Ban all genital mutilation of children

[Forty Two]

Forty Two wrote:

Likewise, cutting off a bit of foreskin is very different than cutting off a clitoris. So, if we are discussing material differences, there is one right there.

I agree that there is a significant difference, enough so that society is totally justified in banning female genital mutilation, and that circumcision be left up to parents to decide. Having said that, the zeitgeist on that issue is moving, and it is less common than it was, possibly for good reason.

If there is no significant medical benefit to male circumcision, then it should be banned. Cosmetic surgery on babies is obscene.

From Webmd:

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) found that the health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh the risks, but the benefits are not great enough to recommend universalnewborn circumcision.

Some benefits noted, include:

A decreased risk of urinary tract infections.
A reduced risk of some sexually transmitted diseases in men.
Protection against penile cancer and a reduced risk of cervical cancer in female sex partners.
Prevention of balanitis (inflammation of the glans) and balanoposthitis (inflammation of the glans and foreskin).
Prevention of phimosis (the inability to retract the foreskin) and paraphimosis (the inability to return the foreskin to its original location).

http://www.webmd.com/sexual-conditions/ ... rcumcision

The Mayo Clinic: http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedu ... c-20013585

Easier hygiene. Circumcision makes it simpler to wash the penis. Washing beneath the foreskin of an uncircumcised penis is generally easy, however.
Decreased risk of urinary tract infections. The overall risk of urinary tract infections in males is low, but these infections are more common in uncircumcised males. Severe infections early in life can lead to kidney problems later on.
Decreased risk of sexually transmitted infections. Circumcised men might have a lower risk of certain sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. Still, safe sexual practices remain essential.
Prevention of penile problems. Occasionally, the foreskin on an uncircumcised penis can be difficult or impossible to retract (phimosis). This can lead to inflammation of the foreskin or head of the penis.
Decreased risk of penile cancer. Although cancer of the penis is rare, it's less common in circumcised men. In addition, cervical cancer is less common in the female sexual partners of circumcised men.

During the Obama Administration, the US Centers for Disease Control noted that the benefits outweigh the risks: http://www.today.com/health/circumcisio ... 1D80331010

As reported by National Public Radio - http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot ... d-than-not

"There is clear evidence that supports the health benefits of circumcision," said Susan Blank, who led the 14-member task force that formulated the new policy being published in the journal Pediatrics.

The statement, and accompanying technical report, marks the first revision of the organization's position since 1999, when the academy backed away from circumcision. At that time, the group, which represents about 60,000 pediatricians nationwide, concluded that there was no clear evidence for or against circumcising newborns. The group affirmed that position in 2005.

Since then, the popularity of circumcision in the United States has declined. Only about 56 percent of newborn males are circumcised.

The academy's task force spent seven years combing through the latest research, analyzing more than a thousand studies. Their conclusion?

For starters, Blank says, circumcision helps baby boys pretty much immediately.

"The health benefits of male circumcision include a drop in the risk of urinary tract infection in the first year of life by up to 90 percent," she says.

But there's a much bigger reason to do it, Blank said. Circumcised males are far less likely to get infected with a long list of sexually transmitted diseases.

"It drops the risk of heterosexual HIV acquisition by about 60 percent. It drops the risk of human papillomavirus [HPV], herpes virus and other infectious genital ulcers," she says.

It also reduces the chances that men will spread HPV to their wives and girlfriends, protecting them from getting cervical cancer.

"We've reviewed the data and, you know, we have gone through them with a fine-tooth comb, and the data are pretty convincing," she says.

[Forty Two]

I'm interested to know whether, if given the choice, you'd choose to be circumcised or not? If you were magically born again and where aware of all this stuff, would you want to be circumcised again or go the slug-life?

See the links I posted above, particularly the article published by the religious nutters at NPR, discussing the CDC and AAP findings that "the data" show a variety of important medical benefits to the process, and the conclusion by the 60,000 member AAP, that the the benefits outweigh the risks.

