutely am not anti-medicine. And we do not circumcise. And, please, lady above, get this through your head. I am not obsessed with your child's genitalia in any way.

You want to marginalize people who speak their minds about circumcision to be crazy, anti-medicine, or perverts, and you want to dumb down the issue to what's in your kid's diaper vs. minding one's own business. It's not so simple. If you've circumcised, fine. If you are thinking about it, I'd encourage you not to do it. It will hurt your baby and don't kid yourself otherwise, the medical benefits are extremely flimsy, and the cultural / religious aspect means nothing to me.

I believe it's harmful to kids, and that's why I care. It has nothing to do with caring about how your kids genitalia looks. It makes you feel better to think of it like it's as unreasonable as someone caring about how you comb your kids hair. Not so. We believe it's harmful, and that's why we care.

Some people upthread have said there will never be a ban on it. Honestly, that bums me out. I wish there would be. I can tell you that insurance companies will not pay for it for much longer. That's a step in the right direction. If you want to cut off part of your child's penis, you should have to pay for that yourself. My premiums shouldn't reflect cosmetic surgery on infant penises.

+1,000,000 THANK YOU!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We fully vaccinate on time and my mom and dad are both doctors - I trust the medical establishment an awful lot, considering! I'm a lawyer, so I can't claim the family medical degree, but I absolutely am not anti-medicine. And we do not circumcise. And, please, lady above, get this through your head. I am not obsessed with your child's genitalia in any way.

You want to marginalize people who speak their minds about circumcision to be crazy, anti-medicine, or perverts, and you want to dumb down the issue to what's in your kid's diaper vs. minding one's own business. It's not so simple. If you've circumcised, fine. If you are thinking about it, I'd encourage you not to do it. It will hurt your baby and don't kid yourself otherwise, the medical benefits are extremely flimsy, and the cultural / religious aspect means nothing to me.

I believe it's harmful to kids, and that's why I care. It has nothing to do with caring about how your kids genitalia looks. It makes you feel better to think of it like it's as unreasonable as someone caring about how you comb your kids hair. Not so. We believe it's harmful, and that's why we care.

Some people upthread have said there will never be a ban on it. Honestly, that bums me out. I wish there would be. I can tell you that insurance companies will not pay for it for much longer. That's a step in the right direction. If you want to cut off part of your child's penis, you should have to pay for that yourself. My premiums shouldn't reflect cosmetic surgery on infant penises.

+1,000,000 THANK YOU!

Yes, +1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The sheer defensiveness of the people who have chosen to circumcise here is obvious. I can see why it would be really frustrating to feel like you did something that is now being openly criticised and questioned, particularly if you thought you were doing the right thing. I think many people who circ generally just didn't figure out it was the wrong thing to do beforehand, and now are so invested in it being the right thing to do that they feel personally offended when someone else disputes that choice by not making it.

I can think of no other explanation of why they care so much about what someone else did or what someone else thinks.

Pot. Meet kettle. The non-circ mothers are the ones who get in a tizzy about this. No one else.

May I direct your attention to the OP, who started this shit slinging sesh?

Listen. I am not defensive at all about our decision to circ. And I put people who have opinions about it in the same group I put non-vaxers. But it is really perplexing that someone else has such an interest/opinion in my child's genitalia. It really skeeves me out. Why care so much about what someone else does? People who cry mulilation and abuse are just whackadoodles, and it is unsettling that these people care so much about my child's private areas.

Listen. You can quit trying to put people opposed to circumcision in one category with non-vaxers. The overlap only goes in one direction, i.e. non-vaxers tend not to circumcise, because they have a general distrust in the medical establishment, without doing actual research on the issues. There are, however, many people who oppose circumcision who vaccinate fully, because while they don't mistrust their doctors, they do their due diligence and look at peer-reviewed research with an international scope. If you do that, you see that vaccination makes sense while circumcision doesn't. People who circumcise, on the other hand, tend to trust the US medical establishment, and don't feel the need to look beyond that.

Think what you want and I will do the same. I put them in the same category.

Not circumcising is in no way comparable to not vaccinating. Vaccination is recommended by all medical organizations in the world. Those who don't vaccinate don't trust the worldwide medical establishment and ignore its universal recommendations. Circumcision, let us remember, is NOT recommended as a routine practice by ANY medical organization in the world. Not even the AAP, who says:

"New scientific evidence shows the health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh the risks of the procedure, but the benefits are not great enough to recommend routine circumcision for all newborn boys" (http://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/pages/New-Benefits-Point-to-Greater-Benefits-of-Infant-Circumcision-But-Final-Say-is-Still-Up-to-parents-Says-AAP.aspx).

