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The down-low on circumcision

Submitted by anthony on Thu, 2009-12-03 17:40.

Article here. Excerpt:

'Although the American Medical Association does not recommend routine circumcision as a procedure to prevent health problems, more than 30 percent of males and 3 percent of females are circumcised worldwide. In the United States and Canada, although there is little data on how many females are circumcised, it is estimated that three-fourths of males become circumcised in their infanthood or adolescence. Here, at least, that leaves the vast majority of males with a removed foreskin. In fact, most Washington University female students I’ve talked to have never seen an uncircumcised penis!

But let’s get back to the basics. In male circumcision, a physician surgically removes the foreskin of the penis, usually within the first few weeks of birth because doing this practice later is more likely to lead to complications. Male circumcision is a common religious practice across all monotheistic religions—especially Islam.'

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Nothing left but appeal to religion?

Submitted by mcc99 on Thu, 2009-12-03 18:22.

Anything she writes that appeals to tradition and religious observations can be safely thrown away since it's a type of tu quoque argument, an appeal to tradition. Basically, it's this: it was done before and someone else is doing it now so it must be right to go on doing it. Holds less water than an imaginary glass.

The only question here is this: is it right to perform an unnecessary surgical procedure on a person without his or her explicit say-so? The answer is no. Her argument that it is not as bad for males as for females is specious.

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It is also plain false..

Submitted by n.j. on Sat, 2009-12-05 00:21.

..because it is not necessarily less bad.

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