A few years ago, I would have probably said I was unsure and leaning "no," mainly because I accepted the "no benefits whatsoever, and it's purely a religious custom" argument -- now, though: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/c ... 130/3/e756 That's the American Association of Pediatricians technical report on the subject, which has also been endorsed by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

So, if I were actually given the choice now, I would probably lean "yes."

[pErvinalia]

And, I doubt ear piercing of children is less prevalent in Oz,

It's the bullshit ignorant nonsense that some, like you, constantly puke up in these threads in furtherance of silly notions that you have about what life is like in Australia.

Not correct, as I had no trouble finding infant ear piercing in Australia. Took me all of a few seconds.

Pity you only applied a few seconds of logic to the problem. The option of ear piercing for babies says absolutely nothing about the prevalence of babies with their ears pierced.

given the ease with which I found many, many locations advertising such services in Australia. In Australia, apparently, it's common enough to have salons offering to pierce baby's ears at "at least 6 weeks" and they have multiple locations all over your country. https://www.essentialbeauty.com.au/ It took about ten seconds for me to find many, many locations that do this. Apparently, there's enough of a market in Oz to justify a business line for this national company in Oz. I suspect Oz is not that much different than the US, with various viewpoints on the topic. So stuff it.

You are clueless, as usual. I would have seen probably a total of 5 babies (and only a handful more under 8's) with their ears pierced in Australia in my life. And for all I know, they were Americans here on holiday. To see a baby with it's ears pierced is an incredibly rare sight here in Australia. There may be migrant communities where it is more common (I'm thinking Indian, perhaps), hence the need for those salons.

That must be why there are salons offering the service. Expatriate Americans. Businesses generally offer services and dedicate pages of their websites to a procedure that vanishingly few people in a given region want.

There's really no level of idiocy that you won't continue to argue, just to avoid accepting you are wrong, is there? Is the process of piercing a baby any different than an adult? If they only provided services for babies, then you would have a point. As they are primarily involved in providing services to adults, you have absolutely no fucking point/idea.

http://www.mamamia.com.au/piercing-baby-ears/ "All the baby girls in my Italian family had their ears pierced at that age." (says an Australian mother from Sydney, of apparently Italian heritage). Those crazy Italians and their barbaric culture, mutilating their baby's ears! Shocking! Call the police! Italian culture is so barbaric. Ear piercing must be an "Italian thing" that's so bizarre to the "civilized world."

Nice empty rhetoric. That has absolutely nothing to do with anything I said.

Here's a thread where Australian parents are discussing the issue - http://www.whattoexpect.com/forums/aust ... -girl.html (a good number posting here pierced, and some were saying they did not want to do it) and here is another Australian website discussing the practice. http://www.essentialbaby.com.au/baby/li ... 0416-36r2g (noting, also the Spanish and Brazilian fondness for the practice, etc., but it's probably some peculiar American procedure...)

I can't wait for you to try and explain how this translate to the prevalence or rarity of baby ear piercing in Australia.

We have the same bullshit from people who are outraged by ear piercing here in the States too, so it's not just folks in the civilized world that are railing against the barbaric practice of stabbing and mutilating a baby's ears in an effort to permanently disfigure them for no reason other than the cruel and sadistic pleasure of their parents. The objections, though, are the same over-the-top moralizing that some folks here are going on with.

Pretty ironic you going on about being "over-the-top"..

[pErvinalia]

Forty Two wrote:

Likewise, cutting off a bit of foreskin is very different than cutting off a clitoris. So, if we are discussing material differences, there is one right there.

I agree that there is a significant difference, enough so that society is totally justified in banning female genital mutilation, and that circumcision be left up to parents to decide. Having said that, the zeitgeist on that issue is moving, and it is less common than it was, possibly for good reason.

If there is no significant medical benefit to male circumcision, then it should be banned. Cosmetic surgery on babies is obscene.

From Webmd:

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) found that the health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh the risks, but the benefits are not great enough to recommend universalnewborn circumcision.

