Oh No! It's Another Thread About Circumcision.

[Kahaih]

Re: Benefits of circumcision outweigh risks, U.S. pediatrics group says

" Waiting to he is an adult or even old enough to consider the issue would be pointless because by time he reaches that age the risk/benefit ratio has changed and it is usually no longer worth it."

Well then . . .

 

[bankside]

Re: Benefits of circumcision outweigh risks, U.S. pediatrics group says

I take it then you were not raised in the US? Because you are suffering from an inaccurate impression, Christian churches overall in the US do not promote the practice of circumcision. Circumcision in the US is largely practiced outside of Jewish, Muslim and few small Christian sects for hygienic reasons which have been explained in earlier posts. It is not seen as a religious practice for most Americans.

As far as I know most cultures defer to parents in the role of determining what is best for their children until they reach certain ages where they can start deciding things for themselves. Hygienic circumcision should be done at an age where the child is completely incapable of deciding or even understanding the issue. Waiting to he is an adult or even old enough to consider the issue would be pointless because by time he reaches that age the risk/benefit ratio has changed and it is usually no longer worth it.

No, I've never been to the States. And my point was not that churches brainwash people into circumcision; I was talking about someone who as a child was forced into fundamentalist meetings that left a legacy of continuing upset. It shows poor parental judgment, and my point being that we should not have such overwhelming automatic confidence in people's parenting decisions when they do all kinds of unhelpful things.

Where do I draw the line? Permanently removing part of your child's anatomy without a specific medical reason to do so.

Incidentally, hygiene is an absolute myth. It is laughable to think that a hundred million european men have a hygiene problem. If parents are having their children circumcised because of hygiene, they have fallen for the most ridiculous superstition. Like back in the day when medical treatment meant having the barber slice into an artery to "drain out the bad blood."

Imagine if parents went into the dentist and said "Listen, little Johnny is getting plaque build-up around his teeth, so we'd like you to extract all his teeth out because dentures would be so much easier to wash." First, they'd be laughed out of the dental office. And if the dentist realised they weren't kidding, they'd be reported to child welfare officials.

Having a healthy foreskin is no different from having healthy teeth. It is 100% not a medical problem. And as I have said, if a specific child has a specific problem with his foreskin, then of course it is a parent's responsibility to seek medical care, and maybe a circumcision will be recommended.

 

[bankside]

Re: Benefits of circumcision outweigh risks, U.S. pediatrics group says

I want to point out that at the time of the decision (1950) the average American only bathed once a week.

Yes, Bankside, it's true. The Great Generatiion bathed only once a week--usually on Saturday night. This practice continued all the way until the 1970s.
So you can now see the hygenic benefit of [STRIKE]circumcision[/STRIKE] bathing.

(Can you just imagine the stench? You'd need a chisel to get out all the Cheese after a week of not bathing lol)

Fixed. Sigh.

 

[Zabotugi]

Re: Benefits of circumcision outweigh risks, U.S. pediatrics group says

Just for a little clarification, the pediatricians are not RECOMMENDING the procedure. What they are saying is the evidence shows that the benefits on performing the procedure on a child (the risk associated with the procedure are greater in an adult) are greater overall than the potential risks. As such they are saying it is inappropriate to deny parents the CHOICE to perform the procedure on a medical basis.

They have simply eliminated any medical argument against performing the procedure.

The rights of parents to make decisions concerning the medical care and upbringing of their children is an entirely separate issue. It is a valid discussion but an extremely sensitive and complex one. Parents have rights too in this debate. There is more involved here than just a piece of skin. Parents will and have to make many decisions that will permanently effect the life and development of their children. That is their role in society socialize and help develop the child's mind and body for adulthood. That is a role that the state should only interfere in with due cause. There is really insufficient evidence of harm associated with this practice that warrants that interference.

Society as a whole can certainly debate the issue of child's rights and the influence of that debate will reflect in the decisions parents make regarding this issue. But the recommendation is that it is inappropriate for the state to make the procedure illegal or for medical services to refuse to provide it.

