US circumcision rates drop to record low of 33%

[B_circin867]

This is nonsense. If it means anything, it means that all Latino boys and men and others who have come here recently are being circumcised at the rate of 33%. This does not include Muslims who circumcise ar a rate of 100% as well as the 8th day ritual of Jewish infants.

The 33% probably means, according to the small minority of antcircs, another distortion and make-believe statistics.

What is really true is that 85-90% of all other American males are being cut or have been circumcised. This statistic has held for the last 40 or 50 years. This includes Caucasians, African-Americans, those from the Far East, etc. The next time you go to a public men's room, locker rooms, etc.,etc., notice how many males there have been circumcised.

 

[D_Ulmer Uncut]

From what I can tell that statistic is based solely on circs done in hospital AND paid by insurance. Many many parents have the pediatrician do them and pay out of pocket for it. I live in California and all my friends that have sons had them circumcised. The actual number is still probably close to 60%. Stats can be very easily manipulated to get across what the individual researching the statistics want.

 

[maxcok]

The 33% probably means, according to the small minority of antcircs, another distortion and make-believe statistics.

What is really true is that 85-90% of all other American males are being cut or have been circumcised. This statistic has held for the last 40 or 50 years. This includes Caucasians, African-Americans, those from the Far East, etc. The next time you go to a public men's room, locker rooms, etc.,etc., notice how many males there have been circumcised.

Says the guy who is so adamantly pro circumcision he has incoporated it into his username.

Can you post links to any independently verifiable data that support your personal anecdotal "statistics" to counter what the OP and others have provided?

The actual number is still probably close to 60%.

Same challenge to you, friend.

 

[SR_Manny Manparts]

interesting!!

 

[SirConcis]

In fairness, locker room observations covers guys born over 18 years ago, so they don't really show circumcision rates for newborns for this year.

The 33% number is uuseful for anti circers to try to convince parents that if they have their son circumcised, the son will be the one feeling different. But if parents talk to their friends and other expecting mothers, they may find out what the real circumcision rate is in their area and based they decision on that.

 

[D_Ulmer Uncut]

I don't need to prove anything to anyone because I said based on the methodology of the report the number is probably higher, I never said it definitively was. Circumcision is still a valid medical procedure that has shown a slight level of prophylactic effects. It is not unethical and it is not mutilation. I am uncut, I'm fine being that way, but the anti-circ crow needs to STOP shoving their opinions down other people's throats. Parents can have their son(s) circumcised if they want to and that's the bottom line.

 

[Charles Finn]

so it is their penis and their foreskin to chop it off?
either it is the boys choice or not

 

[D_Ulmer Uncut]

Until 18 years of age, parents have right to make all medical decisions for the minor child. PERIOD. By the way, its not chopped, so stop using emotional words.

 

[Charles Finn]

fine sliced ripped however you put it it is not the parents choice to decide what their sons penis should look like it is outdated

 

[Johndoesmith]

Male circumcisions can decrease women's risk of developing the human papillomavirus (HPV), according to a new study published in The Lancet. Women whose sexual partners were circumcised were 28 percent less likely to acquire the virus, the study found.
This information may come as a blow to those who take a strong stance against the routine practice of circumcision -- namely "intactivists," an anti-circumcision activist group in San Francisco that seeks to ban the practice for anyone under the age of 18. The group consideres circumcision to be a form of genital mutilation and should require consent, something newborns are incapable of expressing.
"This is a very heated topic," Karen Boyle, M.D., Director of Reproductive Medicine & Surgery at Chesapeake Urology Associates, told ABC News.
So where does the medical community stand on the issue? "They're kind of wishy-washy," said Boyle. The jury is still out in the medical industry when it comes to routine circumcision; there is not enough data yet to endorse it, nor does it present enough of a safety risk to warrant a ban, she said.

 

[JonathanQ]

Circumcision is a great, quick money-maker for physicians. Advantages, if there are any, are minuscule, and parents do it for the wrong reasons. I wish I'd allowed my son to have a choice in his circumcision. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be discussed with my wife who assumed it was the "right" thing to do. I did stick up for my grandson, however, who still has his foreskin. His other grandma, great-grandma, and aunt all insisted that it was the right thing to do, and my daughter had to fight them off. Why is it women are the authority on newborns' foreskins? Just because women give birth, they think they are entitled to make decisions such as this. Most circumcisions are done to make the mother feel good, not for the benefit of the boy.

