Intactivists attempt to ban circucision in SF

[Titsdude21]

Should the state have a right to deprive parents of their rights on how to bring up their sons ?

There is a big difference between a recommendation that parents give their sons the right to choose later, and a law which prohibits parents from making that choice for their son.

Yes the state should have the right.

The state has the right to decide on all other aspects, such as drinking, smoking, drugs. They can also say that it is against the law to hit ur kids with a whip (like they did back in the day).

So why should parents (who have very little if any understanding of the issue) be able to do something that medical professionals advise against?

 

[SirConcis]

The medical community has not recommended against circumcision. They simply decided to not promote it.

Unless there is agreement within the medical community that clearly states that circumcision is harmful and should not be performed unless absolutely necessary, then a government has no right to meddle in a medical issue and must leave the decision to remain between parents and the doctors.

Now, consider that the medical community has long called cigarettes harmful, and despite warnings on boxes, they continue to be legal. And they cause cancer. Circumcision reduces incidence of problems.

 

[D_Miranda_Wrights]

The medical community has not recommended against circumcision. They simply decided to not promote it.

Unless there is agreement within the medical community that clearly states that circumcision is harmful and should not be performed unless absolutely necessary, then a government has no right to meddle in a medical issue and must leave the decision to remain between parents and the doctors.

So, it should be banned in the Netherlands but not the U.S.? It's moral there but not here, because of the make-up of medical boards in the two countries? I don't like the idea of legislators determining our laws either, but I'm not on any of these boards and I can make a substantive argument that laymen understand against RIC...and it's also the right argument. We're not qualified to vote on most things for which we vote. Circumcision is less complicated than most policy issues.

When we should vote on what is a complicated political question, but "no right"? Begging the question. I don't believe parents have a moral right to meddle in this situation either, but just ending it there is a simplification too.

Now, consider that the medical community has long called cigarettes harmful, and despite warnings on boxes, they continue to be legal. And they cause cancer. Circumcision reduces incidence of problems.

Circumcision has greater opportunity costs than it has benefits. Lots of things reducer the incidence of problems. Especially considering the consent issues involved, if it is an inferior policy, it's terribly insufficient to just say "it reduces the incidence of some problems." It may very well, while being completely unjustified and wrong.

 

[mandoman]

For the end of the doing away with circumcision in San Francisco is recorded in other discussions. The bottom line is Gov. Jerry Brown has make it illegal all over CA to ban circumcision (Oct. 3, 2011).

Wow. The great and powerful Oz has spoken.
All this means, is that to ban circumcision in California, it has to be a statewide thing.

 

[mandoman]

The medical community has not recommended against circumcision. They simply decided to not promote it.

Unless there is agreement within the medical community that clearly states that circumcision is harmful and should not be performed unless absolutely necessary, then a government has no right to meddle in a medical issue and must leave the decision to remain between parents and the doctors.

Now, consider that the medical community has long called cigarettes harmful, and despite warnings on boxes, they continue to be legal. And they cause cancer. Circumcision reduces incidence of problems.

Execept where it becomes the problem. Such as meatal stenosis, hidden penis, partial or total amputation of the head, exsanguination (bleeding to death), death from anesthesia, death from the mohel with herpes sucking the blood from the wound, etc, etc.
There is plenty of evidence that men with foreskins get diseases at the same or lower rates than circumcised men. These two things together, is why the medical organization of no country recommends circumcision on medical grounds. Some, like the Dutch, have the courage to say that it violates the rights of the child. Others, like the lawsuit terrified, cut-happy US, have the mealy mouthed wording that it is up to the parents, because of culture...but that it is not medically necessary.
In other words, it is a non-medical operation, which has become medicalized for social reasons.

 

[SirConcis]

Wow. The great and powerful Oz has spoken.
All this means, is that to ban circumcision in California, it has to be a statewide thing.

Yep, that is what I read. The ban on the SF project was simply a statement that a city does not have authority to deal with the medical system, it has to go up to the state level. This is a circ-agnostic decision focused only on who has and doesn't have the power to make such rulings.

However, Bown announcing he would not ban circumcision is different since he clearly has the right to elaborate a statewide circumcision policy. I have not read the actual statement. And the words of the text would be important to find out the purpose and phisolosphy behind this.

