A couple from the US state of Georgia was recently arrested for tattooing six of their seven children with crosses. The mother bemusedly commented:
I’m their mother. Shouldn’t I be able to decide if they get one?
No, madam, you shouldn’t. Children are not possessions; parents do not own them. They are human beings with inalienable human rights. To permanently and unnecessarily scar a child without their express and informed consent (and when they are not old enough to comprehend the consequences) is a violation of those rights.
Another case, in 2008, involved devout Christian John Freshwater, a science teacher with creationist beliefs, who used an electrical device to brand crosses on some of his pupils – and he was was rightly sacked for this outrage
Tattooing (or branding) children, is, of course, a rare occurrence. Far more prevalent is a form of child mutilation that barely raises an eyebrow: circumcision.
Circumcision: a barbaric hangover from the Bronze Age
Anyone with a sensitive cell in his or her body instinctively abhors the idea of female genital mutilation, yet male circumcision is seen as perfectly acceptable.
It is not. Circumcision is unnecessary, irreversible, and intensely painful. Yet it is often justified on aesthetic or religious grounds – or it may simply be a fashion followed unquestioningly by parents, ignorant of the fact that the practice is not only unethical, but is tantamount to criminal assault if not carried out for genuine medical reasons.
It is simply an ancient and barbaric ritual with no place in any modern society.
Circumcision happens thus (the squeamish should skip this paragraph): First the infant’s arms and legs are strapped down to prevent movement. The child’s genitals are then dabbed with an anaesthetic and lubricating solution. A pair of what can only be described as scissors are then used to cut down the length of the foreskin. A metal hood is then firmly placed over the head of the penis, keeping the foreskin outside. A sharpened metal ring is then placed around the child’s penis, and the ring closes over the foreskin, trapping it between the blade of the ring and the protective metal hood. The pressure severs the foreskin completely, completing the circumcision.
And that’s when it is done properly, under modern hygienic conditions. Now ask yourselves how many millions more circumcisions are carried around the world in a grossly unhygienic manner?
Consider that circumcision has taken place for thousands of years, and we must acknowledge millions of infants circumcised throughout history, cut with knives, sharp stones, razor blades or other instruments – without pain relief.
Jewish law has a proviso that allows parents who have had three boys die from circumcision to leave the fourth unmutilated (what charity!)
More sinister still, Jewish circumcision has a more traditional form, during which the mohel will suck the blood from the cut penis with his mouth. This practice went relatively unpublicised until baby boys in New York City became infected with herpes thanks to a practitioner who had the condition.
If my description of the procedure alone is not enough to convince you of the barbarity of circumcision, I challenge you to watch an online video of any standard circumcision of a baby boy. It is harrowing. I am not ashamed to admit that, while watching one, I had to mute the sound: the infant’s screams of pain were too much for me to endure.
HOWEVER, if a consenting adult male wishes to have his foreskin removed (or any other part of his body mutilated), then so long as he does not endanger his own life, he is welcome to do so. It is consent that is paramount.
You may have heard that there are medical advantages for circumcision – and it is true that the American Academy of Pediatrics notes a 1 percent drop in urinary tract infections among circumcised boys. Women, however, are 30 times more likely to get UTIs than men, yet no-one in their right mind would suggest the cutting of the labia and clitoral hood in order to improve hygiene and reduce the risk of infection.
Shamefully, the World Health Organisation recommends circumcisions in areas badly affected by HIV, instead of recommending educating the public regarding the use of contraceptives. The idiocy is profound: mutilate a man’s penis instead of leaving it intact and educating him. Cut him instead of teaching him. I have no doubt that the widespread influence of the Catholic Church in AIDS-hit countries has affected the WHO’s decisions about the dodgy fixes they endorse regarding the HIV. We well know the Vatican teaches that condoms don’t prevent HIV (for the Holy See, AIDS might be bad, but condoms are worse.)
