Thoughts on Germany's Circumcision Ban

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During my wife’s first pregnancy, we made the decision not to learn the sex of the child before birth. There were many reasons for this decision: the purity of discovery at the moment of delivery; an effort to prevent family and friends from inundating us with gender-defined baby gifts before the little one had even emerged; a Shalom-Auslander-like superstition that knowing would somehow invite a divinely-orchestrated disaster.
However, the truth is that one motivation outweighed all others, at least for me: a terrible fear that our child would be a boy.
It was a fear stemming from the fact that, as committed Jews, I knew we would circumcise him. And I also knew this: we desperately didn’t want to do so.

Which is why, when I read today that a German district court has outlawed circumcision, my first response was not to shake my head and intone anti-Semites (as did many of my fellow Jews). No, my first response, the first words that came to my lips, were these: that’s impressively bold.
It’s bold because a court in Germany has done what I and many of my peers have long been afraid to do in public: question the ethical — and spiritual — legitimacy of an ancient and enduring ritual which requires parents to surgically alter the sexual organ of an infant. (Some argue it’s mutilation, and a definitional use of the word mutilate can be supported.)
It’s also an impressive ruling because, with regard to questions of religious freedom (particularly those impacting Jews), no country feels the weight of history pressing down more than Germany — a country with well-established religious freedom laws founded upon a history I know all too well, as half of my family was lost to the Holocaust.
The German case in question, which has garnered international scrutiny, involved a Muslim four-year-old boy whose circumcision was botched, which resulted in days of continuous bleeding. German authorities brought a case against the doctor, and while he was acquitted, the district court in Cologne ruled that circumcision was illegal because it constitutes physical harm to a newborn and causes “irreversible damage against the body.”
The court also added that religious freedom clauses did not grant parents a legal justification for such a practice. And Haaretz reported:

[The court] ruled that doctors could only perform circumcisions for health-related reasons. The district court justified the ruling by stating that it was for the “good of the child who would be able to decide for himself which religious community he or she would belong to.”

While the future legality of circumcision in Germany remains hazy, as the ruling is sure to be revisited, Germany is just one of a growing number of countries that have raised the spectre of banning circumcision. (From San Francisco to Norway, the issue has been raised in a growing number of world communities.)
I do not know exactly where I stand with regard to outlawing circumcision, but I do know that it rightly rests upon the boundary where religious/cultural freedom and child protection border one another. For at what stage is the line separating parental discretion and child abuse crossed? Piercing the ears of an infant? Branding a newborn with a small, religiously-required marking? Circumcising the penis of an infant male?
Regarding the latter, all I can say is this: I have attended many circumcisions, and I have nearly vomited at all of them, for there is no normative ritual in the Judeo-Christian world (that I know of) which is more tribal and disturbing than a bris. The rhythmic chanting. The encircled baby. The screams of pain.
I do not know if what Germany has done is right. But I do understand from whence the decision came.
Ultimately, we had a daughter, and were spared making the decision ourselves, a decision many Jews (and I suspect Muslims) wrestle with every day behind closed doors.
Though a growing number are prying that door open and beginning to ask previously unspeakable questions that lead all the way back to Abraham.
Follow me on Twitter @David_EHG

0 thoughts on “Thoughts on Germany's Circumcision Ban

  1. There is nothing wrong with circumcision they can use a local anesthetic in today;s world. ban is a serious interference in religious freedom. Nothing li seeing this coming out of Germany. I have read many of for blogs and nearly vomited. Should we ban your blogs?

    • I am more open to arguments made without resort to personal attacks against the author or the person commenting.
      For example, your point would be stronger if you described circumscion without pain in more detail.

      • Tim, Local anesthetics are used today. Bu tell me one thing. Who recalls a 1 second procedure at 8 days old? Who?
        Harris-Gershon is more concerned with this issue more than genocide in Syria. Anything disparage his now people.. anything

        • Conscious memory is not the issue Don. If you take the time and trouble to read the latest neurology research you’ll find that pain inflicted in the newborn period is uniquely harmful. Their nerves are not fully developed, they have no mechanism to manage and dull it: the neural scarring is permanent. http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/2009/Features/WTX054083.htm Re circumcision we suspected this decades ago – Taddio et al showed that months after an unanaesthetised circ a boy will respond more strongly to a new pain than his untraumatised peers.

          • Oh please! Babis wi experience many little pains in their young. There are vaccines an child gets, teething and many other small things. Teething is a more sustained pain, should we prevent that? Circumcised babies grow up as emotionally well adjusted as non circumcised babies. And BTWm in today’s world pain is no longer and issue with circumcision. There are local anesthetics. SO that argument is moot

          • h please! Babis wi experience many little pains in their young lives, There are vaccines an child gets, teething and many other small things. Teething is a more sustained pain, should we prevent that? Circumcised babies grow up as emotionally well adjusted as non circumcised babies. And BTW in today’s world pain is no longer an issue with circumcision. There are local anesthetics. So that argument is moot

    • Anesthetics allow the amputation of just about anything without pain. Does that mean there’s “nothing wrong” with doing so?

  2. Great post, and I thoroughly concur. It’s not clear to me whether such practices should fall under the oversight of public health policy…but I have a hard time articulating why they shouldn’t (precedence isn’t really a very satisfying answer) – and in any case, this is the very question: where to draw the line?
    I welcome the ruling even if I question the wisdom of directly banning such a classically sanctioned religious practice in this way – precisely because it invites the kind of moral deliberation you are (quite rightly, in my view) calling for. Sure, this is a tough question. But in my view, it’s questions like these that are most imperative to confront.

    • Every Jewish boy of a Jewish mother is Jewish and circumcision neither changes this fact nor makes the baby more Jewish than other children. Circumcision is a practice comemorating a “covenent” between Abraham and God right that has been passed down for generations and not a determinant of whether the child is Jewish or not. I am attracted to the concept of informed consent and would suggest that circumcsion decisions or alternatives for remembering the covenent be put off until the young male reaches the age of consent in his jurisdiction.

  3. The writer never mentions the health benefits of circumcision: mainly as a protection for females against infection by HIV (the AIDS virus) and papiloma (a virus that causes some cancers). Yes, things can and very, very occasionally do go wrong, but this should be weighed against the health benefit. But even more importantly, such a ban would impinge upon the religious freedom of Jews and Muslims; this alone creeps me out.
    Like the writer, I’ve attended many ritual circumcisions, but never remotely experienced the physical reaction that he has. It was always done in a clinical but tender way; moreover, you don’t have to look. And the baby’s crying has always stopped quickly, with that little dab of wine.

  4. @ Ralph – I didn’t mention the health benefits because this is an article about the tension between religious freedom and parental rights. Health benefits are not a motivation for choosing a halachic, ritual circumcision, and health benefits were not addressed by Germany’s ban.
    That said, the health benefits are a VERY compelling reason not just to allow circumcision, but (to go the opposite direction) have governments encourage parents to circumcise their young boys. According to the WHO, there is evidence that circumcision can reduce the HIV risk in men up to 60 percent. (http://www.who.int/hiv/topics/malecircumcision/en/)
    Again, though, the health benefits are part of an entirely different discussion.
    As for my visceral reactions to a bris, all I can do is reflect the reality of my own experiences, as you have with yours.
    Thanks for the comment.

    • David,
      While I now understand that it’s the ritual aspect of circumcision that you are questioning, the health benefits belong in this discussion. If this were actually a harmful practice, it should be disallowed.
      But people who associate the Brit Milah with female genital mutilation are grossly misinformed. This is an assault on a ritual that is fundamental to both Judaism and Islam, and as such an unacceptable violation of religious freedom.

    • The health benefits aren’t a compelling reason to encourage or permit the circumcision of male infants. They are a factor that an adult may use to influence his decision for himself. That’s different than circumcising a healthy child for a benefit he may not need or want. If he chooses to use condoms, for example, the HIV benefit is essentially moot. Or if a vaccine is developed in the next 15+ years… And the remaining benefits are generally achievable through less invasive preventions and/or treatments. The most invasive surgical option as a prophylactic measure can’t be justified ethically.
      Also, it’s worth noting that the HIV risk reduction is female-to-male transmission in high-risk populations. The latter part doesn’t describe Western nations and the former has a very low occurrence in the West. And condoms are still necessary.
      That said, your original post is fantastic.

      • You have made several excellent points which balance the health-benefit argument (in my view), particularly as it relates to developed nations with normative condom use.

        • If David (and Tony) are arguing for parents having the right to choose, they have this choice now, except where the practice is banned. So if a German court or any other jurisdiction outlaws circumcision, this freedom is being taken away.