It could simply be a "don't bother us with this silly issue while the state has much mroe important issues to deal with" statement, or it could be a "circumcision is good, we won't ban it" at the opposite end of the spectrum.

 

[701757]

I'm circumcised and I'm quite happy with it. If I didn't have it, I'd still be happy with it.

Moral of story: It's pointless.

 

[travis1985]

I'm circumcised and I'm quite happy with it. If I didn't have it, I'd still be happy with it.

Moral of story: It's pointless.

You wrongly and short sightedly assume that because you don't mind, it doesn't hurt anyone. There were black people in the pre civil rights south who didn't mind sitting at the back of the bus. Did that make it right?

 

[StatusQuo]

I was not circumcised for religious reasons, rather for cleanliness reasons (the same as 95% of guys in the US I'm assuming). I would love to know how it felt to be uncircumcised. I wish I wasn't. That being said, I think a law against it is slightly too far. The trend is reversing on its own. Granted a law would reverse the trend much more quickly, but I still think it is being overly intrusive.

 

[deleted15807]

There were black people in the pre civil rights south who didn't mind sitting at the back of the bus.

What a grotesque misrepresentation.

 

[matelalique]

At the risk of fanning the flames even further, this follows the path of many other controversial issues in the US. Something starts as an extremist position, moves through the population and they become more and more comfortable with it. Slavery, women's voting, acceptability of contraception, equal pay for equal work, to anti-gay discrimination in the workplace, gays in the military, the death penalty, and gay marriage. The issue seems to be whether the time frame of the political argument should trump the cultural argument - alternately put, do you allow inevitability to run its course, or do you you hammer it home with legislation.

Circumcision politics have reached the point where the cultural argument is won, and the consensus applied organically in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. Oddly in the US, the relatively progressive midwest politically, maintains a "looking like daddy" argument.

So to San Francisco ... Russia and the Netherlands have banned circumcision in countries where it was never popular. The commonwealth countries mentioned above have reduced circumcision to negligible in the last 50 years. The law is unnecessary - the argument is won, and the parents who choose to circumcise will have to explain to their sons why they can't wank properly like the 65% of the rest of their class.

 

[701757]

You wrongly and short sightedly assume that because you don't mind, it doesn't hurt anyone. There were black people in the pre civil rights south who didn't mind sitting at the back of the bus. Did that make it right?

That was the weirdest analogy ever. I didn't say that I didn't mind getting circumcised. I actually like it. I don't see anything wrong with my dick as it is. If something goes wrong, that's the doctor's responsibility and that could easily happen in any kind of surgery. Just because some sort of risk is there doesn't mean this should be banned for all of human kind. Then we might as well ban tattoos, they look pretty damn dangerous to me.

 

[Snozzle]

If something goes wrong, that's the doctor's responsibility and that could easily happen in any kind of surgery.

The doctor's responsibility, but the "patient's"* bad luck. A good reason for not doing unnecessary surgery.
*Patient? There was nothing the matter with him before the operation.

Then we might as well ban tattoos, they look pretty damn dangerous to me.

A Fresno man is doing time for putting a small tattoo on the side of his (allegedly willing) nine-year-old son.

 

[Snozzle]

For the end of the doing away with circumcision in San Francisco is recorded in other discussions. The bottom line is Gov. Jerry Brown has make it illegal all over CA to ban circumcision (Oct. 3, 2011).

This Bill (AB768) doesn't just "make it illegal all over CA to ban circumcision" It actually says “No city, county, or city and county ordinance, regulation, or administrative action shall prohibit or restrict the practice of male circumcision, or the exercise of a parent’s authority to have a child circumcised.”
That makes it legal for anyone of any age with no training to circumcise anyone, with a boxcutter if they wish, so long as
1. one parent has consented
2. the victim is under 18
3. male, and
4. it's a clean boxcutter.
- and a Bill before the Senate (HR2400) will spread that freedom across the USA.

This actually reminds me of DOMA (it's the Defence of Circumcision Act, folks!) a last stand against an inevitable tide.

 

[701757]

The doctor's responsibility, but the "patient's"* bad luck. A good reason for not doing unnecessary surgery.
*Patient? There was nothing the matter with him before the operation.

A Fresno man is doing time for putting a small tattoo on the side of his (allegedly willing) nine-year-old son.