We have just learned that, in the wake of the three recent studies in southern Africa linking circumcision to a reduced HIV infection rates, both the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) have reconvened their official task forces on circumcision and are beginning a new round of deliberations. Said Eoin Cahill, of Intact America:
These meetings could culminate in a unilateral endorsement of circumcision by the American medical machine.
And Judaism certainly has a lot to answer for, too, having provided the blueprint for this revolting practice. Without genuinely believing that God wants infants to be mutilated, there would be no religious justification to continue doing it. Those who believe in a Divine Creator who wants children mutilated should accept that such a deity must be extraordinarily racist and cruel. He is a semite-supremacist, because he favours the tribe and descendents of Israel over all other humans. And he is exceptionally cruel because, though God supposedly knows all there is to know, he could think of no better way to make a covenant with humans than through ritual mutilation.
Furthermore, they must conclude that morality is defined by the wishes of God. That is, something is good because God says it is. And if that is the case, the act of murdering one’s parents and the act of stealing a pencil are wrong for the same reason. That this God-defined morality would justify circumcision just goes to show that the oft-quoted, “If God is dead, anything is permitted” is downright wrong: God need only command you to do something and it would be a moral action – be it killing your child as a sacrifice, murdering homosexuals or mutilating your children’s genitals.
One of the greatest Torah scholars of all time, Maimonides wrote:
The bodily pain caused to that member is the real purpose of circumcision.
Telling indeed. It also seems that Maimonides was right when he said:
The fact that circumcision weakens the faculty of sexual excitement and sometimes perhaps diminishes the pleasure is indubitable.
The foreskin is the male version of the clitoral hood (during embryonic growth, the hood becomes the foreskin) and as such, is packed with pleasure-sensitive areas. According to a study of sexual pleasure in adult males, it was concluded that the most sensitive areas of the penis are on the foreskin (Sorrells et al). Severing it irreversibly limits sexual pleasure.
This is precisely what Maimonides had in mind, but whilst he viewed it as a justification of circumcision (sexual lust being an excessive indulgence and all), nowadays we may cast off such Bronze Age notions.
While 30 percent of all men are circumcised worldwide, only 0.8 percent of those are Jewish. The majority, 68.8 percent, are Muslim. Justifications for the practice are predominantly cultural and scriptural: the Prophet Mohammed was circumcised and he circumcised his children, too, and that is justification enough for Islam. Since the Prophet can do no wrong, anything he does is what God wants.
These religious notions of divine covenant and sexual “purity” were born in the fearful infancy of our species, and we should now free ourselves from such primitive nonsense.
Finally, be wary of any modern justification of circumcision. The American Academy of Pediatrics stated unequivocally in 2005 that:
There is no absolute medical indication for routine circumcision of the newborn.
It is therefore unconscionable to inflict genital cutting on children, male or female. That male circumcision does not provoke the same instinctive disgust as female genital cutting is a profound indicator of the power of tradition and convention.
The vile influence of religious dogma is like a magnet to the moral compass. The old adage holds true: Good people will do good things, and bad people will do bad things. But for a good person to do a bad thing, that takes religion.
In this case good people are mutilating their children’s genitals, utterly unaware that, without religion, this barbaric and grotesque practice would never have existed at all.
Update:
My attention has just been drawn by Intact America to the fact that, in the wake of the three recent studies in southern Africa linking circumcision to reduced HIV infection rates, both the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) have reconvened their official task forces on circumcision and are beginning a new round of deliberations. These meetings, says IA’s Eion Cahill:
Could culminate in a unilateral endorsement of circumcision by the American medical machine.
Anyone wishing to push against the tide of unnecessary infant circumcisions can sign a petition on the Intact America site, which will be delivered to the CDC later this month. Please do.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
January 21st, 2010 at 2:17 pm
I’ve seen a clip of male circumcision once and I can’t imagine anyone having this done to a child. You’re either sick in the head and/or religious if you’re capable of this.