          • I am not arguing in favor of parental choice on this. I’m hesitant to endorse the court’s ruling without reservation because I don’t speak German and can’t read the original source. However, based on the news summaries I’ve read, I support the court’s decision.
            Parents have the responsibility to make medical decisions for their child. This is not a valid medical decision any more than elective rhinoplasty or elective heart bypass surgery. There is no need, which rules out surgery via proxy consent. Non-therapeutic genital cutting on a non-consenting child is not a parental right or an individual right based in freedom of religion. It is not legitimate because it infringes on the child’s right to bodily/physical integrity. This court ruling does not take away freedom. It advances individual liberty by protecting a very basic right belonging to a child.

    • It is precisely not a debate about the tension between religious freedom and parental rights. It is about the question of whether parents have the right to mutilate their children, and to shield themselves with a claim of religious freedom.

  5. Why should religions get “freedoms” to mutilate their children. Religious freedom sounds like a green card for religions to carry out any sick, backward and harmful practice that they think their god told them to. Female circumcision is banned in most countries, and so should male circumcision.

    • For those who warship God, so God screwed up by putting the glans protective covers and anti-friction mechanic. on all males for no reason just for the fun of it , or the Creator screwed up on this one? Where is the common sense in all this? Nature evolve things over millions of years and if something is not correct it is eliminated. if the foreskin is a defect Nature would eliminate it long time ago. The the stupidity in some human species is beyond me.

  6. Why should religions get “freedoms” to mutilate their children. Religious freedom sounds like a green card for religions to carry out any sick, backward and harmful practice that they think their friend in the sky told them to. Female circumcision is banned in most countries, and so should male circumcision.

  7. The world is in a sad state. You should be allowed to choose if you’re child should be circumcised. IS anyone really complaining about being circumcised????? Only the ####s who are not circumcised are complaining. Glad i’m circumcised because a ant eater dick, just isn’t popular with the ladies over here.

    • Chevy 84, your intellect is very low,want to say something but do not think you would get it why to waste time with people like you?

      • Great reply, as most men and boys here are intact, the comments such as “anteater dick” are meaningless. Most women would, after sampling a natural penis, prefer it. My penis was mutilated, and sex is now difficult or impossible. Regarding HIV, how many babies have intercourse? The age of consent is 16, penis alteration before then is immoral and unethical.

        • Keith, You have no right to complain about circumcision unless you claim to be a victim and seek damages. But we see no massive class action suit against Moyal’s do we. I don; really care what you think, You opinion has no worth since yo are not an alleged victim, Take for bitterness elsewhere,

  8. Religious freedom is important. A person should indeed be allowed the right to commit to and celebrate the religion of their choice. Therefore, circumcision should be permitted only when the boy (or girl) is old enough to understand and legally make the choice for themselves. Why is this even a debate?
    Already many Jewish parents are choosing not to do this to their children:
    http://www.jewsagainstcircumcision.org/
    As to the health ‘benefits’ -compare the genital health/occurrence of STDs, HPV, etc between the (mostly circumcised) US and the (majority intact) Europe. Is there really an epidemic of illnesses in Europe related to men being intact? Are European men rushing to get circumcised because they *might* get a yeast infection or don’t want to take 10 seconds to wash their penises? No way -they know how much pleasure -for themselves and for their partner- comes from having a whole penis.
    In the future we will look back at this decision in Germany as one of the early steps leading to genital integrity for all the innocent children victimized by these tribal and barbaric customs.

  9. Insulting the male genatalia of the uncircumcised makes for an ugly, unpersuasive argument.
    Why not articulate your position in a healing, life giving way for everyone? I have confidence that you will be able to accomplish this.

  10. This is not mutilation, it is not surgery, it is not harmful; and it is a tradition of going back thousands of years. it is a slab of skinBotched circumcisions are very rare ad in this particular case the doctor should be sued. The government has no right to interfere with this tradition based on a botched procedure, juts lie abortion shod bot be made illegal because of a botched procedure. Germany of all places shod be aware of religious and ethnic rights.

    • Circumcision IS mutilation, it IS surgery, and it IS harmful, and just because it has been done for thousands of years does not make it right. Sueing over a death or loss from such immoral actions does no good for for the victim, money is no use after death, and no compensation for a damaged sexlife. My sexlife was negatively affected, which is why I made sure my son was given the chance to decide for himself.

      • Keith,
        Medical malpractice suits are a part of society and many of them are directed against obstetricians. People sue over everything, ye we do not see any law suits buy this allegedly victimized with circumcision.

  11. One cannot hide a religious ritual behind medicine. (It is not valid medicine, and the HIV claims are nonsense: http://bit.ly/KaO73r, http://bit.ly/K7G9I4 . Even if it were true, there is still no justification in performing it on babies because babies don’t have sex; the procedure can wait until consent can be obtained, as medical ethics requires. Circumcision also removes the most erogenous 50% of the skin of the penis and is therefore undeniably damage.)
    This is a question about religious rights. Either a parent has a religious rights to cut off part of the penis or they do not. The question must stand by itself. If there is no religious right by itself, then it is wrong. You cannot use half a religious right and half a false claim to medicine, neither of which would stand on their own, and believe this counts as a legitimate basis for what is still just cultural violence.

    • MrBBQ, you make very good points in your first paragraph, but I must challenge your second. This is indeed about religious rights: the rights of religious parents to permanently disfigure a child; versus the religious and human rights of that child to choose when he/she is of age to do so. Who in their right mind satisfies their own religious appetite by cutting their child without consent or good medical reason? If my parents had done that to me, I would be furious. I have the choice to be an anteater or a helmet – now that’s freedom!

      • You must have misunderstood me, because I was defending the rights of the child with my argument.
        I was telling the people invoking medicine to stop, because those arguments are not valid. It’s simply a question of parents’ religious rights vs. individual’s body rights.

        • Ah, I was addressing “Either a parent has a religious rights to cut off part of the penis or they do not. The question must stand by itself. If there is no religious right by itself, then it is wrong”. I committed a fallacy by interpreting you as implying to the contrary that if there IS a religious right, then maybe it might NOT be wrong. Now I think I understand what you meant and agree. 🙂

    • It’s a ‘small slap of skin’ on an infant. It ends up to be equivalent to the area of a 3X5 index card on an adult. 15 square inches. That is not insignificant!
      Also, it’s not a ‘slap’ or a ‘flap’. Go find a picture of an intact penis. The foreskin is not a separate entity -it is a continuation of the skin of the shaft, which then folds back inward on itself, and attaches under the glans. It is like the lips -dry on the outside, moist on the inside. It is a highly specialized, erogenous area of skin. Most importantly, it is attached to SOMEONE ELSE’S BODY! Let THEM decide whether they want to keep it or not.

    • Don, it is not “just a flap of skin”. This is the biggest misconception about foreskin, and in fact it is the central myth that allows circumcision to continue: the myth that it’s harmless. Quite the opposite is true, in fact. Listen to this radio show if you want to get an idea of how important the foreskin is to sexual sensation, by this very eloquent interview guest: newstalk1010.com/Episodes.aspx?PID=1757
      (June 27th show, fast forward to about 7 minutes)
      The foreskin contains over half the nerve endings of the penis, and they are unique on the body (yes, there’s actually anatomical research done on this). Because it’s nearer the tip, they are far more sensitive than the rest of the penis that is left after the foreskin is torn off. Some flap of skin!

    • Don, it is not a slab of skin. It is the most erotically sensitive part of the penis, containing thousands of pleasure producing nerve endings. Of course, how could men circumcised in infancy know what they are missing? And what about the gliding action which the foreskin provides to prevent chafing in the female partner?

      • Alfred, of course there’s no way a man circumcised as an infant can possibly know what he has lost. And that ignorance disqualifies Don from judging the value of that part of a penis. A slab of skin, my ass!

    • don: let me get this right. You’re claiming the right to cut off parts of a child’s penis, without his consent, but denying me the right to comment on a debate in which you’ve chosen to engage? Sheesh, you must have a helluva high opinion of your own right to choose, and a helluva low opinion of everyone else’s. Can’t you see the hypocrisy in your position? It’s not your business to go cutting parts off your children. Why don’t you get it?

  12. There is an aspect of this case that even transcends freedom of religion. I see this ruling as just one more step towards the radical left’s goal of eliminating the proposition that children belong to their parents in favor of belonging to the state which graciously – at least for now at this point on the metaphorical slippery slope – allows the parents to raise the children (and, by the way, largely pay their expenses) subject to state scrutiny. This is the truly chilling consideration of this ruling that I think many are failing to discern.

