Male genital mutilation on minors for non-medical reasons should also be made illegal. It is amazing Medicaid still pays for it in many states. The American Academy of Pediatrics is failing the United States.
There are variants that are equivalent to circumcision, but those are banned as well. It is illegal to cut into female genitals and legal to cut into male genitals today.
To stay consistent people should either support making some versions of FGM legal or make all versions of MGM illegal.
That's revolting in a way. Identity OF THE PARENT, not of the baby who definitely doesn't know.
And maybe the teenager doesn't want to have that identity, but now it's too late
However this practice has become deeply culturally ingrained, whether through religion or other custom, so it is going to be a hard slog to eradicate it worldwide.
Humbling reminder we really are a bunch of well dressed apes playing house, I forget that sometimes
why is it not possible to vouch for the discussion?
I would advocate for banning all non-necessary body modification on small children. And before anyone tells me "it's better to do it when they are small, then they won't remember it": no remembering the source of a trauma makes is even worse. That's like saying date rape drugs are no big deal because the victim can't remember it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(Before somebody pounces with "so we're not allowed to post about $TOPIC now?": no, I'm not secretly advocating for circumcision (of all things) and this comment is not about $TOPIC. I just had to hang it somewhere so I chose the most recent thread.
The issue is the overall pattern of the account's behavior, which is clearly against HN's rules.)
You happily let this account continue: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=soldthat
You can't derive much signal from cherry-picked examples, because we don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here. When accounts are posting abusively and not getting moderated, the likeliest explanation is that we just haven't seen it yet. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here.
And my question to you: what gives you the right to impose your worldview on someone elses *body* Just because you think it's better?
Babies don't have a religion.
Who have no way to know whether they would prefer to not have it done.
It’s not FGM, but it’s in the realm of it relative to reduced sensory ability.
I think your claim proves too much:
If you pick a different religion (my siblings and their kids are religious - not Jewish), you could similarly say "even though they're happy being raised in their religion, they have no way to know whether they would prefer to have been raised agnostic/atheist" (or some other religion)
Of course that's true for many decisions parents make on behalf of their children.
I am curious if folks in this thread are similarly incensed by young children having their ears pierced? It's obviously different, but it still seems like a cultural decision.
To my knowledge (having only learned about it incidentally during the pregnancy/birthing process since it wasn't a relevant decision) it didn't seem like circumcision had strong medical recommendations for or against
Circumcision removes nerve endings and results in an exposed glans, which thickens the skin and further dulls its nerve endings. This is a 1-way reduction in sexual capacity, which the child doesn't have any say in. Comparing it to ear piercing isn't the same, which, while cartilage doesn't heal easily, there's no sexual sensation interaction and leaving piercings empty tends to reverse them over time.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26724395/?utm_source=chatgpt...
If the claim is specifically about reduced stimulation during sex, that's a different claim. I'm simply saying the initial explanation seemed like bullshit
In general, if a claim is easy to verify, someone has verified it, but the US is also somewhat prudish so making the research more explicit might make it less likely that the research happens in the states. If there is an existing study that says this claim is correct, feel free to link it.
Like another commenter said, this is a small (62) group of men tested for stimuli that don't appear to resemble sex.
To be blunt, I think it is apparent to those with experience that uncircumcised penises are significantly more sensitive than circumcised ones. If you wanted to test this - get a big sample size and simulate the 3 common types of copulation in a standard way (lol).
I think it would be better to have the debate on circumcision in the legislature/parliament, but I am not opposed to outlawing it.
That's still seven deaths too many for a surgery (without anesthetics!) which has no medical necessity. Tonsillectomy is also a very safe procedure, yet we don't just do them willy-nilly because any form of surgery carries its own risk, no matter how small.
What Trump has proven is that millions of single issue voters can be created on any issue if a political party desires it.
Underestimating this reality will only keep political parties that depend on unwritten rules of decorum from winning more and more elections.
There are now new unwritten rules of election issue decorum. Which is to say there are no longer any unspoken rules of election issue decorum. I'd strongly urge everyone to acclimate themselves to that reality sooner rather than later.
I looked up "SCP object", and boy that was a rabbit hole. Interesting and entertaining, sure. But if you "fully believe" in anything on that website, please try to confirm your reality with observations or lived experience rather than text from the internet.
Here's an excerpt from SCP's "Guide For Newcomers"[1]:
> This is the SCP Foundation Wiki, a collaborative writing site based around the premise that… in essence, magic is real. It's not exactly like the traditional fantasy style magic you've come to know, but that's the best way we can describe the stuff we have here - Anomalies; items and critters that do not follow the rules of nature as we know them. Staircases that go on forever, mechanical gods from the beginning of time, otherwise regular humans who reshape reality with their mind: these are the kinds of things that, if known to the public, could cause mass hysteria and start wars on scales unprecedented. Due to that, there exists an organization called the SCP Foundation, whose job is to research paranormal activity, keep these creatures and objects concealed from the public, and protect humanity from the horrors of the dark.
It's an analogy for the INSANITY of the current acceptance of mass circumcision uncritically by the masses.
All those skin banks could turn into liabilities instead of profit centers, since preservation of the product is also preservation of the evidence.
A functioning government would waltz in, keep the power on, start sequencing the tissues and cells to identify at least some of the victims, and do this in a transparent and public way.
(but for context, my own view on the subject is "Let's wait a hot minute before we go cutting parts off the baby")
Practically if you know you were circumcised shortly after your birth, can't you look at the record of your birth and subsequent care, make a list of doctors that attended or treated you in any way, and then make the complaint about all of them?
(this isn't arguing against your point, just exploring the problem)
I know the name of the urologist.
I go to the hospital as a young adult, made an appointment with another urologist at the same hospital (to prevent myself from ending up in jail).
I ask her to check my medical record, it's not there.
She proposes to check the record under my mother's name: nope, under my stepfather's name: nope, my father's name: nope, and my father didn't even know it happened.
Meanwhile the university had some recent philosophy thesis paper that tried to answer the question why no one in my country has sued any urologist regarding circumcision, their conclusion? some random psychological stuff.
Psychological? the suppression of evidence (or access to the evidence) is not something that happens in my head, but in the real outside world.
I my case I know the name of the urologist, but we are denied access to legal evidence.
And why would they incriminate themselves? its not like they "woops-what-are-my-hands-doing" accidentally put the sample of foreskin in the sterile packaging again boy after boy, and "woops-my-arms-uncrontrollably" put it in their fridge until the medical courier picks it up, and remuneration magically follows without these surgeons understanding what they are doing. Of course they perfectly know what they are doing. It's organised harvesting of foreskin tissue. Why would they incriminate themselves with a paper trail? How naive the rest of society can be: we know these people select their profession because it is an auspicious hidey hole.
And this is in a hospital setting.
Now reread the posted article, every time people argue to only ban religious settings they pretend there is no trauma in hospital settings. The real reason is they want to lucratively harvest the tissues for themselves. It's a limited hang-out every time. Journalists either aren't doing their job, or are being censored by their superiors.