January 21st, 2010 at 2:51 pm
There are non-religious reasons for having a circumcision. I had an uncle that was forced to have a circumcision in his late 30s due to a medical condition. Here is a list of reason for having a circumcision as stated by the Mayo Clinic
* Easier hygiene. Circumcision makes it easy to wash the penis — although it’s simple to clean an uncircumcised penis, too.
* Decreased risk of urinary tract infections. The risk of urinary tract infections in the first year is low, but these infections may be up to 10 times as common in uncircumcised baby boys. Severe infections early in life can lead to kidney problems later on.
* Prevention of penile problems. Occasionally, the foreskin on an uncircumcised penis may be difficult or impossible to retract (phimosis). This can also lead to inflammation of the head of the penis.
* Decreased risk of penile cancer. Although cancer of the penis is rare, it’s less common in circumcised men.
* Decreased risk of sexually transmitted diseases. Safe sexual practices remain essential, but circumcised men may have a slightly lower risk of certain sexually transmitted diseases — including HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
January 21st, 2010 at 3:07 pm
In the absence of a medical necessity, parents who permit their children to be circumcised should be charged with assault.
It’s sufficiently outrageous that children should be subjected to the mental sculpting of their parents religious prejudices without enhancing such brainwashing with physical butchery.
Informed consent is something children are incapable of.
January 21st, 2010 at 3:20 pm
While I agree that it’s a tradition handed down by a barbaric and outdated superstition, to claim that there are no significant health benefits associated with circumcision is to ignore recent studies on the subject. Science Based Medicine posted this just recently, which seems to indicate some very significant decreases in the risk of contracting an STD for circumcised males, as well as no reported difference in sexual pleasure in adults who were circumcised after becoming sexually active.
Again, I agree that it’s a traditionally barbaric procedure, and the lack of consent from the child makes it even more questionable…but it does appear that there are benefits to having it done. I wouldn’t write circumcision off as easily as this article does.
January 21st, 2010 at 3:26 pm
A good if very squirm-making post. I suspect you’ve set some kind of Freethinker record for number of readers’ legs crossed.
Circumcision is a good example of how you need religion to make otherwise good people do bad things – especially to kids. It’s also an example of how religious tradition has to be founded on irrational and sometimes harmful customs; if it was just commonsense ‘don’t throw your garbage down the well, you idiots’ advice, it couldn’t be a commandment from God, could it?
January 21st, 2010 at 4:21 pm
But surely, we are supposedly made in God’s image. I don’t recall hearing that we were made in God’s image apart from that extra bit – which must therefore be cut off so that we really do look like God.
January 21st, 2010 at 4:46 pm
A few or so yrs ago a mate o mine was living in a shared house. One night b4 we went out his somali house mate asked to borrow a porn video. Me mate said ok and the somali said “great ill just go get my hand lotion”. I asked him why he would need lotion to watch porn then the penny dropped. I asked if he was cut and he said yes. I replied ‘jesus! I would NEVER LET ANYONE CUT OFF MY FORESKIN!’. It cost me a broken nose 3 broken ribs and a sound kicking to learn that koranimals chop off 4skin!
January 21st, 2010 at 4:59 pm
Ha ha lotion! The American porn industry needs so much lotion! The foreskin is there for many simple and practical reasons –
During intercourse it retains lubricant.
As a protective extra layer of skin, it keeps the glans sensitive.
If you are nervous you can pinch it for reassurance.
And for amusement you can nip the end shut and make a wee balloon with it.
Have it removed and a whole world of opportunity is lost.
January 21st, 2010 at 5:03 pm
Oh I almost forget – you can guarantee anyone defending it – has had it done – and doesn’t know what they’re missing LOL!
Medical reasons are rare – religion/ ignorance / cultural are the main reasons by FAR!
January 21st, 2010 at 5:04 pm
THANK YOU.