 

[maxcok]

I don't need to prove anything to anyone because I said based on the methodology of the report the number is probably higher, I never said it definitively was.

So in other words, your suspicions of the report's conclusions are based entirely on your own personal cultural bias, although you have absolutely no data to support your position. And that's sufficient for you to dismiss the findings and pull your own completely unsubstantiated figures out of your head? Gotcha.

Circumcision is still a valid medical procedure that has shown a slight level of prophylactic effects.

Other than cultural conditioning, what makes the procedure valid? Can you name any other healthy body part that is routinely removed for "prophylactic" reasons? Isn't it peculiar that the normal human body is perfectly designed except for this one "defect"? Whether there is any prophylactic advantage, however slight, is highly debatable at best, all of which can be achieved with simple basic hygiene. Again, can you provide any reliable data to support your thesis?

It is not unethical and it is not mutilation.

Well, I didn't say either of those things. Nevertheless, in the opinion of many it is highly unethical, whether you respect that view, or not. The vast majority of the medical community in the modern industrialized world regards it as completely unnecessary and arbitrary at best, a purely cosmetic procedure, culturally based in custom alone. Let it be noted that you were the one to introduce the (in your view) inflammatory term "mutilation" to the discussion. Whether or not it is mutilation is a matter of semantics, and again, a matter of personal bias and cultural conditioning.

I am uncut, I'm fine being that way, but the anti-circ crow needs to STOP shoving their opinions down other people's throats.

If you are indeed uncut, you should be at least partially aware of the fortunate advantages of having a foreskin, of having your penis in its natural whole intact state. It begs the question why you would be so nonchalant, if not callous, to performing this procedure on infants and children, who are incapable of understanding and giving consent. Why don't you go get yourself circumcised if it's no big deal?

Who's "shoving opinions down [your] throat"? Do you consider anyone expressing a view contrary to yours to be "shoving"? Maybe circumcision enthusiasts such as you need to stop being defensive when they are confronted with rational scientific information, set aside their cultural conditioning, and get educated on the natural functions of the foreskin and the physiological advantages of being intact. Maybe they need to stop "shoving" unnecessary, archaic, irreversible medical procedures on infants who have no voice, with lifelong negative consequences, based on nothing more than custom and outdated tradition.

After all, it was perfectly normal and acceptable not so long ago in "civilized" society for parents to severely beat their children and for husbands to beat and rape their wives. It's still regarded as perfectly "normal" in many "uncivilized" societies to do so, all based on traditional attitudes of "ownership" and cultural conditioning. Civilized people and societies evolve in understanding and enlightenment over time. Customs that were formerly acceptable are abandoned and seen for what they are - barbaric. Bruises, even broken bones heal. Discarded tissue does not. And if you think it's just a useless "flap of skin", you really need to get educated.

Parents can have their son(s) circumcised if they want to and that's the bottom line.

Do parents own their children's bodies? Are they entitled to cut them anywhere else, or do whatever they want with them? Is it acceptable for parents to have their daughters circumcised? Or cut their genitals in any way? That's illegal in the US, as it is in most modern industrialized nations. Incidentally, the law in the US calls it Female Genital Mutilation. Other than cultural conditioning, why is it acceptable for parents to cut or "mutilate" their sons' genitals, but not their daughters'?

I ask those who have such a nonchalant attititude about routine infant circumcision, and such a dismissive, defensive, aggressive attitude toward anti-circ advocates and educators, to consider this: Most people who are opposed to RIC started out with your same attitudes before they educated themselves, myself included. Take an openminded objective view of the facts, readily available on many anti-circ sites, educate yourself with an open mind, and if you can still come up with any rational justification for routine circumcision, by all means, bring that to the discussion. It goes without saying that rational justification should be backed up by scientific medical proof, and not merely based on custom, personal opinion, or mindless cultural conditioning.

 

[mandoman]

This is nonsense. If it means anything, it means that all Latino boys and men and others who have come here recently are being circumcised at the rate of 33%. This does not include Muslims who circumcise ar a rate of 100% as well as the 8th day ritual of Jewish infants.