Some benefits noted, include:

A decreased risk of urinary tract infections.
A reduced risk of some sexually transmitted diseases in men.
Protection against penile cancer and a reduced risk of cervical cancer in female sex partners.
Prevention of balanitis (inflammation of the glans) and balanoposthitis (inflammation of the glans and foreskin).
Prevention of phimosis (the inability to retract the foreskin) and paraphimosis (the inability to return the foreskin to its original location).

http://www.webmd.com/sexual-conditions/ ... rcumcision

The Mayo Clinic: http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedu ... c-20013585

Easier hygiene. Circumcision makes it simpler to wash the penis. Washing beneath the foreskin of an uncircumcised penis is generally easy, however.
Decreased risk of urinary tract infections. The overall risk of urinary tract infections in males is low, but these infections are more common in uncircumcised males. Severe infections early in life can lead to kidney problems later on.
Decreased risk of sexually transmitted infections. Circumcised men might have a lower risk of certain sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. Still, safe sexual practices remain essential.
Prevention of penile problems. Occasionally, the foreskin on an uncircumcised penis can be difficult or impossible to retract (phimosis). This can lead to inflammation of the foreskin or head of the penis.
Decreased risk of penile cancer. Although cancer of the penis is rare, it's less common in circumcised men. In addition, cervical cancer is less common in the female sexual partners of circumcised men.

During the Obama Administration, the US Centers for Disease Control noted that the benefits outweigh the risks: http://www.today.com/health/circumcisio ... 1D80331010

As reported by National Public Radio - http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shot ... d-than-not

"There is clear evidence that supports the health benefits of circumcision," said Susan Blank, who led the 14-member task force that formulated the new policy being published in the journal Pediatrics.

The statement, and accompanying technical report, marks the first revision of the organization's position since 1999, when the academy backed away from circumcision. At that time, the group, which represents about 60,000 pediatricians nationwide, concluded that there was no clear evidence for or against circumcising newborns. The group affirmed that position in 2005.

Since then, the popularity of circumcision in the United States has declined. Only about 56 percent of newborn males are circumcised.

The academy's task force spent seven years combing through the latest research, analyzing more than a thousand studies. Their conclusion?

For starters, Blank says, circumcision helps baby boys pretty much immediately.

"The health benefits of male circumcision include a drop in the risk of urinary tract infection in the first year of life by up to 90 percent," she says.

But there's a much bigger reason to do it, Blank said. Circumcised males are far less likely to get infected with a long list of sexually transmitted diseases.

"It drops the risk of heterosexual HIV acquisition by about 60 percent. It drops the risk of human papillomavirus [HPV], herpes virus and other infectious genital ulcers," she says.

It also reduces the chances that men will spread HPV to their wives and girlfriends, protecting them from getting cervical cancer.

"We've reviewed the data and, you know, we have gone through them with a fine-tooth comb, and the data are pretty convincing," she says.

The interesting question is whether parents are doing it for perceived health reasons or for cosmetic reasons (and because Dad has a helmet).

[Forty Two]

I never said how prevalent it was in Oz. i just said that I wouldn't be surprised if the prevalence was about the same as in the US. I had no trouble finding places that advertise, specifically, infant ear piercing. I also found that there is no legal age restriction in Oz. Funny, that there would be no age restriction for a process that a culture in a country finds repugnant and akin to assault. I had no trouble finding many Australian parents who said they had it done and support the practice. I also had no trouble finding folks who opposed it. That's the same as in the US. I have not found data on the numbers of people who do it, though. So, I can't say exactly how prevalent it is.

[Hermit]

Glad you noticed, albeit belatedly. While I agree that a cliterectomy is worse than circumcision, which in turn is worse than puncturing earlobes, I would not use haircuts and nail clipping as justification that the wishes of parents are unobjectionable in regard to lopping off foreskin or making holes in earlobes.

I did not use it as a justification of the practice. I used it as examples of other things kids don't "want" to illustrate the fact that what happens to children is not generally determined by what they explicitly want.

OK. Moot point then, or as rEv likes to put it, a non sequitur.

[Animavore]

Even if the benefits of doing it outweigh the risks of doing it, the risks of doing it outweigh the risks of not doing it. The article from NPR also says according to the report there's no clear evidence for or against circumcision, so how that translates to a yes for circumcision is beyond me. It's clear where the bias of the person who wrote the article (a Jew) lies given how they ended the article leaving a Jewish doctor with the last word.