I’m so sick and tired of people being opposed to any and all form of female circumcision, or what, female genital mutilation, but are sharping up the knives when there’s a foreskin nearby.
The problem with many of the studies that show how evil and disease laden a foreskin is, is that most of the studies focus on NON-INDUSTRALIZED COUNTRIES. I’d bet overall health was worse as well, but hey, let’s ignore that part of things.
And the whole ‘Well, it COULD cause a problem’ argument is bullshit. So could every other body part, but I don’t see anyone advocating lopping off anything else.
The easier to clean argument is bull as well, because if we just gave all babies a port so they could poop in a bag, that would be cleaner as well.
Sure, let’s just remove all tonsils from babies, because they COULD be a problem. Let’s remove all spleens, appendixes, earlobes, etc, because there COULD be a problem with them, and really, if you never had one, you wouldn’t know the difference.
(BTW.. I’m uncut, and my wife wouldn’t have it any other way, nor would I)
January 21st, 2010 at 5:37 pm
@Randy
There are numerous references online regarding the myths that surround male circumcision. Here’s an example: The “foreskin causes cancer” myth with copious cross references. There’s more here. The myths are not as bad as “menstruation is caused by the curse of Eve”, but close.
If this post has “set some kind of Freethinker record for number of readers’ legs crossed (@valdemar)”, imagine the reaction to the horrors of female genital mutilation!
January 21st, 2010 at 5:39 pm
circumsition is a disgusting and immoral thing to do (unless it’s for medical reasons, and even then it’s regrettable). i’m so glad my parents had good sense in that department. i suspect randy may be circumsised (no offence meant).
January 21st, 2010 at 5:44 pm
What is this fascination people have to circumcise boys? I don’t understand why people want to remove a part of the male sex organ from babies. Anyone who really examines the studies will realize that any benefit to circumcision is either very small and insignificant or non-existent.
I really wish my parents had not decided to have a part of my sex organ removed. I would have preferred to keep all my bits. After all, I am the one who has to live with it and use it.
I was circumcised at birth and have since restored my foreskin. So, I know what it is like to be both cut and have a foreskin. Having a foreskin, even a restored one, is much better.
January 21st, 2010 at 5:52 pm
At discussion forums I frequent circumcision discussions trigger more bile than almost anything else, apart from abortion and gun control. There are lots of Americans on those boards.
It is remarkable how those who have been circumcised – even the most secular, and generally reasonable people – seem to take the idea that it has damaged their capacity for sexual pleasure as a personal insult.
But it MUST be bad for sexual pleasure – all those nerve endings either gone or keratinised.
I think it an abomination.
January 21st, 2010 at 6:00 pm
In the United States, male circumcision is far more common than in Europe, where, among the non-Jewish / Muslim / lunatic community, it is never performed except in cases like phimosis.
Now, hospitals in the U.S. charge $300 a snip to the families or to the medical insurance companies. Nice little earner. No wonder they are so keen on promoting its ‘benefits’.
And as shargraves said, the ones defending it are nearly always the ones with their very own ‘yid lid’.
January 21st, 2010 at 6:06 pm
It’s to show the kid who is boss, from the get go…
January 21st, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Circumcision is merely a sick, repulsive, insane, indefensible perversion. Clitoridectomy, in contrast, differs from other rapes only in the sense that most rapes do not destroy the victim’s ability to enjoy a normal life FOREVER.
January 21st, 2010 at 8:06 pm
I’m cringing even more as I had to have the chop at the age of 41 a few months ago.
I miss my foreskin…and I agree doing it to a child without it’s consent for any other reason that medical necessity is abhorrent and child abuse.