Benefits outweighing (spelling) risk is not completely eliminating any medical argument against the procedure. There are still risks.
I'm very aware they are not recommending actually, despite what some media headlines are publishing. Legally, I am not saying that parents DON'T have the right, because legally they do. There's no point in debating that. That's not changing. I'm more debating circumcision itself than anything else. I don't care HOW risk free or painless circumcision is. I just find it odd that different organizations site different complication rates which doesn't make sense to me. We could go in circles all day and talk about the rights of the parents. Some could make the argument that different forms of discipline are appropriate for kids growing in different environments, but then people flip out about that to. Like I said, the importance of circumcision is more cultural than anything, as the rate goes down, or some negative report about circ enters the media, promotion of the procedure goes up, and ''new'' studies pop out of nowhere...just something I noticed. Why can't we just admit that it's mostly cultural? I just don't understand the psychology of circumcising your child and never will. I honestly feel like I'm from another planet when discussing this sometimes. You almost can't be against circumcision in this country. Because people ask you why and then no matter what you say the other person gets offended it seems. (And there's no use in saying that's why parents should mind their own business, because people will always ask a parent why they didn't circumcised their baby, I actually find it quite annoying that when people have a newborn boy or are pregnant with a boy one of the first questions asked is usually,"Did you circumcise him/Is he circumcised"? Like WTF?! You say you don't want to inflict unnecessary pain to the newborn and the other person is all like,"Well, I don't appreciate you telling me that I'm hurting my newborn","He will thank me for this", "You're son may feel different and grow to hate you". Blah blah blah. This is so common people don't even notice how offensive it can be.

And I will say that it is totally not always solely the parent's decision. It's everyone else's as well...because as I stated earlier for many years and even today if a person didn't circ their child she would often get hounded until she did. I've heard stories of nurses using scare tactics, spouses and family members getting really aggressive and such until the woman just gives in.

Medical services (I'm assuming you mean insurance) don't always provide it because there's no immediate need for it. It makes absolutely no sense to me that insurance is going to pay for something an infant has no immediate need, an operation that he may never even benefit from yet the older woman next door has to work 50+ hours a week just to buy her medicine! There's no sense in it!

I'm willing to bet if circumcision was mandated, with religious exemption (to allow jews their 8th day ceremony and stuff), people would not flip out half as much as they would when there is talk of banning it. Considering the general attitude in this country surrounding the subject, alot of people that say,"It's the choice of the parent" but are still for it personally, would have absolutely nothing to say about it being mandated with religious exemption.

 

[Zabotugi]

Re: Benefits of circumcision outweigh risks, U.S. pediatrics group says

" Waiting to he is an adult or even old enough to consider the issue would be pointless because by time he reaches that age the risk/benefit ratio has changed and it is usually no longer worth it."

Well then . . .

You mean they may actually be competent enough to have safe sex and bathe? Which people should be doing anyway?

 

[Stardreamer]

Re: Benefits of circumcision outweigh risks, U.S. pediatrics group says

No, I've never been to the States. And my point was not that churches brainwash people into circumcision; I was talking about someone who as a child was forced into fundamentalist meetings that left a legacy of continuing upset. It shows poor parental judgment, and my point being that we should not have such overwhelming automatic confidence in people's parenting decisions when they do all kinds of unhelpful things.

Where do I draw the line? Permanently removing part of your child's anatomy without a specific medical reason to do so.

Incidentally, hygiene is an absolute myth. It is laughable to think that a hundred million european men have a hygiene problem. If parents are having their children circumcised because of hygiene, they have fallen for the most ridiculous superstition. Like back in the day when medical treatment meant having the barber slice into an artery to "drain out the bad blood."

Imagine if parents went into the dentist and said "Listen, little Johnny is getting plaque build-up around his teeth, so we'd like you to extract all his teeth out because dentures would be so much easier to wash." First, they'd be laughed out of the dental office. And if the dentist realised they weren't kidding, they'd be reported to child welfare officials.