    • What’s wrong with the idea that children don’t belong to anyone, but are the responsibility of both its parents and society to protect, nurture and grow? They’re not possessions to do with as you please, or fashion accessories to display your religious conviction. They’re your responsibility, not onbects of your rights.

      • If you, sir, are not willing to assert your proprietary rights over your own seed, then perhaps the answer is that you have no children and thus seek control over those of others. If that’s not the case, then I suggest you read Huxley’s *Brave New World.* By the way, Huxley named his dystopian world’s dictator after Henry Ford, noted anti-Semite and publisher of the *The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem*.

        • “Proprietary rights over your own seed”? That sums it up right there, precisely why children need legal protection from certain parents. Of course I have children, and I’ve brought them up to respect and value themselves and others as people with rights to choose for themselves, and fine young adults they are. I have never treated them as possessions to do with as I will, and certainly not to hack about for my own superstitious reasons. You, Sir, are a domineering, overbearing, authoritarian dinosaur and I am damned glad my own father set me such a fine example.

          • The assault upon the family and religion will be resisted with the last dying breath of “dinosaurs” like myself and a great many others. Keep your liberal, socialist nose out of the personal business of others. It doesn’t take a village to raise a child. It takes a family. Your attitudes are reminiscent of the man who kills his parents and then pleads for mercy on the ground that he is an orphan. Secular humanism has destroyed the family to establish a justification for state intrusion into the affairs of individuals.
            Your apparent countenancing of this insult to the world’s oldest, extant monotheistic religion and a core rite of passage practiced by devout believers of the faith for millennia is telling. Do your really believe that this ruling by another anti-Semitic judicial thug hiding behind police to enforce his warped ideals will stand? Jews have survived seemingly endless persecution since the diaspora which only culminated with the Holocaust. Eisenhower compelled the mayor and his wife of the nearby village of Dachau to visit the camp. Afterwards he told them: “You make me ashamed my name is Eisenhower.” I know just how he felt.

          • This has nothing to do with liberalism, socialism, secular humanism, anti-Semitism, the holocaust or Dachau. This has all to do with who has the right to choose over their own genitals. Your resorting to the holocaust as a defence of the practice of genital mutilation reveals your own incapacity to reason and argue clearly, and honestly. You have lost the argument.

          • You and the world’s anti-Semites have won nothing! This has *everything* to do with the rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe. Now that communism has been discredited and largely consigned to the trashcan of history, where else does the radical left have to go but to the radical right as in a circle? As a result, a neo-fascist movement is presently coalescing as evidenced by the constant attacks against Israel.
            These thugs cannot bear the fact that Jews have said “Never again!” and now have the chutzpah and teeth to make that admonition mean something while Western Europe slides into increasing global irrelevancy wrought by the decadence and degeneracy that is socialism. Now that Jews can’t be castrated any longer, white collar Nazi thugs like this “esteemed jurist” and the prosecutors who brought the case laughingly accuse Jews of “mutilating” their children by observing a millennia old ritual they hold sacred as a covenant with God and as a defining moment for male adherents of the religion.
            The German foreign minister has now joined in the outrage, and I’m glad to see that some decent people remain in my ancestral homeland. So have the largest German Catholic and Protestant religious bodies as well and that of the Islamic religion. A growing chorus of international criticism is joining their voices and even a UN representative has concurred. This outrageous human rights violation and intrusion into the affairs of the family and attempted abridgment of religious freedom will not stand for long. Let the world’s anti-Semites pull wings off flies in solace. They can’t fight back!

          • Oh Donny, the more you rant like a madman, the more pity I feel for you.
            I am not anti-Semitic, radical left, neo-fascist, nor a Nazi thug. And neither are the people who are arguing here against this practice. I am entirely in favour of Jewish people existing in their own state, if they so choose, or integrated into other cultures if they choose that. I have friends of many religions, ethnicities, nationalities and backgrounds. Your hysterical hitting the emotional red button of Nazi holocaust persecution, rather than debating the issue at hand honestly, not only misses the target by a considerable margin but reveals you to be a fool who cannot hold a rational argument.
            Crying anti-Semitism over opposition to the ritual circumcision of children is akin to crying anti-Catholicism over opposition to institutionalised paedophilia. There are good Catholics who are opposed to paedophilia, and there are good Jews who are opposed to the circumcision of children.
            Opposition to certain foreign and domestic policies of the state of Israel is not equivalent to anti-Semitism. And neither is opposition to the circumcision of children.
            If you cannot debate this issue without resorting to obscene emotional blackmail, which demeans the suffering and memory of hundreds of thousands of fine people tortured and murdered for nothing more than their way of life, then perhaps it is better that you and I leave the matter here and agree to differ.

          • You insult one of the most cherished beliefs (i.e., a ritual Jews believe to be the fulfillment of their covenant with God which they have practiced for millennia) and then accuse me of “ranting” by invoking anti-Semitism?! You accuse Jewish people of “mutilating’ their sons? Jews are accused of “mutilating” their sons in a nation that a relative eye blink ago forcibly castrated them? Such is typical of the upside down world of post-World War II Western liberalism where virtue has been turned into vice and visa versa. You presume to tell others (regardless of religion or ethnic background) how they should raise *their* children?
            Yeah, leave it at that.

          • “You insult one of the most cherished beliefs”. No, I challenge the practice of mutilating children’s genitals.
            “and then accuse me of “ranting” by invoking anti-Semitism?”. Yes, quite correct.
            “You accuse Jewish people of “mutilating’ their sons?” No, I accuse of mutilation anyone who cuts off parts of their children’s genitals without consent, irrespective of their religion.
            “You presume to tell others how they should raise *their* children?” No I don’t, but I have accepted an invitation to comment on a published blog about this practice, and I stand by my comments entirely.
            “Yeah, leave it at that.”. More than happy to.

    • Why can’t the state keep their hands off other people’s genitals?! Don’t they know, only the *parent’s* hands belong on the children’s genitals!
      I shudder at the thought of the state interfering with parents’ rights to remove their daughters’ labia and clitoral hoods as well. Surely a nightmarish socialist dystopia is just around the corner!

  13. Complications from male circumcision are not all that rare. I have read that just as many babies die from complications (which frequently aren’t recorded as directly related to the procedure) as do those who die from SIDS. Yet observe all the attention that SIDS has received.
    In my opinion, both male and female circumcision is done for similar reasons–outdated tribal custom and tradition.

          • Web definitions: multilation: an injury that causes disfigurement or that deprives you of a limb or other important body part.
            wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
            The key components of this definition are…
            Injury – removing live skin is injury by definition.
            Disfigurement – change in the appearance of a body part.
            Important – that part is the matter of opinion here. If you’ve never knowingly had one you are incompetent to judge. I have, and it’s important.
            What makes cutting off part of a person’s penis anything other than mutilation?
            IMO, your objection, on emotional grounds, to my use of an entirely proper word, is far more intellectually dishonest. Stop hiding behind semantics, tradition, religion and indignation, and reason this through.

          • Web definitions: multilation: an injury that causes disfigurement or that deprives you of a limb or other important body part.
            wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
            The key components of this definition are…
            Injury – removing live skin is injury by definition.
            Disfigurement – change in the appearance of a body part.
            Important – that part is the matter of opinion here. If you’ve never knowingly had one you are incompetent to judge. I have, and it’s important.
            What makes cutting off part of a person’s body anything other than mutilation?
            IMO, your objection, on emotional grounds, to my use of an entirely proper word, is far more intellectually dishonest. Stop hiding behind semantics, tradition, religion and indignation, and reason this through.

      • Come on, just one little good reason for the non-medical cutting off parts of baby’s private parts. Please?

    • Agreed! Injuries from circumcision are hushed up, whilst SIDS is national news, especially if a parent is blamed. Death from circumcision is commonly recorded as ‘excessive blodd loss’ or ‘narcotic poisoning’.