I don't know what your point was with the guy doing time. Is that a valid reason to ban tattoos? The main reason for circumcision is religion. It doesn't matter how bullshit it is. I was raised in a muslim country but neither me nor my parents were religious. I was circumcised when I was 6. My dad was also in the surgery room since he's a surgeon. There's no real reason other than simply being a cultural or religious thing. It's like trying to ban religion and preventing parents from teaching their kids about it just because it's simply unnecessary. I would be all in favor of this but you know that it's not going to happen. People are going to do whatever they want on their children. Have you seen those African people with enormous ears with stuff inside them? They should stop doing that too.

 

[D_Miranda_Wrights]

I don't know what your point was with the guy doing time. Is that a valid reason to ban tattoos? The main reason for circumcision is religion. It doesn't matter how bullshit it is. I was raised in a muslim country but neither me nor my parents were religious. I was circumcised when I was 6. My dad was also in the surgery room since he's a surgeon. There's no real reason other than simply being a cultural or religious thing. It's like trying to ban religion and preventing parents from teaching their kids about it just because it's simply unnecessary. I would be all in favor of this but you know that it's not going to happen. People are going to do whatever they want on their children. Have you seen those African people with enormous ears with stuff inside them? They should stop doing that too.

The main reason isn't religion. In both the U.S. and Canada, circumcision -- when it's still done -- is for cultural reasons, not religion.

I'm not sure I understand the basic point of your argument. No one wants to ban competent adults tattooing themselves, getting circumcised, sticking things in their ears, believing in God, whatever. The point was tattoo guy wasn't jailed for tattooing himself, or teaching his kid that tattoos are good and just. He was apparently jailed for tattooing a kid too young to consent.

I totally understand that parents do things to their kids. It's inevitable. They can't become teenagers as fully blank states. But there are differences between teaching your kid dumb stuff, and irreversibly and unnecessarily modifying his body in a way he may resent:

1. It's irreversible.

2. It's objectively bad health policy.

3. It can actually be legislated against. Several countries have banned circumcision. Basically it just requires you establish a medical reason, and the main point is it reduces the incentive for hospitals and doctors to provide the surgery (which tends to be profitable for them.)

I think the first argument needs to be "it's unnecessary, it's wrong, don't do it." But I understand where the "illegalize it" people are coming from too, because of the stuff above.

 

[travis1985]

What a grotesque misrepresentation.

Not at all. I know because I work with a woman who grew up in 1950's Alabama (I believe... anyway, it was a Southern state with an A). She has recalled a lot of the racial discrimination/segregation things that appall us today as being not a big deal. When you grow up with things always being a certain way and don't know any differently, it can feel normal and comfortable, whether it's sitting in a certain place or not having a certain part of your anatomy. Now, I don't claim that no black people were unhappy with the pre-civil rights ways, but the fact remains that not everyone who was affected by them was particularly offended by them. To state this is a fact that may seem weird in the context of today, not a misrepresentation, and what's more, it makes an even better comparison to RIC than I even realized when I first said it. My colleague who accepted discrimination in another time without giving it a second thought because it was just the way things were has a lot in common with men who are completely satisfied with having been circumcised at birth and don't understand what all the fuss is about.

 

[SirConcis]

OK, the Brown decision is not about circumcision, but rather about cities not having the right/authority to make such decisions. This is fair.

With regards to circumcision and tatoos.

Tatoos are purely cosmetic. They offer no health advantages, do not fix any problems.

Circumcision does offer advantages (reducing infections, preventing phimosis) and is also a medical procedure that is necessary in cased of a tight phimosis, cancer of foreskin, recuring balanatis and other ailments. (one can now add reduction of odds of catching HIV/AIDS in heterosexual sex in populations where many females carry the virus)

These medical advantages may not warrant the costs of mass circumcision of all babies. But they remain advantages. And because circumcision is required in some cases, it is harder to ban it. And because circumcision is part of religious rituals, banning circumcision interferes with one's right to practice a religion.

If a religion insisted on boys getting a tatoo on belly, a state might have a hard time banning tatoos. (And what about indians who put a permanent red dot on female's foreheads ?, isn't that akin to a tatoo ?)

 

[Charles Finn]

says you but it is still the child that must lose HIS foreskin at his parents whim

 

[JonathanQ]

Maybe circumcision should be banned until a man fathers a child. Then the father undergoes circumcision. It would be a nice rite. Everyone could party. Wonder how this would play out.