Having a healthy foreskin is no different from having healthy teeth. It is 100% not a medical problem. And as I have said, if a specific child has a specific problem with his foreskin, then of course it is a parent's responsibility to seek medical care, and maybe a circumcision will be recommended.

The risk/benefit analysis of pulling someone's teeth to prevent plague buildup is so atrociously bad as to make this essentially an apples/oranges comparison or straw man argument. A much better example would be proactively removing wisdom teeth or tonsils which actually is done proactively in children in some cases based on the risk/benefit analysis. You notice there are no tonsil or wisdom teeth intactivist movements.

 

[Stardreamer]

Re: Benefits of circumcision outweigh risks, U.S. pediatrics group says

Benefits outweighing (spelling) risk is not completely eliminating any medical argument against the procedure. There are still risks.

Well of course there are risks that is why it is called a RISK/benefit analysis.

Legally, I am not saying that parents DON'T have the right, because legally they do. There's no point in debating that. That's not changing. I'm more debating circumcision itself than anything else.

Which is fine, eventually society will reach a level of understanding on the issue and the number of circumcisions that occur will reflect that. It the ones who want to force the issue that are the real problem. An educational debate on the morality and worthiness of the procedure is a good thing.

Like I said, the importance of circumcision is more cultural than anything, as the rate goes down, or some negative report about circ enters the media, promotion of the procedure goes up, and ''new'' studies pop out of nowhere...just something I noticed. Why can't we just admit that it's mostly cultural?

It is cultural, I don't think anybody would really deny that. But that being said when do you have the right to tell other people their culture is wrong and force your opinion on them? There are certainly cases where it is justified like where some cultures practice genocide but I hardly think a bit of elective surgery falls into that category. So really it should be a matter of educational discussion of the worth of the procedure but like all social debates, calling parents pedophiles or sadists or mocking their culture tends to produce negative results and just makes folks circle the wagons.

And I will say that it is totally not always solely the parent's decision. It's everyone else's as well...because as I stated earlier for many years and even today if a person didn't circ their child she would often get hounded until she did. I've heard stories of nurses using scare tactics, spouses and family members getting really aggressive and such until the woman just gives in.

Societies always tend to have this social pressure to conform to what is perceived to be the norm. It one of the negative aspects of societies. However, I think this particular aspect is largely overblown and exaggerated in the retelling. It certainly is in intactivst literature which paints doctors, nurses and Jewish rabbis as hideous evil persons. (I am not kidding I've read the stuff myself). These are more cases of well meaning persons who felt they were acting in the person's best interest based on their understanding of the issue.

Medical services (I'm assuming you mean insurance) don't always provide it because there's no immediate need for it. It makes absolutely no sense to me that insurance is going to pay for something an infant has no immediate need, an operation that he may never even benefit from yet the older woman next door has to work 50+ hours a week just to buy her medicine! There's no sense in it!

Insurance companies (which are always looking for a valid reason to restrict a cost) were cutting back on approving the procedure and actual laws were being passed based on the popular notion that the procedure had no medical benefit. The purpose of this study was to confirm or deny that and if found that the notion was incorrect there is a documentary medical benefit to having the procedure done. It is still up to the insurance companies if they want to cover it or not but I strongly object to the laws being passed banning it.

I'm willing to bet if circumcision was mandated, with religious exemption (to allow jews their 8th day ceremony and stuff), people would not flip out half as much as they would when there is talk of banning it. Considering the general attitude in this country surrounding the subject, alot of people that say,"It's the choice of the parent" but are still for it personally, would have absolutely nothing to say about it being mandated with religious exemption.

As far as I know NOBODY is even suggesting the procedure be mandated. The issue is arising from movements trying to ban it completely with no religious exceptions.

 

[Zabotugi]

Re: Benefits of circumcision outweigh risks, U.S. pediatrics group says

It is cultural, I don't think anybody would really deny that. But that being said when do you have the right to tell other people their culture is wrong and force your opinion on them? There are certainly cases where it is justified like where some cultures practice genocide but I hardly think a bit of elective surgery falls into that category. So really it should be a matter of educational discussion of the worth of the procedure but like all social debates, calling parents pedophiles or sadists or mocking their culture tends to produce negative results and just makes folks circle the wagons.