The 33% probably means, according to the small minority of antcircs, another distortion and make-believe statistics.

What is really true is that 85-90% of all other American males are being cut or have been circumcised. This statistic has held for the last 40 or 50 years. This includes Caucasians, African-Americans, those from the Far East, etc. The next time you go to a public men's room, locker rooms, etc.,etc., notice how many males there have been circumcised.

You are misinformed. Circumcision is a Muslim tradition, it is not law. 10% of Saudi Arabians have their foreskins, so a British man who had lived there for 14 years told me. It is a recommendation, but not a tenet of the religion.
The 33% figure did not come from the anticircs, as you call them. It came from the CDC. Are they full of make-believe statistics?
Guess what? There have always been uncut Americans, of every race and ethnic group. Ever notice them? They are everywhere you go, as well.

 

[mandoman]

From what I can tell that statistic is based solely on circs done in hospital AND paid by insurance. Many many parents have the pediatrician do them and pay out of pocket for it. I live in California and all my friends that have sons had them circumcised. The actual number is still probably close to 60%. Stats can be very easily manipulated to get across what the individual researching the statistics want.

California's circumcision rate has been among the lowest in the nation for decades. Maybe everybody you know is cut, but they are a small minority in California. 10 years ago, their circumcision rate was 32-33%. It's much lower now. Look up the actual statistics, instead of making them up the way you would like them to be. You'll be surprised.


33.8% in the West, in 2006, the last year the CDC has released.
U.S. Circumcision Statistics

The answer lies on the West Coast, particularly in California, where the circumcision rate fell from 64% in 1979 to 37% in 1999.
Medicirc.org: Circumcision Information Site - A Lifetime of Medicial Benefits


California has the least amount of newborns circumcised and reported 21% in 2004.
Circumcision Rates Fall in the United States - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com

Either you are being mislead, or you hang around with some unusually pro-circumcision people.
Are you exaggerating by a huge amount, or are all these varied sources wrong?

 

[B_circin867]

I maintain what I have said about the so called 33% rate of circumcision.

I want everyone to know that circumcision or uncircumcision are the decision of the parents for the infant and for the adolescent and adult his own preferences.

That said, however, I abhor the work of the small anticirc movement. They are fanatics. Why? They demand that circumcision be obliterated and that the foreskin is the best thing that God made, a penis with a foreskin. Well I can't respect a foreskin fetish. And I do not like others push you around on the issue.

So I want to answer from the view of a family like mine whose men and boys are all circumcised. True we are also highly educated. with doctors, lawyers, business men, and Protestant ministers. In an Ivy League college like mine I have only seen circumcised men. And the same goes for the middle class and poor who were the majority in high school where 9 out of 10 boys were circumcised.

Now some questions or statements many made about the issue to circumcise or leave the penis alone.

1. Doctors are getting rich on a 15 minute minor surgery. Well those who get rich are the surgeons who don't take on minor surgery. My grandfather was circumcised during the great depression for $15.
My sons were circumcised for $200 each paid with my insurance.

2. Boys in the showers in school indicate overwhelming numbers who are circumcised. But that was in the 1980's. That has changed with the new borns in the 1990's and now. My sons were born in the 1990's. When they were about 8 or 9 I explained very carefully about how babies were made and how it was after their birth. I indicated to both of them that they were circumcised by their baby doctor in his office and why. The oldest is now 18 years old and his brother is 15. I asked them about friends and others in the locker room.
Did most still have their foreskin? No, they answered many of the Latino boys do, but the rest of us are all circumcised.

Nothing has changed since I was born in the 1970's and my father in the 1950's except for others whose cultural practices do not include circumcision. The numbers among the Latinos are growing. They have come freely to live side by side with the rest of us cut or not. Muslims have joined them. They are 99% circumcised for hygiene and before marriage. It is not a religious issue. It is not in the Koran. The statistics are shifting but the number of circumcisions are still at a 85% to 90% for Caucasians, African-Americans, most who came from the Far East including China, Japan, So. Korea (95%) and others in the Pacific--Polynesians and Filipinos (90%).

I wish us peace and respect in a democratic country. Let the anticirc persons no longer push the others around. In this country, people make their own decisions.