      • I doubt you can show one stat on get my circumcision. And don’t come back here with some BS conspiracy theory about coverups. The is a litigious enough society where medical coverups are nearly impossible

  14. I do not support making circumcision illegal. What I prefer is increasing the sexual sophistication of parents around the world, so that they all lose all desire to circumcise their sons. If circumcision is to be banned, I favour a religious exemption, for pragmatic reasons. That said, I predict that any religious exemption would be seriously abused in the USA. All sorts of evangelical ministers would write to the DA, saying that circumcision was an important part of the faith they preach.
    The Koran is silent about any obligation to circumcise. Islamic circumcision is neither a sacrament nor a ritual. Islam does not value the act of circumcision, but the circumcised state. This fact is grounded in a world where soap, running water and sewers did not exist. In a world where foreskin problems were untreatable. The main reason Moslems circumcise is that not being circumcised is taken as proof that one was not born to Moslem parents. Moslem parents circumcise their boys because otherwise they risk humiliation in the bedroom, especially on the proverbial wedding night.
    The point is not to “ban” brit milah, but to take the decision out of the hands of the parents, and put it into the hands of the adult male the boy will grow up to be. I cannot agree that parents get to decide, irreversibly, the faith commitments and tribal allegiances of their children. I deliberately did not baptize my children, in order to leave the decision up to them, after their 14th birthdays.
    A large majority of the claimed “health benefits” of circumcision obtain only if a man has the sort of sex life that the three Abrahamic religions condemn. Why would I want to alter my son’s penis in order to help him get away with being an irresponsible manwhore when he grows up. If you reduce the wages of sin, you will get more sinning. Circumcision discourages condom use by reducing sensation. No one claims that circumcision “prevents” anything; it only changes the odds. It is quite possible that circumcision will encourage men to rationalise more unsafe sex, in which it will only delay the inevitable. The technical term for the sort of behaviour I am describing in this paragraph is “risk compensation.”
    @don. I have a foreskin and can assure you that it is central to my experience of sex. We honestly don’t know how often circumcision is botched, and there never has been a carefully survey of the adult American penis. We don’t even truly know what % of adult American men have been shorn. American medicine has never honestly asked the question “how often does infant circumcision result in a damaged adult penis?” Australian medicine uses the rule of thumb of 1%. To me, that’s high enough to justify abandoning the practice.
    @chevy84: there indeed are American men who regret being circumcised. Even Jewish men. I freely grant that for many American women, the Anteater is not what they are used to. Nevertheless, there are Yank women who’ve “been with both” and blog that they prefer intact.
    @Harris-Gershon: if you and your spouse both deplore brit milah, simply do not do it. Your son is always free to go under the knife in his 20s, if he wants to start dating frum women.

  15. The blog of an American Jewish mother who deplores ritual circumcision:
    http://www.beyondthebris.com/
    Rebecca Wald has become a bit of a leader of Jewish mothers who can’t stand Jewish circumcision.
    A FB page run by a New York orthodox Jew who detests his own circumcision and has set up a sort of news clearing house on the subject:
    http://www.facebook.com/intactnews
    Website of an American Jewish clinical psychologist who deplores circumcision:
    http://www.jewishcircumcision.org/book.htm
    American Jewish atheist, married to a central Asian Moslem atheist. Both hate circumcision:
    http://www.facebook.com/kisskenderov
    An American Jewish intellectual, whose father is an orthodox rabbi, has made the following anti-circumcision documentary film:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx89xECfHG4
    American Jewish mother of two adult sons, who detested the brises of her son from the get-go, and has written eloquent essays denouncing the practice. She is very religious, and is an ardent Zionist:
    http://www.facebook.com/miriam.pollack
    It has become permissible for secular educated Israelis to question circumcision:
    http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/even-in-israel-more-and-more-parents-choose-not-to-circumcise-their-sons.premium-1.436421
    An article of this nature cannot be published in the USA mainstream media.
    I am told that half or more of European and Latin American Jewish families no longer snip their boys. The practice is gone among assimilated French Jews. The notion that “uncircumcised Jew” = “victim of USSR antisemitism or oxymoron” is perhaps largely true in Israel and North America, but not elsewhere.
    I say that the main reason why run of the mill assimilated North American Jewish still circumcise is because they believe that not doing so will make it harder for their sons to marry in the faith.
    Hither and yon, I have commented as follows:
    “If you doubt or deny God, if the notion of Chosen People makes you uncomfortable or strikes you as triumphalist, if you deny the Covenant, or if you believe that a Covenant can only bind adults who have freely consented it, then you have no valid ‘faith’ reason to circumcise.”
    Thomas Szasz MD professed Medicine at SUNY for 40 years, and is a great American thinker and a very clear writer. 15 years ago, he gave a speech that included the following quote:
    “…the practice of routine circumcision rests on the absurd premise that the only mammal in creation born in a condition requiring immediate surgical correction is the human male.”
    He is a Hungarian Jewish immigrant to the USA.
    Finally, wonderful humour by a Canadian Jewish woman:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs_WSUXPfOE

  16. Agree 100%, do not force this Bronze Age brutal act on helpless babies or children, let them be free to decide when 20. and if they do let them,if they wish to be mutilated, its their problem, 20.000 nerve sensors lost, the glans get rough like a sand paper with age it is one of the reason for impotence and drugs like Viagra is the highest in the cut countries,also rough glans is not intended by Nature for the soft cervix to rub against and the double overlapping folds if left as Nature intended it, they act as an anti-friction device so the female is not hurt in the sexual act. In USA where most man over 30 are cut 66% of females will experience pain sooner or later in their love life this lead to more cheating, divorces,and if to be cut is so healthy why than the USA leads the world in cervical cancer? And why Finland where circumcision is only one in 15.000 cervical cancer is the lowest?

  17. I demand a religious right to cut of parts of penises when ever I choose.
    Circ or non circ some of it must come off or my God gets very angry.
    The rite starts by clubbing the unsuspecting bystander unconscious and then removing all his clothes.
    First 4 cm of the penis is then removed and sacrificed in a fire.
    The health benefits of this little procedure are enormous as it reduces all kinds of ailments about 50 % (my God says so).
    Who says I don´t have this religious freedom?
    You pagans, you !!!!

    • Heretic! The penis is only a play-thing. Castration has far better benefits to health and longevity than almost any other public health reform after sanitation. It increases mean longevity by more than 10 years, vastly reduces aggressive and risky behaviour and completely prevents complication of pregnancy and childbirth. Plus as any good Catholic know, celebacy is the holy way. Turn away from penilectomy and embrace childhood castration. It’s your religious freedom to have a religious nutter hack off your son’s balls, and the health benefits enormously outweigh those of cutting off that little flap of skin you’re all so obsessed with. =)

  18. The right of the child is supreme. Parents cannot force their beliefs.
    Let the young male decide what he wants to do when he is capable of taking an informed decision. Any other way is a serious infringement on his rights, parents or none.
    What if he concludes that he didn’t want the procedure. Its all done and dusted by then and if the sacrifice in lost pleasure is something that he is not too enamoured with (but see below too)!
    BTW the pain is a consideration. So are the botched cases. Most importantly, though, is the infringement aspect.
    Finally, let me say this, that even when 16 or 18, the family pressure to have the procedure carried out in the concerned fanatical families will be such that the chances of being able to avoid would be slim.
    Kudos to the German court, irrespective!

    • Parents have the right to spread they values to the children, t is you who are imposing your values on a family. That is not your right.
      Thanks for supporting a long German tradition of denying religious rights.

      • Don,
        Parents don’t have the right to spread their values to their children with the blade of a scalpel. Spreading their values involves education. If that sticks, if the child embraces what he (or she) learns of their religion, wonderful. The male retains the option to choose circumcision for himself as an expression of his religion. If he rejects the religion, or even just this aspect of it, his right to bodily integrity (and his right to freedom of religion) requires he not be forced to undergo surgery he neither needs nor wants.

      • When those rights and values include acts which the state classifies as abusive, laws rightly curtail those rights and values. You don’t need to agree with us, but when enough of us see your acts as abusive they WILL be outlawed in your country too. 🙂

    • “The right of the child is supreme. Parents cannot force their beliefs.”
      Javed, as Don illustrates, they sadly can and do. This is why society enforces laws to restrict their freedoms to abuse their children. Way to go Germany, all your poor, helpless little babies will be able to choose for themselves when they are of age, the choice some people wish to demy them. Children are not posessions, they are people with rights. And the right to be free from your mutilation is far greater than your right to mutilate.

    • “The right of the child is supreme.”
      If that’s how you feel about your child or children, fine. Raise a bunch of spoiled brats to further inflict upon the world if you please. But keep your nose out of families whose descendants and values have endured for millennia. They endure and prosper whiles yours stagnate and ultimately die out from a lack of a strong moral compass.

      • “Strong moral compass”? This from an infant mutilator. Good God, do you have any idea how demented you sound?