Therefore, unlike people who don't vaccinate, people who don't circumcise do not go against the recommendations of the medical establishment in any way. If you put them into the same category, you misjudge the issue completely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The sheer defensiveness of the people who have chosen to circumcise here is obvious. I can see why it would be really frustrating to feel like you did something that is now being openly criticised and questioned, particularly if you thought you were doing the right thing. I think many people who circ generally just didn't figure out it was the wrong thing to do beforehand, and now are so invested in it being the right thing to do that they feel personally offended when someone else disputes that choice by not making it.

I can think of no other explanation of why they care so much about what someone else did or what someone else thinks.

Pot. Meet kettle. The non-circ mothers are the ones who get in a tizzy about this. No one else.

May I direct your attention to the OP, who started this shit slinging sesh?

Listen. I am not defensive at all about our decision to circ. And I put people who have opinions about it in the same group I put non-vaxers. But it is really perplexing that someone else has such an interest/opinion in my child's genitalia. It really skeeves me out. Why care so much about what someone else does? People who cry mulilation and abuse are just whackadoodles, and it is unsettling that these people care so much about my child's private areas.

Listen. You can quit trying to put people opposed to circumcision in one category with non-vaxers. The overlap only goes in one direction, i.e. non-vaxers tend not to circumcise, because they have a general distrust in the medical establishment, without doing actual research on the issues. There are, however, many people who oppose circumcision who vaccinate fully, because while they don't mistrust their doctors, they do their due diligence and look at peer-reviewed research with an international scope. If you do that, you see that vaccination makes sense while circumcision doesn't. People who circumcise, on the other hand, tend to trust the US medical establishment, and don't feel the need to look beyond that.

Think what you want and I will do the same. I put them in the same category.

Not circumcising is in no way comparable to not vaccinating. Vaccination is recommended by all medical organizations in the world. Those who don't vaccinate don't trust the worldwide medical establishment and ignore its universal recommendations. Circumcision, let us remember, is NOT recommended as a routine practice by ANY medical organization in the world. Not even the AAP, who says:

"New scientific evidence shows the health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh the risks of the procedure, but the benefits are not great enough to recommend routine circumcision for all newborn boys" (http://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/pages/New-Benefits-Point-to-Greater-Benefits-of-Infant-Circumcision-But-Final-Say-is-Still-Up-to-parents-Says-AAP.aspx).

Therefore, unlike people who don't vaccinate, people who don't circumcise do not go against the recommendations of the medical establishment in any way. If you put them into the same category, you misjudge the issue completely.

And lest anybody forget, the AAP's conclusion that the health benefits outweigh the risks is NOT shared by the medical establishment beyond the US:

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2013/03/12/peds.2012-2896.abstract

[Anonymous]

I didn't say they were the same. I said I put them in the same category. I.e., people who have opinions I don't care about. Again, please stay out of my child's diaper. I shall do the same with your child. Xoxo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do I care? I care because it is an inhumane practice to do this routinely to newborn boys.

Do I raise it with you? No. But if it comes up, I will not sugarcoat my dismay.

How do I know? Like others have said, when you've had kids you'll realize that at some point you see pretty much all your friends changing diapers in front of you or helping with potty training. Other times, people mention it.

What happens then? I will notice your son's stubby scarred penis and I will flinch. I will try not to do this noticeably for your sake because, what's done is done, and for all I know you may now be better informed and regret it (like my in-laws). But I will feel sympathy for your child, just as I would if you mistreated him in another way.

I will think less of you. I will wonder how you came to that decision, as an educated, smart woman, who I obviously share some values with or we wouldn't be friends. I will feel a little sorry for you too. Because you are either willfully ignorant and have followed what you perceive to be the fashion and had cosmetic surgery on your newborn boy, or you are delusional and have believed the very scant and disputed evidence on the topic without having done any full research into the cultural basis of this.

And then, I feel thankful that I wasn't railroaded into doing this, by a husband, by a doctor, by in-laws or by society. I feel thankful that my boys each have their whole penis and that neither of them will feel bad about this as they get older. I feel bad that at some point, be it 5 or 10, 15 or 20 years from now, when this waning practice is widely believed as archaic you will realize that you made the wrong decision, that you were on the wrong side of this issue and that you will regret it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I didn't say they were the same. I said I put them in the same category. I.e., people who have opinions I don't care about. Again, please stay out of my child's diaper. I shall do the same with your child. Xoxo.