 

[Charles Finn]

15$was alot of money then
and $200 is not bad seeing as you did not pay it
good for you

 

[Snozzle]

I want everyone to know that circumcision or uncircumcision are the decision of the parents for the infant and for the adolescent and adult his own preferences.

Anyone fail to see the internal inconsistency in that? If the parents decide to circumcise the infant, the adolescent and adult he becomes loses his chance to have his own preferences. That's why it should simply not be available (barring pressing medical need) until then. Let the adults no longer cut babies' bodies. Let "people make their own decisions."

 

[SirConcis]

Parents geet to decide a lot for their kids. If they wish to bestow a circumcised penis ontheir son, it is their right. If they wish to let him choose later on, it is their right.

Let me ask you this: should parents prohiobiut their son from being circumcised ? Remember that there are some cults who don't believe in any surgery. (but IO bet most males in those cults are cut anyways).

 

[maxcok]

I maintain what I have said about the so called 33% rate of circumcision.

Based on what data?

I want everyone to know that circumcision or uncircumcision are the decision of the parents for the infant and for the adolescent . . .

There is no doubt in my mind that society will become increasingly enlightened about this issue and eventually abandon the practice, just as it has become enlightened regarding other forms of physical abuse of children.
In time society will cease to view the routine circumcision of nonconsenting underage and infant males as an idle decision or a parental right and outlaw the practice, just as it has with female genital mutilation.

That said, however, I abhor the work of the small anticirc movement. They are fanatics.

You are the fanatic. So much so that you've incorporated "circumcision" into your username. So much so that you blindly refuse to accept science or recognize independently verified data of declining circumcision trends.

Why? They demand that circumcision be obliterated and that the foreskin is the best thing that God made, a penis with a foreskin.

You're being hyperbolic. No one has seriously said anything of the sort. Only that it's a natural healthy body part that many find appealing, with specific functions that ought to be left intact, just as we leave all other natural healthy body parts intact. Your choice of the word 'obliterate' is curious, since your aim is to 'obliterate' foreskins. You strike me as someone who probably sees natural foreskin as strange, ugly, nasty, and unclean. Am I right?

Well I can't respect a foreskin fetish.

Well, I can't respect a circumcision fetish, which you clearly exhibit. Advocating for body integrity does not equal a foreskin fetish. And as intact is the natural healthy state we're born in, the burden of proof is on you to provide some rational basis to justify routinely cutting off healthy foreskins if you're so strongly in favor of it.

Speaking of "fetishes", in addition to your username, the majority of your posts advocate circumcision, and 75% of them manage to bring up circumcision in one way or another, whether remotely relevant to the topic or not. This one, where you make the absurd unsubstantiated claim that only 5% of US males are uncircumcised, is typical. Your other major topic of interest appears to be public urination, but even in those posts, you feel compelled to express your fascination with seeing specifically circumcised pissing penises. Hell, you can't even comment on a celebrity like George Stephanopoulos without fixating on his circumcision status. "Fetish" indeed.

And I do not like others push you around on the issue.

Who's pushing? You're pushing as hard or harder than anyone here, but unlike the informed posters, you have nothing but cultural conditioning and an extreme irrational personal bias on which to base your erroneous suppositions and wild speculations. You need to open your mind, get educated, and try to bring some substance to the table if you expect anyone to take you seriously.

So I want to answer from the view of a family like mine whose men and boys are all circumcised. True we are also highly educated. with doctors, lawyers, business men, and Protestant ministers. In an Ivy League college like mine I have only seen circumcised men. And the same goes for the middle class and poor who were the majority in high school where 9 out of 10 boys were circumcised.

That was then; this is now. Again, you have nothing but unsubstantiated anecdotal evidence, blind cultural conditioning, and extreme personal bias to back up your position. I would postulate you dislike intact penises and think they're weird looking, just because you were never accustomed to them.

Your statements smack of cultural elitism, but judging by your immature writing, grammatical and spelling errors, your irrational thought processes, and your complete lack of logic and reason, I would never guess you were "highly educated", much less an "Ivy Leaguer". Oh wait, . . . G.W. Bush, . . . Yale, . . . . never mind.

Now some questions or statements many made about the issue to circumcise or leave the penis alone.