  19. There have been botched abortions resulting in the death of the mother, Should be make abortion illegal? I don’t think so/

    • Of course amateur abotions carried out for non-medical reasons are illegal, and rightly so.
      If there’s a compelling medical reason to terminate a pregnance, or surgicall alter genitals, then see a medical doctor. Just leave kids’ genitals alone.

      • Abortion is not not a medical necessity unless the mother’s life is at risk. That said, I AM PRO CHOICE, although I am not a big fan of abortion. I would NEVER want to interfere with a woman’s right to choose, nor would I want a government to interfere with ones right to engage in an ancient and safe practice

      • Abortion is not not a medical necessity unless the mother’s life is at risk. That said, I AM PRO CHOICE, although I am not a big fan of abortion. I would NEVER want to interfere with a woman’s right to choose, nor would I want a government to interfere with ones right to engage in an ancient and safe practice

        • Don, I agree entirely with you on the abortion issue. I’m not a big fan, but I am pro choice. I’m also pro choice about a male’s right to choose whether parts of his penis are cut off. Clearly we’re both pro choice, but I think where we differ is on whose right it is to choose. For you it seems to be the parent’s choice, for me it’s the child’s.

  20. It s the parents choice for an insignificant procedure. Leave the govt out of it unless there a real proof of even san once of harm.the German govt totally overstepped its boundaries based on a case that should juts have punished a terrible doctor. If he botched any other surgery, it would not have been banned.

  21. Oh…If only genocide in Syria got this much attention form the crowd. But I goes it takes a slab of skin from a penis to bring a huge response.

    • We all deplore the brutal civil war in Syria. But we are all helpless spectators of that war, unless Putin stops protecting Assad, or Obama decides to go to war unilaterally. Syria left the realm of debate and discussion months ago.
      The German court’s decision is a pointless exercise in legal reasoning, because it is very very easy to take a child to another jurisdiction where infant circumcision is completely legal. Moreover, there can be no enforcement of a circumcision ban unless young men dob in their circumcisers. (I submit that Moslem young men who do this are at risk of honour killing.) I am confident that German pediatricians will absolutely refuse to report to the authorities any circumcised penises they notice during medical examinations.
      If infant circumcision is outlawed, there should be a religious exemption — for pragmatic political reasons. Given that Germany is the nation that perpetrated the Shoah, the court’s decision revealed a political tin ear. That said, most participants in this debate seem to overlook that the controversy is not over circumcision per se, but over circumcision performed on a minor only because his parents wish it. Given that Islamic circumcision can be performed at any time before puberty, and that circumcision is not mentioned in the Koran, only a fanatical devotion to the letter of Islamic tradition stands in the way of European Moslems conforming to the preferences of the German court (that any circs take place after the 17th birthday). This debate is also silent about the fact that many European families that are ethnically Jewish have already quietly given up brit milah sometime during the past 100 years. Many such families would privately deny that circumcision is the single most important aspect of Judaism to them.

  22. My son was not circumcised until he was two years old. Because he was not circumcised, he had developed a serious medical condition called phimosis. HIs foreskin would not retract and, in fact, had closed so tightly over the tip of his penis that it was almost impossible for him to urinate. I can tell you with certainty that circumcision at the age of two is MUCH more traumatic than one done at the age of eight days.

    • Antigone: did your doctor try at any point to retract the foreskin? That can damage the penis and actually cause phimosis itself. Are you aware that phimosis is practically undiagnosable while a a kid is that young? The foreskin is not SUPPOSED to retract until usually at least age 5. Only some kids can retract that early; as time goes on, more kids can retract (the foreskin separates from the head of the penis). Most kids can retract by age 10, but some of them take as long as 18!
      Age 2? Jesus. Phimosis is over-diagnosed, usually by ignorant doctors. Your son probably didn’t need a circumcision.
      Hate to say it but yet another “horror story” about circumcision saying “oh, just do it or he’ll need it later!”. More likely just another sad tale about doctor ignorance and overzealousness. Circumcisions are almost never necessary.

  23. A slab off skin on a penis vs genocide in Syria. I see the author of tis post has his priorities straight. He ignores Syria.

  24. For those who argue that children do not belong to their parents and the state has the right to intervene within family affairs, the following is worth noting. Please keep in mind the concert of the metaphorical “slippery slope” while reading this::
    Nov. 29, 1937 – In Waldenberg, Germany, a court has taken parents away from their children because they refused to teach them Nazi ideology. The parents are pacifists, members of a Christian sect called International Bible Researchers. The court accused them of creating an environment where the children would grow up “enemies of the state.” The children were delivered into the state’s care.
    The judge delivered a lengthy statement reading in part, “The law as a racial and national instrument entrusts German parents with the education of their children only under certain conditions, namely, that they educate them in the fashion that the nation and state expect.” [emphasis added]
    – Quoted from Chronicles of the 20th Century, 1987 edition, p 475 Chronicle Publications, Mt. Kisco, NY.
    –I found the phrase “entrusts German parents” quite interesting. Please consider the implications of it.

    • Sigh. Donny, you just don’t get it do you? If I followed my better judgement I’d just ignore your continued hysterical harking back to the 1930s, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. Not everything anyone criticises you for makes them a neo-Nazi. But in the vain hope that a tiny drop of sense may get through, let me take your absurd analogy head on.
      First of all, I agree wholeheartedly with you that the case you cite is an appalling abuse of power by a loathsome dictatorship. Their presumption of state ownership of a child, to be indoctrinated and controlled for the purposes of that state, at the expense of the child himself, the co-option of the law “as a racial and national instrument”, and the requirement that parents “educate them in the fashion that the nation and state expect”, deserves nothing but condemnation in a modern, enlightened democracy.
      But the reasons why that Nazi behaviour is abhorrent are the very same reasons why I believe ritual childhood circumcision is wrong. Your presumption of parental ownership of a child, to be indoctrinated and controlled for the purposes of the parent, at the expense of the child himself, the gross manipulation of evil done under Nazi Germany to deflect criticism of abusive behaviour, and the requirement that the state which grants you freedom and protection to practice your religion also allows you to commit crimes against your own children, deserves nothing but condemnation in a modern, enlightened democracy.
      No one is trying to take your children from you, no one is taking control of your religion, an no one is rebuilding Nazi ideology over circumcision. But ALL just societies rightly impose limits on freedom to abuse others. The law rightly restricts my freedom to harass and assault you and your family, to steal your possessions and burn down your home. And our democratic representatives are ENTIRELY justified in considering the question of whether children should have parts of their genitals cut off for no good reason, and without their informed consent.
      Donny, no-one owns or possesses children. Those who think they do forget that those children will one day be bigger and more powerful than their parents – and they will remember. Decent people love and respect their own children, and teach them to make choices for themselves. The rest ought at least to treat their children with kindness for their own benefit in years to come.
      Slavery, torture, hanging, marital rape, stoning, apartheid and burning heretics were all once defended as acceptable, but are not now. Some day soon, ritual genital mutilation will be considered unacceptable too and you may like to think how you will answer when your grown son asks you why you had part of his penis cut off, why he has a fraction of the penile sensitivity he could have, why he will never now the joy of full sexual sensation, and if you ever considered that he could choose for himself rather than live HIS life with the consequences of YOUR choice.
      Some people think that power, possession and the exercise of their own will over others is strength. I believe that compassion, respect and giving choice to others is a far greater strength. I’m not about to try to prevent you from following your faith, but I do suggest that you consider whether it is the right thing to do, rather than react with indignation when criticised.

      • It’s piece of skin, nothing else.I can think of other things to obsess about, lie Syrian genocide. One article about that would no attack a peep, write about the piece of skin form a penis and everyone goes insane, Where are your damn priorities. Some one else’s child is not your business and it is no wrote of yours to pass judgement on them

        • Don, for someone who argues that this subject is unimportant, you sure post a lot about it! Why don’t you go off and write about Syria instead?
          Meanwhile, come on, please give me one good reason for ritual circumcision of children without their informed consent. Just one. Go on, just show us you can do it. 😉

          • It is an ancient tradition, and completely harmless. It is done at 8 days old, and no circumcised child ever ever thinks about it until it is brought up by those who have an agenda. I mean really. There is so much substantiated abuse with long term damage dobe to children in this world, this is far from one of them. In fact there is no abuse aty al. In todays works it is done with an anesthetic.
            I have never seen any proof ht igt effects sexual function. Us Jews seem to be very good in bed.