January 21st, 2010 at 9:13 pm
While I agree the practice of male circumcision for no medical reason should definitely be considered child abuse, and my husband and I have no plans to do it to any sons we might have, I have to object to the comparisons to female circumcision. They are in no way equivalent, since circumcised men can still get pleasure from sex and achieve orgasm. Female circumcision not only make orgasm almost impossible, it makes sex painful every single time. There are very good reasons why people react differently to the two procedures. The motivations behind them are also totally different. Many parents circumcise their sons with no intention of doing harm or prevent sexual pleasure. NOONE circumcises a female child with any intention other than preserving her “purity” by making sex a totally horrible experience for the rest of her life.
Just to clarify, this is not a defense of male circumcision, I just don’t think the two cases (male and female) are comparable point for point.
January 21st, 2010 at 9:28 pm
Circumcision is really barbaric.
Parents should watch a video of infant circumcision before putting their children under the knife.
January 21st, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Every one of the advantages that Randy lists would also be true if a child’s (or a man’s) penis was cut off.
January 21st, 2010 at 10:35 pm
For a cut by cut account of the horror of female genital mutilation, read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infidel. I have quoted an extract in my post here.
January 21st, 2010 at 11:21 pm
Chem…
Depends on what we’re talking about. Not all types of FGM, which is used interchangeably with Female Circumcision involves the removal of the clitoris, or the actual mutilation of the genitals. I don’t think anyone would equate the damage done to a clitoral removal to the removal of the foreskin. But the amount of consent(none), the root reasons(cultural or religious), and intent (deaden sexual feelings) are the same.
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:02 am
I have worked in Urology now for 2 years. I often see older men with foreskin problems that circumcised patients don’t have — paraphimosis, phimosis (with urinary retention) and infections. As I get older I am glad I was circumcised.
I also circumcised my son and he has no memory and is glad I did it. I also cut his umbilical cord. More painful memories for my son are when I sewed his scalp closed and dug painful splinters out of his foot.
I thinking opting to do circumcision when older is good, but it takes more out of your life to do it then.
I know this comment will be unpopular on this site, but freethinkers should also be comfortable free speaking.
Those who describe how terribly painful circumcision is on a new born probably have not real medical experience. IMHO
January 22nd, 2010 at 1:56 am
Sabio,
No,No,No
You took a decision on behalf of another. A minor.
Not someone indoctrinated into a vein of poison.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
January 22nd, 2010 at 9:36 am
Re Sabio Lantz’s post above, I can tell him that as an older man I sometimes have arthritic problems in my left foot that people who have had the left foot amputated would not have.
However, I remain glad that my foot was not amputated as a child – even if had been done before I was of an age to remember it.
Lopping off functional parts of a body remains a very bad idea.
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:14 pm
It is a form of mutilation. Many people seem to choose mutilation these days so why not allow boys or men to decide themselves if they want their bits hacked at…It’s irrelevant nowdays
January 22nd, 2010 at 12:36 pm
I work as an NICU RN, the current philosphy is not to circumsise, unless requested and many Drs do not do it. It is seen as cosmetic and not medically necessary, and almost all insurances won’t pay for it, that being said, many mother’s still ask for it. It’s not generally done in Europe and many other nations, but here in America it is still a common practice. A throw back to the Puritans, where touching onself is considered dirty.
January 22nd, 2010 at 7:50 pm
While I do agree to a certain extent that it is cruel to do it to an infant. I have seen both my father and a friend have to be cut when they were 50 to 60. Watching the pain that they went through before and after made the decision easy for me. They both told me that they wish they had been cut when they were babies. I had my son cut when he was born better now than having to go through all that pain at a later date. Of course the decision was made from what I have seen in my life.
January 23rd, 2010 at 6:05 am
From the original post:
Thank you for that, Peter. I had to make that point on a similar thread on another blog a while ago, and I said something like this:
***
Tony E to Sabio:
Only partly wrong, I think, at least in the general sense of making a decision on behalf of another.