Yeah, well, that's a pretty meaningless category.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We fully vaccinate on time and my mom and dad are both doctors - I trust the medical establishment an awful lot, considering! I'm a lawyer, so I can't claim the family medical degree, but I absolutely am not anti-medicine. And we do not circumcise. And, please, lady above, get this through your head. I am not obsessed with your child's genitalia in any way.

You want to marginalize people who speak their minds about circumcision to be crazy, anti-medicine, or perverts, and you want to dumb down the issue to what's in your kid's diaper vs. minding one's own business. It's not so simple. If you've circumcised, fine. If you are thinking about it, I'd encourage you not to do it. It will hurt your baby and don't kid yourself otherwise, the medical benefits are extremely flimsy, and the cultural / religious aspect means nothing to me.

I believe it's harmful to kids, and that's why I care. It has nothing to do with caring about how your kids genitalia looks. It makes you feel better to think of it like it's as unreasonable as someone caring about how you comb your kids hair. Not so. We believe it's harmful, and that's why we care.

Some people upthread have said there will never be a ban on it. Honestly, that bums me out. I wish there would be. I can tell you that insurance companies will not pay for it for much longer. That's a step in the right direction. If you want to cut off part of your child's penis, you should have to pay for that yourself. My premiums shouldn't reflect cosmetic surgery on infant penises.

Very well said!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We fully vaccinate on time and my mom and dad are both doctors - I trust the medical establishment an awful lot, considering! I'm a lawyer, so I can't claim the family medical degree, but I absolutely am not anti-medicine. And we do not circumcise. And, please, lady above, get this through your head. I am not obsessed with your child's genitalia in any way.

You want to marginalize people who speak their minds about circumcision to be crazy, anti-medicine, or perverts, and you want to dumb down the issue to what's in your kid's diaper vs. minding one's own business. It's not so simple. If you've circumcised, fine. If you are thinking about it, I'd encourage you not to do it. It will hurt your baby and don't kid yourself otherwise, the medical benefits are extremely flimsy, and the cultural / religious aspect means nothing to me.

I believe it's harmful to kids, and that's why I care. It has nothing to do with caring about how your kids genitalia looks. It makes you feel better to think of it like it's as unreasonable as someone caring about how you comb your kids hair. Not so. We believe it's harmful, and that's why we care.

Some people upthread have said there will never be a ban on it. Honestly, that bums me out. I wish there would be. I can tell you that insurance companies will not pay for it for much longer. That's a step in the right direction. If you want to cut off part of your child's penis, you should have to pay for that yourself. My premiums shouldn't reflect cosmetic surgery on infant penises.

Nice how you completely write off the religious aspect. It doesn't matter that you personally think it is harmful. It is not and despite your feelings, there is some medical value to it. You just do not feel it is enough. Thankfully, your feelings do not matter. To me, my husband (who is a doctor), our religion or our insurance company.

Rest assured, the religious aspect will continue to be respected, and it is probably the only reason why circumcision will not be outlawed. But, eventually, you will pay for it yourself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We fully vaccinate on time and my mom and dad are both doctors - I trust the medical establishment an awful lot, considering! I'm a lawyer, so I can't claim the family medical degree, but I absolutely am not anti-medicine. And we do not circumcise. And, please, lady above, get this through your head. I am not obsessed with your child's genitalia in any way.

You want to marginalize people who speak their minds about circumcision to be crazy, anti-medicine, or perverts, and you want to dumb down the issue to what's in your kid's diaper vs. minding one's own business. It's not so simple. If you've circumcised, fine. If you are thinking about it, I'd encourage you not to do it. It will hurt your baby and don't kid yourself otherwise, the medical benefits are extremely flimsy, and the cultural / religious aspect means nothing to me.

I believe it's harmful to kids, and that's why I care. It has nothing to do with caring about how your kids genitalia looks. It makes you feel better to think of it like it's as unreasonable as someone caring about how you comb your kids hair. Not so. We believe it's harmful, and that's why we care.

Some people upthread have said there will never be a ban on it. Honestly, that bums me out. I wish there would be. I can tell you that insurance companies will not pay for it for much longer. That's a step in the right direction. If you want to cut off part of your child's penis, you should have to pay for that yourself. My premiums shouldn't reflect cosmetic surgery on infant penises.