          • Don, I cannot believe it, but this time I totally agree with you. Circumcision bans are out to thwart people who believe in God. It is a serious mishap although the word mishap is just chosen for lack of a better one at this moment when I am tired. I have been to many brit milas (brisim? britei mila? what is the plural for it?) and it was always the same: the boy fell asleep literally after ten (10) minutes. After a day or three everything is healed.
            I wonder at all those alleged experts who all of a sudden rise up with righteous (…) indignation about such monstrous acts! Wow. Barbaric, Outmoded. Etc. When it they know nothing about it and every scourge that goes on today against children (trafficking, sex industry where they are routinely tortured into obedience or just for “fun”, right underneath the brothels (Cambodia, Thailand, but who knows also not in the west?), and adults (slavery under our noses.
            The prison industry where children are routinely judged in adult courts instead of juvenile courts, only to be molested if not turned gangsters in jails) and other real monstrous acts like the animal farming industry and what goes on there. But when something dealing with Godliness which they know nothing of comes up, everyone is a hero. Why? Because they want everyone to be like them: non-believers. The arguments do not fly and are often completely baseless but look humane.

          • Abigail, lots of good points there. But I’d like to take your last because that hasn’t already been done to death!
            I am in no way trying to make non-believers of anyone. What people choose to believe is entirely their own business because it has no consequences for anyone else. But I am questioning this behaviour because that DOES have consequences for other people. And in a forum such as this, where the author has raised this difficult question and asked for comments, it is very much my business to say what I think and ask questions.
            Sure there are other important injustices in the world too, and I look forward to meeting you on blogs about those. This one is about circumcision, and the difficult dilemma parents face. So this is the right place to discuss it.

          • It has no consequences. You realize that a grievance over a practice should be coming from the injured party, I see no class action suits against Moyals at the moment. Seeing as you are not the alleged inured party, it really is not your business. It is very simple.

          • Don, you resort to the pathetic “none of your business” angle whenever you run out of anything that remotely resembles a valid argument. Just count the number of times you’ve used it in this thread alone. From now on, I will take this response from you to mean “I don’t have anything left to say”, and I’ll be calling you out on it.

          • Believe what you like, Abigail. Just stop cutting off children’s body parts.

  25. “It is an ancient tradition”. That’s the only reason you’ve given and it’s not a good one. Rape as a weapon of war was an ancient tradition too, and that was no reason to continue the practice. The rest of your reply consists of weak arguments against banning circumcision, not reasons to do it.
    I”I have never seen any proof ht igt [sic] effects sexual function”. But really, would you be interested if any were presented to you? Try some, let’s see how open minded you can be.
    If you have never had a foreskin, you are in no position to judge. Since I have always had one, I can tell you what you’re missing, but not what it’s like to be without it. The most reliable descriptions come from men who have been circumcised as adults, and therefore can compare sexual experience both with and without a foreskin.
    “On a scale of 10,… the circumcised penis is lucky to get to 3”.
    “In a sense, it has become callused… I seem to have a relatively unresponsive stick where I once had a sexual organ”.
    “According to one man who was circumcised as an adult, sex without a foreskin is like sight without color. Those who have not seen in color cannot appreciate what is lost”. If you are sexually colour blind, you may well fail to see the harm in denying sexual colour vision to your children. But that doesn’t mean you are right to do it.
    These accounts are from men who know what neither you nor I know: what it’s like to experience both.
    There’s a lot more to learn here: http://questioncircumcision.weebly.com/whats-a-foreskin.html

    • I know many doctors who not back that website up. If circumcision effected sexual functioning, the practice would have ben ended along ago, Your source is pretty much bogus.

      • “if circumcision effected sexual functioning, the practice would have ben ended along ago”. On what basis do make that bizzar claim?

        • So your claim is that Jews malfunction bed already for centuries? Really! BTW: circumcision has nothing to do with sex or sexual function. If anything: the WHO and other scientific research has proven that circumcised men which they followed for years did not get HIV/AIDS. And of course they were all sexually active. The percentage of difference was and is so huge and significant that they officially made it policy to have men circumcised since there seems to be an aversion in some cultures and/or countries esp. in African countries against the use of condoms. And not only there of course.

          • And your knowledge of the function of a foreskin is based on what, precisely?

  26. Actually, I think this decision has more of an impact against Muslims who also circumcise their boys although at a much later age (13 years of age). But when all the self-proclaimed atheists finish their screaming, vomiting and ignorance if not outright hostility and nonsense about tribal this and that (yes, the Jewish people are made of shvatim or tribes. And apparently in 2012 that is proof of retardation, insanity, and what-have-you by people who prefer to not know anything substantial about Judaism and think Torah is just a bunch of stories.
    Hint: if you would try to read Hebrew and read the original and learn you might discover a completely different world if not totally different intelligence with ever deeper layers and rooms and rooms of interpretation possibilities which are all OK. There is not one explanation or truth. That is human to do: my way or the highway.
    Maybe one could start reading the always fresh and highly substantial and incredibly erudite (including references to modern (19th century is modern?) philosophy and literature, pieces written on the weekly parashah here on Tikkun Blog by Mark Kirschbaum. Then you can see religion as something completely different from the non-spiritual drab pushed down one’s throat by humans (!).

  27. @Billysugger
    For the first seventy-eight years of the republic known as the United States of America, millions of African-Americans were quite legally enslaved. Although President Lincoln freed most slaves by virtue of a wartime decree, many more remained enslaved in the four slave states that had remained loyal to the Union during the Civil War as well as those that had been behind Union lines at the time of the Emancipation Proclamation. As a result, slavery had to be abolished by a constitutional amendment in 1865
    In effect, within the same nation that was founded on such majestic principles as “certain unalienable Rights” [sic] a minority had their freedom abrogated by the vote of the majority and then restored years later by the vote of the majority. It would seem that one’s status as a free man or woman or as a slave is contingent upon the vote of the majority.
    Now, my point of bringing this up is so you might be less flabbergasted at what I am about to write. The simple point is that – notwithstanding certain comments you made in your last response to me – there is nothing in principle guaranteeing that a democracy cannot become tyrannical and trample the rights of minorities. Indeed, this point was saliently made by the character Mel Gibsom played in a movie concerning the Revolutionary War. The character had been a veteran of the French and Indian War and was asked to lead a militia unit to help overthrow the British tyranny of King George III. He replied: “Why should I want to trade one tyrant three thousand miles away for a hundred nearby? A congress can trample the rights of a man as soon as a monarch” “Inalienable rights” refers to rights people have merely by being born. These are rights they never intended to hand over to the state for regulation in the first place.
    Having made this preface, I would like to point out that the most tyrannical government in the Western world today is a democracy: Sweden, and that this has a direct bearing on this discussion. .
    (Continued)

    • @Billysugegr (Continued)
      Sweden’s huge socials services apparatus confiscates approximately 20,000 children a year from their parents, and this in a nation not associated with abject poverty. They often (indeed, in most cases) do so on the flimsiest of pretexts. Sweden has virtually outlawed all forms of private education and home schooling, except under “exceptional circumstances” which is very narrowly interpreted by the Ministry of Education. The state insists that it educates children in order to mold them into “good citizens” of the state. Many Swedish parents object to what they perceive to be the propagandist curriculum of radical feminism, homosexuality and revisionist history of the state run educational system.
      Perhaps the most celebrated case of this infringement upon the liberty of their citizens involves a then seven-year-old boy named Domenic Johansson. The boy has a Swedish father and Indian mother. The parents objected to the school curriculum and defiantly home-schooled their son. After enduring harassment and threats from the social services Gestapo, the family decided to flee the country in favor of India, hoping to gain citizenship there for the father and son as political refugees.
      Not being satisfied with the victory of forcing the family into self-exile, social services had the boy seized right off the airplane by their storm troopers without so much as a warrant. Social services asserted this was in the best interest for the child, not because of the home schooling, they protested, but rather because it seems that the boy had three as yet unfilled cavities in his teeth which rendered his parents “unfit.” (I kid you not.) Years later, the boy remains in state custody with his parents being allowed limited visitation
      The president of a home schooling association in Sweden has had to flee the nation after threats of arrest due to his political agitation to end persecution of such parents.
      In Malmo, Sweden’s third largest city, Islamic gangs terrorize citizens and have been allowed to rampage unchecked on many occasions. Religious Jews are afraid to walk about wearing identifiable religious dress for fear of being beaten up by these thugs. The Swedish authorities and police refuse to intervene, either because they are unable to or simply don’t desire to or perhaps from sheer cowardice.
      It is now a crime in Sweden for religious clergy to preach even to their own parishioners that the practice of homosexuality is a sin. (For the record, I personally support most gay rights initiatives. I also support the right of those who feel that the practice of homosexuality is immoral to openly state such. I’m a libertarian, not a right wing extremist.)
      So you see, your apparent assumption that the case I brought forth from Nazi Germany (in a previous post) only exemplified odious dictatorships is manifestly incorrect. Once a government of any form asserts state ownership of children, then freedoms of all kinds are orphaned. Children are turned into sheep as has been the citizenry of this benighted country. Parents are cowed into submission by threats and other forms of intimidation.