Where did I put it in the same category as genocide?! ANdWhen did I call anyone a pedophile or sadist?!

Societies always tend to have this social pressure to conform to what is perceived to be the norm. It one of the negative aspects of societies. However, I think this particular aspect is largely overblown and exaggerated in the retelling. It certainly is in intactivst literature which paints doctors, nurses and Jewish rabbis as hideous evil persons. (I am not kidding I've read the stuff myself). These are more cases of well meaning persons who felt they were acting in the person's best interest based on their understanding of the issue.

I think the promotion of circumcision itself is overblown. I also find it hypocritical that people overlook the ''bullying'' aspect on the pro-side. It's totally okay to bully a parent into circ'ing their child through scaring them and making them feel guilty but if anyone on who's against it does it, it's suddenly the end of the world. I have noticed that lots of intactivists paint rabbis (more mohels that rabbis), nurses and doctors in a bad light, but it's not like doctors are inclined to their own biases. For example, when you have doctors telling you to retract in infancy, when you're not supposed to, then yeah, I can understand that. I've heard cases where the doctor just takes the baby and retracts, the baby yelps in pain because the doctor thinks they are supposed to do that. Of course, the parent, knowing better, freaks out. While I do agree that it's not appropiate to paint all health care professionals as villians, they do often use scare tactics to talk one into circ'ing AND can be misinformed on proper care of an intact penis in infancy. Early retraction causes problems and not everyone (even health care professionals) know that.



Insurance companies (which are always looking for a valid reason to restrict a cost) were cutting back on approving the procedure and actual laws were being passed based on the popular notion that the procedure had no medical benefit. The purpose of this study was to confirm or deny that and if found that the notion was incorrect there is a documentary medical benefit to having the procedure done. It is still up to the insurance companies if they want to cover it or not but I strongly object to the laws being passed banning it.

This doesn't change the fact that money should be used for more important things. These health ''benefits' are not set-in-stone and more based on behavior. If MORE people are educated on proper care of the intact penis and on safer sex methods, perhaps this would be less of an issue.

As far as I know NOBODY is even suggesting the procedure be mandated. The issue is arising from movements trying to ban it completely with no religious exceptions.
I was just making a hypothetical point. I truly believe if it was to be mandated with religious exemption most people would not have a problem with it (except people against it, which they will then be told to get over it and it's for their child's sake), and the whole "It's up to the parent's choice" thing would fly out the window.

It just seems to me that there are many other methods of STD prevention people should be taking anyway to where the benefits shouldn't matter. (Since the promotion seems to talk mostly of STD prevention as oppose to things like phimosis-which is treatable without surgery a lot of times. But the behavioral aspect in STD prevention is a whole different topic....sort of.

 

[Stardreamer]

Re: Benefits of circumcision outweigh risks, U.S. pediatrics group says

It just seems to me that there are many other methods of STD prevention people should be taking anyway to where the benefits shouldn't matter. (Since the promotion seems to talk mostly of STD prevention as oppose to things like phimosis-which is treatable without surgery a lot of times. But the behavioral aspect in STD prevention is a whole different topic....sort of.

Your position is just fine and understandable as we both agree this is social and cultural issue and such debate is welcome in it.

Where did I put it in the same category as genocide?! ANdWhen did I call anyone a pedophile or sadist?!

You didn't I was just making an example that there are cases where it is justified to condemn a culture. You didn't call any a pedophile or a sadist but there are folks in this debate who do use that language, such an accusation was made in this very thread.

I was just making a hypothetical point. I truly believe if it was to be mandated with religious exemption most people would not have a problem with it (except people against it, which they will then be told to get over it and it's for their child's sake), and the whole "It's up to the parent's choice" thing would fly out the window.

Ah I see now. I know I would at least object to it since it would walking on the parents rights as well. I really think most people really don't care that much about it either way but do have a sense that it should be the parent's issue not the state's.