1. Doctors are getting rich on a 15 minute minor surgery. Well those who get rich are the surgeons who don't take on minor surgery. My grandfather was circumcised during the great depression for $15.

That was a great deal of money during the Depression. Too bad they didn't spend it on food.

My sons were circumcised for $200 each paid with my insurance.

Your insurance plan and copayments have no bearing on the data, and such anecdotal information is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether routine circumcision is preferable or justified.

2. Boys in the showers in school indicate overwhelming numbers who are circumcised. But that was in the 1980's. That has changed with the new borns in the 1990's and now. My sons were born in the 1990's. When they were about 8 or 9 I explained very carefully about how babies were made and how it was after their birth. I indicated to both of them that they were circumcised by their baby doctor in his office and why. The oldest is now 18 years old and his brother is 15. I asked them about friends and others in the locker room. Did most still have their foreskin? No, they answered many of the Latino boys do, but the rest of us are all circumcised.

Too narrow a sample, completely anecdotal and irrelevant. Plus, what happened 15-18 years ago has absolutely no bearing on circumcision rates for infants born today. And what relevance does a discussion of "how babies were made" have to the topic?

Nothing has changed since I was born in the 1970's and my father in the 1950's except for others whose cultural practices do not include circumcision.

Circumcision rates for newborns even among W.A.S.P.'s have declined slowly since reaching a high of about 85% around 1965, ranging between 60-70% for several decades, and declining to around 55% in the mid/late 2000's. In recent years, it appears the decline has accelerated dramatically. A survey of all the data support this, and it has been provided repeatedly in this thread and others. To continually deny independent data from the CDC and other sources while providing no contrary data yourself to support your unsupported contentions is mindless obsession and sheer idiocy.

The numbers among the Latinos are growing. They have come freely to live side by side with the rest of us cut or not. Muslims have joined them. They are 99% circumcised for hygiene and before marriage. It is not a religious issue. It is not in the Koran. The statistics are shifting but the number of circumcisions are still at a 85% to 90% for Caucasians, African-Americans, most who came from the Far East including China, Japan, So. Korea (95%) and others in the Pacific--Polynesians and Filipinos (90%).

Those numbers are patently absurd. Again, could you please provide ANY data to support your ridiculous wild speculations and extreme personal bias (obsession)? It's obvious you're just making shit up as you go. And once again, your statements smack of cultural elitism.

I wish us peace and respect in a democratic country. Let the anticirc persons no longer push the others around.

I wish for peace and respect too. One way peace could be practiced is if we respected the body integrity of infant males enough to stop performing millions of unnecessary harmful surgeries on them each year with a whole host of detrimental lifelong consequences. First do no harm.

In this country, people make their own decisions.

Many of those decisions are not without legal or moral consequences. You're no longer allowed to physically abuse your wife and children, for example, though that was once quite common, legal, and socially acceptable. You're not legally allowed to cut the genitals of little girls either, though that is culturally acceptable and important to some in our society. To reiterate: There is no doubt in my mind that society will continue to become increasingly enlightened about this issue, see it in that same light, and ultimately abandon the practice.

U.S. Circumcision Statistics​

p.s. Why the smug "cool" emoticon? You haven't made a single valid point.
......You've only made an utter abject fool of yourself.

 

[SirConcis]

naxcok, what you don't understand about those statistics is that hospital handling of choldbirth has changed and parents are now discharged much quicker than before (as for most operations). So a lot of circumcisions happen outside of the childbirth process and thus not included in the statistics.

There is no denying that the rates have gone down from their 1970s heights of nearly 90%. One does not need statistics to know it is going down, it is just a resulot of the anti circ message which resonates with many doctors and parents.

How much the rate has gone down is the big question..

Also, for a statistic to be valid, one needs to look at ethnicity. Say you are a white boy in a white suburban neighbourhood. It is quite possible that the circumcision rate would be 80% where the boy grows up, but elsewhere in the state, there is a large latino population that is uncut and which brings the state-wide statistics down.

But the boy will grow up in an essentially all-circumcised society, all his white friends will be cut etc etc.

When mothers go to their childbirth classes, they will undoubdely discuss with other expecting mothers from that area and get a good feel for whether boy are betting the snip or not in that area.