Part of a parent’s responsibility is to do just that for their children, to navigate the dilemma that there are times when one must make a decision for one’s child that is both (a) the right thing to do and (b) an undeniable infringement of their inalienable rights. For their future health we have them vaccinated, without their consent. For their safety we limit their freedoms, often against their very vocal dissent. In those cases we’re riding roughshod over their sovereignty, but we do it because it’s part of our duty.
As parents we (one hopes) do these things for good, sound reasons, but we should never forget that we are, in fact, choosing the lesser of two evils. Yes, it’s for the child’s own good, but yes, it’s also infringing on their rights. The flip side to that is that a parent should never infringe on a child’s rights except where there is a compelling reason to do so, and circumcision does not appear to qualify as “compelling” in any way.
January 23rd, 2010 at 9:43 am
UN HIV Circumcision Study: A Fraud? – The Atheist Experience #603
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AfPajxmfbE
Don’t listen to these pro-male circumcision “studies”: they are complete and utter bullsh!t. Every 20 years or so they come out with a new set of studies; these are debunked and then a new set of studies is rolled out to replace the old studies and the cycle is repeated.
If there really was a compelling medical case for circumcision, one study would be enough. The constant recycling of these studies over the past century, is indicative of a false motive and a need to propagandize the public for an unnecessary medical procedure.
These studies always make the fallacious “correlation equals causation” argument, and usually cooks the books, to boot, by carefully pre-selecting their case studies. If there was a real medical case to be made, these dishonest methods would not be necessary.
Then also we see the usual “anecdotal arguments” upthread, the “oh, I knew someone who had to have it cut off as an adult, blah blah blah”. Great, one person in a thousand or in a hundred thousand, or one in a million – what about all of the billions of men who weren’t circumcised and who never had any medical problems with their foreskin as an adult?
You think they all should have been cut, as children, without their consent, JUST IN CASE they might have ended up as the 0.01% or 0.00001% of adult males who had a problem with their foreskin as an adult? Are you people insane?
January 23rd, 2010 at 7:23 pm
CIrcumcision of non-consenting, normal, healthy people is not “tantamount to criminal assault”. It IS criminal assault. It is the same crime against humanity that the court at Nuremberg sent properly licensed German physicians to jail shortly after World War II for committing during the war against Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and others. Jail the mutilators. All of them. If they can’t stop themselves from cutting up other people’s sex organs, put them in the same cells with Nazi doctors and let them cut EACH OTHER up.
First Love
You must have been insane,
you bloody madman,
to steal my brand-new body
from my clueless mother’s bed,
and lay me on your cold, hard table,
whole.
You must have been insane
to rope my baby body down
and rip my virgin foreskin off,
to rape my battered, butchered glans,
me screaming bloody murder
at your sickness-driven hands.
You must have been insane
to rub my little penis with your bloody Betadine,
then come at my erection
with your knife,
to try and make me sick as you
for life!
You must have been insane
to cut my body’s best,
to chop my ridged band sex nerves off
and throw them in the trash
and leave me here to die but part a man:
To kill my body’s deepest love, was that your diabolic plan?
Rape?! RAPE??!!! RAPE?!! It’s not just rape!!
I’d far prefer rape! It’s torture! Mayhem! MUTILATION!
There IS no word for what you did to me!
Inflict on me the ancient curse of Muslim and of Jew?
And what, pray Hell, think you I’d do
to you?
God damn your putrid madness, you dead man!
God send down my mad vomit straight to Hell!
May devil Satan make a feast upon it,
and sicken from our bloody, rotten gore,
and die in holy Hell
forevermore!
Some lovers, we, you mad M.D.,
bound for all eternity!
You bloody butcher madman! Penis parasite!
Still lost upon your lonely way?
Pathogenic whore! Some trick!
Still cutting boy fillet?
Atavistic cannibal eats dick!
Still sucking child parfait?
Psychopathic fraud! Still sick?
You’re still insane
today?
January 23rd, 2010 at 9:48 pm
The name of this crime against humanity (and nature) is human vivisection.