Nice how you completely write off the religious aspect. It doesn't matter that you personally think it is harmful. It is not and despite your feelings, there is some medical value to it. You just do not feel it is enough. Thankfully, your feelings do not matter. To me, my husband (who is a doctor), our religion or our insurance company.

Rest assured, the religious aspect will continue to be respected, and it is probably the only reason why circumcision will not be outlawed. But, eventually, you will pay for it yourself.

Too late!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

If that's really the best you can do, you've got to admit defeat! If you had any understanding of how a thread works here you'd see that the other points are in response to previous posts. You're either pretty dense or you are just scrabbling for something to argue about.

Any time someone switches to personal attacks, it's a dead giveaway they are out of arguments.

I don't believe you can find a post upthread asking anyone what goes through their mind when they see an circumcised penis. That particular confession was contributed wholly without invitation. If you can quote a post upthread asking anyone about their feelings, please do.

[Anonymous]

Yet another way that Jewish people are smarter. Go right ahead with this trendy mess. It's our religion. Good luck

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rest assured, the religious aspect will continue to be respected, and it is probably the only reason why circumcision will not be outlawed. But, eventually, you will pay for it yourself.

Insurance doesn't cover "Jewish" circumcision. Only a hospital one right after birth. So, to actually be a bris, it's moot point - you pay for it out of pocket.

It's a good thing Jews haven't tried to outlaw bacon...or your cheeseburgers or lobster rolls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We fully vaccinate on time and my mom and dad are both doctors - I trust the medical establishment an awful lot, considering! I'm a lawyer, so I can't claim the family medical degree, but I absolutely am not anti-medicine. And we do not circumcise. And, please, lady above, get this through your head. I am not obsessed with your child's genitalia in any way.

You want to marginalize people who speak their minds about circumcision to be crazy, anti-medicine, or perverts, and you want to dumb down the issue to what's in your kid's diaper vs. minding one's own business. It's not so simple. If you've circumcised, fine. If you are thinking about it, I'd encourage you not to do it. It will hurt your baby and don't kid yourself otherwise, the medical benefits are extremely flimsy, and the cultural / religious aspect means nothing to me.

I believe it's harmful to kids, and that's why I care. It has nothing to do with caring about how your kids genitalia looks. It makes you feel better to think of it like it's as unreasonable as someone caring about how you comb your kids hair. Not so. We believe it's harmful, and that's why we care.

Some people upthread have said there will never be a ban on it. Honestly, that bums me out. I wish there would be. I can tell you that insurance companies will not pay for it for much longer. That's a step in the right direction. If you want to cut off part of your child's penis, you should have to pay for that yourself. My premiums shouldn't reflect cosmetic surgery on infant penises.

Nice how you completely write off the religious aspect. It doesn't matter that you personally think it is harmful. It is not and despite your feelings, there is some medical value to it. You just do not feel it is enough. Thankfully, your feelings do not matter. To me, my husband (who is a doctor), our religion or our insurance company.

Yes, I do write off the religious aspect, in much the same way I believe that other religions should not be allowed to withhold medical care for their children because of religious conflict, and the same way I would say that I don't get to kill my child because my god commands it, I believe that you don't get to cut off one of his body parts because your god demands it. I believe that you may not force your daughter to become one of six wives because your religion requires it. I don't believe you may require your daughter to have a ritual nick to her clitoral hood because your religion requires it. Religion should not be used as an indiscriminate shield or justification for harming children. Again, it boils down to you believing it is harmless and me believing it is harmful. i't isn't that i don't like or respect your religion, I just draw the line at you using it to further a practice i consider barbaric.

And yes, honey, I do get to have an opinion, and the reason you have your knickers in a twist is that you know my feelings DO matter. Many, many like-minded men and women are moving to change things. Some say there will never be a ban, but some of us are working towards that end. And the pro-circ crowd knows it, and they're scared, and that's why there is so much intense pressure on the medical community to come up with supposed medical benefits when everyone knows that they don't apply to western cultures, are hugely overshadowed by other, more effective measures. We don't chop off breasts prophylactically, unless you have reason to know you have a genetic predisposition to having breast cancer and you make that choice for yourself as an adult. Now, let's say that the Roman Catholics felt that breasts of women should be cut off as soon as they began to develop. You could still make the convincing argument that doing so would greatly reduce instances of mastitis or breast cancer or what have you, but others might say "hey, your child should make that choice for herself!" Or, transfer the "breast" issue to adenoids, tonsils, or gallbladders if your concern is that breasts are arguably more useful than a foreskin . The point is, we don't concern ourselves with prophylactically removing any other body part, INCLUDING a mere mole, unless there is something about it that leads us to think retaining it is likely to be problematic.