 

[Anders123]

Re: Benefits of circumcision outweigh risks, U.S. pediatrics group says

Here, you can read up on it all you want.

Okay, let's have a look at this.

The study claims a reduction of 60% in HIV transmission. Across all three female-to-male trials, of the 5,411 men subjected to male circumcision, 64 (1.18%) became HIV-positive. Among the 5,497 controls, 137 (2.49%) became HIV-positive, so the absolute decrease in HIV infection was only 1.31%. This number of '60%' is the relative reduction; comparing two infinitesimal percentages to generate a higher number.

This is also ignoring other factors, such as the circumcised men receiving more counseling on safe-sex practices, and also the sexually inactive period of recovery time due to being circumcised. Comparatively, the uncircumcised men were able to have sex over the entire duration of the two month trial (which was also stopped early).

Additionally, these three trials were conducted in Africa. The HIV rates in America cannot compare to those in Africa, which if tested would almost undoubtedly result in a differential percentage even lower than 1.31% (perhaps even 0), which is of course statistically insignificant.

Now let's look at urinary tract infections. The statistical probability of an uncircumcised infant between birth and two years of age contracting a UTI is 1%. Now, is it the foreskin itself that causes the UTI, or improper hygiene? Forgetting that, assuming that a circumcision prevents infant UTIs by 100% (come on, do you really believe that?), it would mean that on average, there would need to be 100 circumcisions to 'prevent' one infant urinary tract infection; something that is almost completely preventable with proper hygiene.

These 'medical benefits' are both inapplicable to Americans and statistically insignificant. With painfully biased ‘studies’ and gross misrepresentations of data, it becomes glaringly obvious that this taskforce has its own motives for saying ‘the benefits of circumcision can maybe probably possibly conceivably outweigh the risks, but we’re not going to act to change any policies regarding it’. And you (and many other prospective parents) have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. I wonder if money has anything to do with it?

 

[SLOPPYSECONDS]

Re: Benefits of circumcision outweigh risks, U.S. pediatrics group says

ollimpics fourskin dance freestyle
* hands a ready *
- yes a da memburs a train all a life a this point ans we a watch now da awsum end result a many hard a trains -
# ooh look it our joey! ooh cryyyyyyy #
& you show um joey! &
- whiel a wait a um start comment a supa awsum sport nippulls -
@ yes is years a hard trains get 6meter a foruskin wot in right hands is like a handy skippy rope @
- thankyou supa awsum sport nipulls ans now team joey is do da begin ans audience rememba umbrella unda ya supa eva seat of awsums -

commercial break

welcum back ans it was awsums will a win da gold who a nose

thankyou

 

[bankside]

Re: Satan restored my foreskin but circumcised my anus.

Who did your lobotomy?

 

[bankside]

Re: Satan restored my foreskin but circumcised my anus.

Same guy who did my last abortion.

Ohhhhh! Mitt Romney, then. How'd you get him for a doctor?

 

[blackbeltninja]

Re: Satan restored my foreskin but circumcised my anus.

I have about 100ml of ketamine. That should get the party started, much more than the Kellogg's version would.

-d-

 

[LilBit]

Re: Satan restored my foreskin but circumcised my anus.

You can get straight-guy skin flakes grafted on your anus to repair the damage.

 

[RonR18]

Re: Satan restored my foreskin but circumcised my anus.

 

[Kabluey]

Re: Satan restored my foreskin but circumcised my anus.

Same guy who did my last abortion.

Watch out. Classic closet case.

 

[justaguy]

Is the art of circumcision dying?

So ... guys prefer cut do they? Well ... what say it's a dying art? Lets see by this here poll.
Yes it's another cicumcision poll!!! Yay!!!!

 

[medic1]

Re: Is the art of circumcision dying?

I am a firm believer that unless it is a medical necessary as in to tight to retract , then best left alone , to circumcise a new-born
because it is the accepted social "norm" i find puzzling .

This practice seems very prevalent in certain countries , Religion plays a major part , more so in Muslim Countries .

 

[panda29]

Re: Is the art of circumcision dying?

I am 58 & restoring my foreskin!!