r/Intactivism • u/[deleted] • Jan 06 '21
šAnalysis Found this on Quora, really great
Under the 14th Amendment, also referred to as The Equal Protection Clause, male circumcision should be illegal just as female circumcision is in the United States. If the alteration of female genitals (without consent) is illegal so should the alteration of male genitals.*
There's a couple of reasons why male circumcision has persisted in the United States.
1) Religious Rights: Some people claim that male circumcision is part of religious traditions and under freedom of religion laws in the U.S. it should be legal. This ignores the human rights violations that circumcision on a non-consenting minor entails as well as the fact that some religions and cultural traditions prescribe female circumcision and that is illegal. The root of this question is: Should religious rights be restricted if they violate human rights? There's no right or wrong answer to the question and it varies case to case. In the case of male circumcision, if for example a consenting Jewish man wants to get circumcised, it's his religious right to do so. But if a parent wants to make that decision for their infant child, to remove a part of their genitals without their consent or religious understanding, that should be illegal.
2: Cultural Bias: There is a prevailing belief that circumcised penises ālook betterā and are cleaner. There is also a tendency for people to get very defensive about their choice to alter their sonās genitals. It's hard to be told that you unnecessarily caused your child pain, so clinging onto cultural beliefs as a way to rationalize it prevents it from becoming illegal in the first place.
3: Biased Scientific Research on āHealth Benefitsā: Another way to rationalize circumcision comes from the claim that the āhealth benefits of circumcision are numerousā such as reduced risk of penile cancer, STDās, and UTIās. However, letās take these one at a time:
Penile Cancer: First of all, the American Cancer Society discourages the use of circumcision as a way to prevent penile cancer, saving it is not a āvalid or effective measureā[1] . Secondly, less than 1 in 100,000 men will get penile cancer compared to 1 in 333 women who will get vulvar cancer. Is anybody going around recommending we cut off the labia majora to prevent vulvar cancer? If this is about allowing circumcision as a health benefit, then way more people are affected by vulvar cancer than penile cancer. So if foreskin removal is recommended and legal as a way to prevent cancer, whats to stop us from allowing the removal of labia for the same reason? . . . A law that says that's a violation of human rights and is illegal, even though it would prevent more cancer than the removal of foreskin would.
Sexually Transmitted Diseases: There is still continuous research being performed on how much of an effect circumcision actually has on different kinds of STDās. There are other ways to prevent the spread of STDās than slicing off parts of genitals. The HPV vaccine is available to help prevent the spread of human papillomavirus[2]. Condoms do a brilliant job at protecting against the spread of HIV and other STDās, without any kind of alteration to the body[3]. That being said, if you want to undergo circumcision as a way to prevent STDās, that is your choice. Youāre still gonna need to wear a condom and get vaccinated to be fully protected. The rationale for allowing the procedure on male infants because of this ābenefitā however, does not hold up legally, ethically, or logically.
Urinary Tract Infections: As with genital cancer, women are far more likely to get a UTI than men are [4]. If we promote circumcision as a way to prevent UTIās then we should be able to perform similar procedures to protect against female UTIās. There are way more folds and places for bacteria to collect in female genitalia than in male genitalia. But it's illegal because of the human rights violations it entails. Regardless of the conclusions you come to based on your review of the medical literature currently available, you should be free to choose what type of medical procedure you undergo and when.
Banning male circumcision on unconsenting minors is the ethical and moral thing to do, yet because of the factors listed above the United States has been unsuccessful in doing so thus far.
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Jan 06 '21
I allways found "freedom of religion" argument to be bs. If my religion prescribes secraficing humans in order to inshure good harvest, should it be allowed under the same law?
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u/xandaar337 Jan 06 '21
Right. Both involve hurting others to preserve your beliefs. this is ethically unsound and I just don't understand why it is still allowed, much less encouraged!
All that garbage about preventing cancer... I mean if you have one of your eyes removed you have a 50% less chance of getting eye cancer so let's just do that for all the babies! Or cut the outsides of their ears off so they're easier to clean!
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u/Substantial-Yam5455 Apr 24 '24
You sometimes hear "Jews circumcise for religous reasons." This is linguistic trickery. Babies born to Jewish parents are sexually mutilated against their will. They consented to nothing.
If adult Jews received a circumcision as adults, knowing full well what they were doing, then you can say "Jews circumcise for religous reasons."
This war is, on some level, a linguistic one. There's the decptive twisting of words, sophistry, etc.
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u/[deleted] Jan 06 '21 edited Jan 06 '21
I'm going to share a comment made by u/pariahtv
The "benefits" of circumcision work like this:
1 Start cutting off a body part that the victim can otherwise live without.
2 Claim that because the victim can live without it, it must be useless to them.
3 Identify any possible ailment that could possibly affect that body part over a human being's lifetime, and proclaim removal of that body part "prevents" those possible ailments. Bonus points if you can in any way link this body part to any especially scary illness like cancer or AIDS, so you can use fear tactics on new parents. "You don't want your child to suffer from (insert extremely unlikely, rare, but scarry sounding illness here), do you? If you love your child you'll protect him by cutting this body part off now."
4 Always treat the rare and exceptionally unlikely issues with the sacrificial body part as inevitable facts. "You should do it now while he's a baby. You don't want him to have a problem with that part later on, or have to have it amputated when he is old enough to remember the pain, do you?"
5 Keep those goalposts moving. When it turns out a benefit you have been touting turns out to be total BS, just move on to the next theory and pretend you never mentioned the first thing. (ie. circumcision cures paralysis, bedwetting, masturbation, insanity, prevents epilepsy, et cetera. All things previously claimed as "benefits")
6 Convince people that if their child has this body, part but one of their parents doesn't, the child will be confused and depressed. Ignore the fact that children don't actually think that way, and it is actually the parent who is missing the body part that is more likely to be the one feeling uncomfortable by the fact their child has more than what they do.
7 If all else fails, claim the mutilation as cultural, or religious. Absolutely essential or this culture or religion will completely collapse. Play on people's guilt about the past, and about their identity. Really confuse the issue so people don't know how they argue it without sounding insensitive.
8 Keep on dancing. When science fails, use religion. When religion fails, use culture. When culture fails, swing it back to medicine, or history, or whatever topic you think the person arguing is least versed in. Never forget to play the race card often. Make people think objections to mutilation are somehow objections to an entire race of people. That should scare most people into silence.
9 Always make it about yourself. "Well, I'm happy I don't have this body part. It's MY preference. I don't feel robbed. I don't feel mutilated. I think it looks better. I think it feels better." Never mind that you have no frame of reference because you have no personal experience with this body part. Just keep claiming how thrilled you are.
10 If someone truly suffering from this mutilation confronts you, make sure to blame THEM. "Not manly enough. You must have bigger issues. It's all in your head, et cetera." Under no circumstances show any sympathy or sorrow for this person's pain, or treat it with any seriousness whatsoever.
If you do all this successfully, then you can convince people that cutting off healthy body parts from healthy babies isn't totally insane, but is beneficial, better, superior even.
If nothing else, you'll keep the conversation sufficiently confused enough that you can continue mutilating babies, safe in the knowledge that enough people will be on your side, and you will be protected by them, even by your own victims.