      • “I’m a libertarian, not a right wing extremist”. So there we have it at last. You simply deny the right of a state to limit the freedoms of individuals. Fine, go off and live in anarchy, reap the rewards and suffer the cost of unrestrained individual power. Leave the rest of us to civilisation. This has now become a political issue which IMO is way beyond the scope of the OP and should end here.

  28. I have never heard a Jew complain he is mutilated, that he suffers a deep trauma of what happened on the eighth day of his life (and why he did not get to eat the gefillte fish, or something else?). Maybe if people would stop opening their mouths in ignorance and total lack of respect for others’ belief system just because this genius generation which is willfully and wantonly destroying every layer of this planet’s existence and its inhabitants (still eat from the animal farming factories, right? You also open your ignorant mouths there? No, it is just too tasty. Likewise boiling lobsters alive. That is tres chicque. Never mind. Eating shrimps, gambas, where the eyes of the females are cut while still alive, taking cartiledge from sharks in capsules who are finned alive or beaten to death. How about your carbon footprint? What do you feed your children? Physically and spiritually? Why not just focus on that instead of mounting revolt against a Jewish practice which non-Jews no nothing about and some Jews do not wish to know about. God forbid. God is non-existant. So, Einsteins: make me a tree, a river and an ocean. Good luck.

  29. Excellent, thoughtful article! The ban is NOT against circumcision, but circumcision of unconsenting minors, who deserve protection from bodily harm Many complications from circumcision can arise. Just google circumcision + botched or complications or death. Look at pictures of maimed penises!
    In NYC, at least 11 babies have also been infected with the HPV virus from dirty mohel’s mouths in the last few years. Several have died or suffered irreversible brain damage.
    And local anesthesia CANNOT reach the nerve on the dorsal side of the penis. It will offer partial pain relief at best! It is a brutal assault on a baby’s perfect body! He is no less Jewish if he is not circumcised! He is Jewish by birth!
    I have no problems with any Jew circumcising IF he follows all 613 Mitzvot. If a Jew fails to follow all 613 Mitzvot, then there is NO NEED to carve up his baby’s body parts!
    For more information on this:
    http://www.jewishcircumcision.org/;
    http://www.beyondthebris.com/;
    http://www.jewsagainstcircumcision.com/
    Jewish mother speaks out on circumcision:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfnqN3YgTd8

  30. I find it to funny that those who oppose the practice are not alleged victims and in this very litigious society of ours there are no class action las suits against Moyalim.

  31. Great article. I am a Jew living in Israel and I agree with you completely. The more I read about this practice, the more I’ve come to realize how morally problematic circumcision actually is. It is my opinion that circumcision is a tradition that will be slowly abandoned by Jews around the world.

        • Billyboy
          I get the feeling that you have bris envy.Why else would you be so obsessed with an issue that is clearly not yours?

          • “I get the feeling that you have bris envy”. Lol! Oh yeah, I so want my penis cut about and desensitised.
            “Why else would you be so obsessed with an issue that is clearly not yours?” I gave you fair warning above Don, this “none of your business” angle means you have nothing to say on the matter. It’s a rhetorical white flag. A Mea-Culpa. An admission of inadequacy. So if you have nothing constructive to say on the matter, go away – it’s none of YOUR business. 🙂

  32. Billyboy
    You gave me warning? Who the f..k are yo to give me warning? Your a big boy to threaten an anonymous poster in the internet. How brave. Now go and suck off an uncircumcised Aryan penis.

  33. Poor Billy. You could never produce evidence of a class action suit buy those who have been circumcised. Will so may millions, one would think that such a law suit would have emerged. Billy is a lone crusader on behalf of foreskin rights.

    • Wow, you’re really rattled Don. Was it something I said? Or was it the tiny flash of recognition of truth that scares you into such a frenzy? Why are you afraid to have a whole penis? Or even to let a child grow up and decide for himself? You have no argument, no reason, no rationale, no intellect. Only obfuscation and deflection. That’s the infallible sign of a defeated debater. Now consider the wholly inappropriate filth you have written and prepare your apology – if you’re man enough.

    • “Billy is a lone crusader on behalf of foreskin rights”. Hmm, I count 6 commenters here in favour of circumcising children without informed consent and 17 against. Being outnumbered 3 to 1 makes your claim that I’m some lone crusader on this issue quite ridiculous. Now, stop trolling on this thread and either make some constructive and intelligent contribution, or get lost. Have a nice day 🙂

      • Billy, What about those who ahem been circumcised, I would think that they are the one who should, be weighing in,. I have asked you a few times already, has there been any class action suit but those who claim they have been wronged by their parents , doctors or moyals? You still have not produced any proof that proof that his has happened. Unless you produce a proof of a victim class, you should not come bacd to embarrass yourself.
        There are those who have weighed in on the issue and then there are crusaders lie you who keep on coming back here to make a point that those who have been circumcised are not concerned with, If they are not corned, why should you? You have not been wronged. You are not the alleged injured party.

        • “What about those who ahem been circumcised, I would think that they are the one who should, be weighing in”. Indeed, and so you have. But you don’t have the full picture and those who retain intact genitals have a valid viewpoint on this issue.
          “I have asked you a few times already, has there been any class action suit”. Yes you have, ad nauseam. I have declined to answer because it is an irrelevant distraction.
          “Unless you produce a proof of a victim class, you should not come bacd to embarrass yourself”. I’m not embarrassed in the slightest Don. And I don’t need to make my case on your terms. There is one person who I will respect if they ask me to leave, and that is the original poster.
          “If they are not corned, why should you? You have not been wronged. You are not the alleged injured party”. I am concerned with questions of ethics, human rights and the rights of children. My countrymen proactively declared war on Nazi oppressors in 1939 even though it was not they who were being victimised, and it was right for them to do so. So please stop telling me it’s none of my business. Cutting off parts of babies’ genitals without their consent is as much my business as it is yours.

          • Squeaky, I bet you never even thought about it for years.I bet yo can get a plastic foreskin in this day and age

  34. “I have declined to answer because it is an irrelevant distraction”
    translation: you have nothing. We are in a litigious world where there are law suits for everything, but wrong circumcision does not seem to be one of them. It’s not as if it is not easy to grab a lawyer looking for an easy buck
    I am concerned with questions of ethics, human rights and the rights of children. My countrymen proactively declared war on Nazi oppressors in 1939 even though it was not they who were being victimised, and it was right for them to do so. So please stop telling me it’s none of my business. Cutting off parts of babies’ genitals without their consent is as much my business as it is yours.”
    I am assuming you are talking about the US. Actually Germany declared war on the US after the Japanese attacks Pearl Harbor. The US did not enter the war to fight the oppression of others, it was thrust in a war the was impossible to stay out of..
    Comparing circumcision to the genocide of millions is pathetic, I mean really pathetic. I can’t even believe you saw it in that light. Wow!

  35. “translation: you have nothing”. If you say so Don, yawn. There’s plenty of substance above.
    “We are in a litigious world where there are law suits for everything”. Not where I live, and I am not experienced to comment on law suits. But I would not expect many people to file lawsuits against their parents, who procured this surgery.
    “I am assuming you are talking about the US”. No of course I’m not talking about the US, that would be ridiculous. I’m English.
    Have you ever been to Europe? Have you spent time in England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Italy and Austria? Do you have friends in those countries? Have you taken the time to learn about their culture? I don’t need any lessons from you about German or European history!
    “Comparing circumcision to the genocide of millions is pathetic”. I don’t make such a comparison at all, I totally agree that it’s ridiculous and have made that same point to Donald R Schneider who did. I use the example to illustrate the idiocy of telling a person to butt out of injustice against others, which you well know is what I meant.
    Clearly you have nothing of substance to say on the matter of circumcision; you have asked others for evidence but have provided none of your own; you have told others it’s none of their business; you have demanded examples of litigation; you have blustered about the significance of body parts you appear not to possess or have ever experienced, and have stooped to foul language and personal abuse. If you have anything intelligent or pertinent to say on the matter I remain prepared to engage. But if you just want to sling deflections and abuse, then do what you do best and play by yourself. 😉

  36. ‘Have you ever been to Europe? Have you spent time in England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Italy and Austria? Do you have friends in those countries? Have you taken the time to learn about their culture? I don’t need any lessons from you about German or European history!”
    I think that you do. At least you owned up to the country you came from The UK was obligated to declare war on Germany after Poland was invaded and knew very well that it was inevitable anyway. Churchill knew very well that the . And yes, I have been to the UK a number of times as well as Italy, Belgium and 30 other countries. It was for survival, not to fight oppression.
    “Comparing circumcision to the genocide of millions is pathetic”. I don’t make such a comparison at all, I totally agree that it’s ridiculous and have made that same point to Donald R Schneider who did. I use the example to illustrate the idiocy of telling a person to butt out of injustice against others, which you well know is what I meant.”
    You clearly did.