[Forty Two]

The interesting question is whether parents are doing it for perceived health reasons or for cosmetic reasons (and because Dad has a helmet).

Why is that interesting?

[pErvinalia]

I never said how prevalent it was in Oz. i just said that I wouldn't be surprised if the prevalence was about the same as in the US.

You know how prevalent it is the US. Therefore you were commenting on how prevalent you think it likely is in Australia.

I had no trouble finding places that advertise, specifically, infant ear piercing. I also found that there is no legal age restriction in Oz. Funny, that there would be no age restriction for a process that a culture in a country finds repugnant and akin to assault.

You just can't help yourself, can you? FFS, stop with the strawmen. I never said it was akin to assault or that the culture finds it repugnant. It's simply extremely rare here.

[pErvinalia]

The interesting question is whether parents are doing it for perceived health reasons or for cosmetic reasons (and because Dad has a helmet).

Why is that interesting?

Because then it is being done for cosmetic reasons as opposed to health reasons. And my initial point - "Cosmetic surgery on babies is obscene", stands.

[Animavore]

I find the argument, "The benefits of circumcision are almost immediate. Urinary tract infections are down 90% in the first year." No one argues like that for anything else. Why aren't doctors recommending we remove tonsils, apendix, gall bladder, and other parts that can be removed safely enough as a preventative measure?

I have to see the AAP's recommendation for what it is, a carefully worded article which sets out not to offend anyone (they were hardly ever going to risk the uproar of criticing it) and almost certainly isn't without bias. I mean it strikes me odd they were even framing the issue as risks vs benefits of cutting babies in the first place rather than risks of doing it to not doing it.

[Forty Two]

I find the argument, "The benefits of circumcision are almost immediate. Urinary tract infections are down 90% in the first year." No one argues like that for anything else. Why aren't doctors recommending we remove tonsils, apendix, gall bladder, and other parts that can be removed safely enough as a preventative measure?

One possibility would be that they do not have data to show that removal of a gall bladder reduces some sort of infections.

I have to see the AAP's recommendation for what it is, a carefully worded article which sets out not to offend anyone (they were hardly ever going to risk the uproar of criticing it) and almost certainly isn't without bias. I mean it strikes me odd they were even framing the issue as risks vs benefits of cutting babies in the first place rather than risks of doing it to not doing it.

Well, if the AAP, the CDC, the American Association of Gynecologists and Obstetricians, and the Mayo Clinic are too radical and biased sources for you... and, they do compare the risks of doing it vs not doing it. What are the unbiased sources you prefer to rely on?

[Forty Two]

The interesting question is whether parents are doing it for perceived health reasons or for cosmetic reasons (and because Dad has a helmet).

Why is that interesting?

Because then it is being done for cosmetic reasons as opposed to health reasons. And my initial point - "Cosmetic surgery on babies is obscene", stands.

Apparently, circumcision is not cosmetic.

And, I can think of lots of cosmetic surgery on babies that is not obscene. Like cosmetic reconstructive surgery after a burn or an accident.

The point is not whether some parents have religious or non-medical reasons for doing it. The key issue is whether, in fact, there are medical benefits to it that at least arguably are preferable to the alternative courses of action. According to the recent data, apparently, the benefits are proven and outweigh the benefits of not doing it, at least according to the CDC, the AAP and other medical groups.

[pErvinalia]

The interesting question is whether parents are doing it for perceived health reasons or for cosmetic reasons (and because Dad has a helmet).

Why is that interesting?

Because then it is being done for cosmetic reasons as opposed to health reasons. And my initial point - "Cosmetic surgery on babies is obscene", stands.

Apparently, circumcision is not cosmetic.

I'm not sure what you mean. If parents are getting it for cosmetic reasons, then it is cosmetic.

And, I can think of lots of cosmetic surgery on babies that is not obscene. Like cosmetic reconstructive surgery after a burn or an accident.

But that is done for the baby's benefit. Circumcision, done cosmetically, is probably largely done for the benefit of the parents.

[Scot Dutchy]

They must have willies on their minds.