The Johns Hopkins research that has been badly distorted by those quoting has in fact been disputed by numerous other credible studies and, um, reality (none of those predicted dire consequences have come to fruition in Europe).

So save it. I don't care if you worship a toaster orbiting your back yard, you don't get to just do anything you want to a child (including your own) and pretend that your god demands it, so everyone else should shut up and butt out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We fully vaccinate on time and my mom and dad are both doctors - I trust the medical establishment an awful lot, considering! I'm a lawyer, so I can't claim the family medical degree, but I absolutely am not anti-medicine. And we do not circumcise. And, please, lady above, get this through your head. I am not obsessed with your child's genitalia in any way.

You want to marginalize people who speak their minds about circumcision to be crazy, anti-medicine, or perverts, and you want to dumb down the issue to what's in your kid's diaper vs. minding one's own business. It's not so simple. If you've circumcised, fine. If you are thinking about it, I'd encourage you not to do it. It will hurt your baby and don't kid yourself otherwise, the medical benefits are extremely flimsy, and the cultural / religious aspect means nothing to me.

I believe it's harmful to kids, and that's why I care. It has nothing to do with caring about how your kids genitalia looks. It makes you feel better to think of it like it's as unreasonable as someone caring about how you comb your kids hair. Not so. We believe it's harmful, and that's why we care.

Some people upthread have said there will never be a ban on it. Honestly, that bums me out. I wish there would be. I can tell you that insurance companies will not pay for it for much longer. That's a step in the right direction. If you want to cut off part of your child's penis, you should have to pay for that yourself. My premiums shouldn't reflect cosmetic surgery on infant penises.

Nice how you completely write off the religious aspect. It doesn't matter that you personally think it is harmful. It is not and despite your feelings, there is some medical value to it. You just do not feel it is enough. Thankfully, your feelings do not matter. To me, my husband (who is a doctor), our religion or our insurance company.

Yes, I do write off the religious aspect, in much the same way I believe that other religions should not be allowed to withhold medical care for their children because of religious conflict, and the same way I would say that I don't get to kill my child because my god commands it, I believe that you don't get to cut off one of his body parts because your god demands it. I believe that you may not force your daughter to become one of six wives because your religion requires it. I don't believe you may require your daughter to have a ritual nick to her clitoral hood because your religion requires it. Religion should not be used as an indiscriminate shield or justification for harming children. Again, it boils down to you believing it is harmless and me believing it is harmful. i't isn't that i don't like or respect your religion, I just draw the line at you using it to further a practice i consider barbaric.

And yes, honey, I do get to have an opinion, and the reason you have your knickers in a twist is that you know my feelings DO matter. Many, many like-minded men and women are moving to change things. Some say there will never be a ban, but some of us are working towards that end. And the pro-circ crowd knows it, and they're scared, and that's why there is so much intense pressure on the medical community to come up with supposed medical benefits when everyone knows that they don't apply to western cultures, are hugely overshadowed by other, more effective measures. We don't chop off breasts prophylactically, unless you have reason to know you have a genetic predisposition to having breast cancer and you make that choice for yourself as an adult. Now, let's say that the Roman Catholics felt that breasts of women should be cut off as soon as they began to develop. You could still make the convincing argument that doing so would greatly reduce instances of mastitis or breast cancer or what have you, but others might say "hey, your child should make that choice for herself!" Or, transfer the "breast" issue to adenoids, tonsils, or gallbladders if your concern is that breasts are arguably more useful than a foreskin . The point is, we don't concern ourselves with prophylactically removing any other body part, INCLUDING a mere mole, unless there is something about it that leads us to think retaining it is likely to be problematic.

The Johns Hopkins research that has been badly distorted by those quoting has in fact been disputed by numerous other credible studies and, um, reality (none of those predicted dire consequences have come to fruition in Europe).

So save it. I don't care if you worship a toaster orbiting your back yard, you don't get to just do anything you want to a child (including your own) and pretend that your god demands it, so everyone else should shut up and butt out.

Great post. One comment - the foreskin is typically more useful than adenoids, tonsils or gall bladders.