  37. “it’s none of their business”
    It isn’t. It’s a family matter, not a government matter
    ” you have demanded examples of litigation”
    yes and still do. I live in a country where law suits are a pass time. I am sure this one would ranl prominently.
    There is no evidence of circumcision being an injustice, mutilation and certainly no evidence of sexual dysfunction. Jews who have been circumcised don’t seem to be complaining about their sex life. Why should you, unless you and an ulterior motive.
    And thanks, I know about WW 2 which BTW is history and not “culture”. Well maybe it is culture, if yo consider genocide a cultural thing.. As for European history, it is so blood stained we are thankful it is finally civilized.

        • I thought so. A court in a country with a tradition of genocide sees itself as a judge of a benign religious tradition. Wow!

        • “I doubt yo have ever met a jew in your life”. Idiot! Irrelevant distraction again Don. Blah blah blah…

          • -No understanding of ancient tradition
            -No understanding of a legal definition of abuse
            -No understanding what mutilation is
            -A comparison of circumcision to genocide
            -finally claiming to fight for the oppressed when there is not oppressed class
            That sums up your argument

          • “-No understanding of ancient tradition”. – No, I understand well enough, I just do not agree with you that it justifies cutting off parts of infants’ genitals.
            “-No understanding of a legal definition of abuse”. – the legal definition of abuse varies with legal jurisdiction, anyway it is not relevant unless someone chooses to mount a legal challenge citing abuse.
            “-No understanding what mutilation is”. – I can read and understand a dictionary definition, it appears that you can’t. I’ve explained my basis for categorising infant circumcision as mutilation above in my post timestamped at June 28, 2012 at 4:48 am. If you don’t agree, fair enough. But it’s absurd to claim I don’t understand when I have given a clear and detailed rationale for my interpretation of the word.
            “-A comparison of circumcision to genocide”. – I have addressed this absurd straw man accusation of yours above.
            “-finally claiming to fight for the oppressed when there is not oppressed class”. – No, what I said was “I am concerned with questions of ethics, human rights and the rights of children”. Please stop putting up flimsy and emotive straw man arguments.
            “That sums up your argument”. – No, that sums up your claim of what my argument is, which is based on the straw man fallacy. If you want to engage in a constructive discussion, please engage honestly. Otherwise, stop being a troll.
            It is cleat that you dislike your cultural practice and tradition being questioned, but that’s precisely what this website is for. If you want your views and opinions to be re-enforced and validated, you need to choose a better forum than this.
            I invite you to read the About section of this website, and familiarise yourself with the Comments Policy. It seems to me that your continual heckling and occasional abusive content is contrary to both the purpose and policy of this site. I prefer to be patient and attempt debate rather than seek blocking, but you are sailing very close to the limits of my patience.

          • “-No understanding of a legal definition of abuse”. – the legal definition of abuse varies with legal jurisdiction, anyway it is not relevant unless someone chooses to mount a legal challenge citing abuse.”
            And noen includes circumcision
            “I am concerned with questions of ethics, human rights and the rights of children”. Please stop putting up flimsy and emotive straw man arguments.”
            that is a laugh a second. I can think of no disgruntled Jew who is upset about his circumcision. Therefor you have your now agenda. You are so transparent

  38. I have observed that insurance businesses know which objects are liable to accidents as well as other risks. They also know what form of cars are given to higher risk as well as higher risk they have the higher your premium price. Understanding the basic basics involving car insurance just might help you choose the right kind of insurance policy that can take care of your needs in case you become involved in an accident. Thank you for sharing your ideas on your blog.

  39. Almost all the arguments for and against genital mutilation of girls can be applied to the same conversation for boys. It’s worthwhile looking at the discussion around mutilation of girls because a lot of the questions being asked are the same and have already been answered.

  40. I’m a Brit living in Germany and have been following this quite closely.
    The arguments that the Jewish community have been putting forward are ludicrous.
    We have Rabbi’s coming on to German TV sayinf things like ”What you complete in the Holocaust you are finishing now” and ”This verdict is the biggest threat to Jews since the Holocaust”I mean really, get a life.
    Any time a German or a German institution does or says anything that remotely irritates the Jewish community, out come the Nazi hammer and all Germans are Anti-Semites as are all Europeans how also think the same.
    If Jews and Muslims are so adamant about having their male children’s genitals mutilated, then OK but I also demand that all Females are treated equally, oh sorry in these 2 religions that is not possible.
    Get a grip, and let the child decide when he is 18, not 8 days old or in his puberty.
    If you are Jewish or Muslim what has your D*** got to do with it, its what you believe in and not how your D*** looks.
    Ans before ‘Don gets on my case, I am a Brit., I live in Germany, I have been to Israel, I have a fair few Jewish mates, as well as Muslim ones to, and I couldn’t give a flying fart if they are circumcised or not and I’m not about to compare the virtues of haviong a foreskin or not with them.

  41. I’m a Brit living in Germany and have been following this quite closely.
    The arguments that the Jewish community have been putting forward are ludicrous.
    We have Rabbi’s coming on to German TV saying things like ”What you didn’t complete in the Holocaust you are finishing now” and ”This verdict is the biggest threat to Jews since the Holocaust”I mean really, get a life.
    Any time a German or a German institution does or says anything that remotely irritates the Jewish community, out come the Nazi hammer and all Germans are Anti-Semites as are all Europeans how also think the same.
    If Jews and Muslims are so adamant about having their male children’s genitals mutilated, then OK but I also demand that all Females are treated equally, oh sorry in these 2 religions that is not possible.
    Get a grip, and let the child decide when he is 18, not 8 days old or in his puberty.
    If you are Jewish or Muslim what has your D*** got to do with it, its what you believe in and not how your D*** looks.
    Ans before ‘Don gets on my case, I am a Brit., I live in Germany, I have been to Israel, I have a fair few Jewish mates, as well as Muslim ones to, and I couldn’t give a flying fart if they are circumcised or not and I’m not about to compare the virtues of haviong a foreskin or not with them.

    • Richard, any time the German government want to impose their values on someone, it does raise alarm bells.
      This is a family issue and most western courts would disagree totally with your uninformed opinion that it is mutilation. i am so relieved that you have Jewish mates, Does that put you in a special category?
      Using for words, I really do not give a fart what you think

  42. David, I congratulate you on speaking out about your equivocations regarding circumcision. Many of us, including proudly identified and affiliated Jews like myself, have been doing so for a very long time. Only recently have the media become more willing to entertain this topic in their serious forums. Tikkun published a major article I wrote, entitled, “Circumcision: Identity, Gender and Power” in the Summer, 2011 edition which may accessed at : http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/circumcision-identity-gender-and-power.
    The medical arguments are not backed up by the research, nor common sense. If circumcision were such an effective deterrent against H.I.V./A.I.D.S., why has this epidemic ravaged men in the U.S., who are overwhelmingly circumcised if they are older than 30, whereas in Europe, where routine neonatal circumcision is rarely practiced, the A.I.D.S. rate has been far less than in the U.S. Both psychologically and religiously, we have a great need to justify what has been perpetrated on the sexual organs of our innocent babies, but if we have the courage to face this ancient practice, we will discover that it is in violation of everything that Judaism holds sacred: reverence for life, protection of children, and the wholesomeness of sexuality.
    This is a highly complicated issue, and I would urge your readers to check out my article as well as many highly informative websites [www.cirp.org, http://www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org and http://www.nocirc.org] for more comprehensive information.
    Thank you again for your courageous article.

  43. @David Harris-Gershon: Leaving aside the emotive argumentation, I’m interested to know whether anything in the discussion following your thought-provoking piece has influenced your view on the matter. If you have a son in future, will you be more comfortable in having a bris for him? Or are you moved to break with tradition and let him choose when he is of age? And either way, does this matter for the Jewish community?

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