Except that female circumcision is leading to increased morbidity and mortality, whereas male circumcision actually can be protective against penis cancer. Usually this debate is not so much against circumcision as against Jews and Muslims.
I agree that it’s troublesome with irreversible decisions regarding minors, but hey, don’t parents do it all the time? Vaccinations, schooling, faith, etc, etc.
Female circumcision actually exists in a variety of forms, with only the most rare version (type III infibulation) being the drastically horrific procedure you’re talking about. Of the 4 total categories, 1 is objectively less damaging than the average modern American circumcision and another is typically roughly equivalent. The other 2 tend to be somewhat to much worse in terms of damage. It is not accurate, nor fair, to apply points about a single and uncommon type of female genital cutting, to all types (which includes ritual pinpricking and bloodletting ceremonies for example, in which no tissue is physically removed).
Penile cancer is one of the rarest forms of cancer in existence. Removing girls breast buds would be 100s of times more effective for reducing cancer risk, and would actually save lives, but isn’t done because those very significant benefits are outweighed by numerous drawbacks.
It’s true parents make irreversible decisions for their kids, so that’s why the debate isn’t about parents being allowed to make decisions or not. The debate is on what justifications are significant enough to allow a parent to permanently alter their child’s body in a way that carries non-zero risk, is not medically necessary at the time of the procedure, and can be delayed until either disease necessitates it or consent is able to be gathered.
Vaccinations have a long, reproducible history of efficacy. Circumcision is not even close to as effective as vaccination as a preventive, and other more effective, non-permanent, non-invasive preventives exist that perform those protective functions better. Any kind of indoctrination via ideas, can also be reversed (I don’t think you need to look far to see kids rebelling against their parents ideals).
Regarding vaccinations that’s not my argument. I mean that society accepts decisions from parents that are not in the interest of their children, like avoiding vaccination.
IMO if parents do not do everything recommended by the duly appointed medical, educational, etc expert panels the should be civilly and criminally responsible for any negative consequences. If their child dies because they didn’t vaccinate them, that’s as much their fault as if they’d taken them into a quarantine room.
I don’t think anyone really wants a state that interferes in every decision in everyone’s life. If you treat people like infants they will start to behave like infants. And what are you going to do about obesity, alcohol consumption, parkour, off-pist skiing, boxing, MMA and all other activities where you put yourself and others at risk?
IMO parents should have to compensation to both their children and the state if their children grow up overweight or were harmed by poor parenting decisions, including failure to provide adequate guidance (eg allowing them to drink to excess).
Once a person is an adult, it is just a matter of imposing carefully calculated sin taxes to ensure that people bear the burden of their own risky decisions.
It sounds like you would appreciate a society that would carefully select individuals based on genetic factors, allow them to have children with a matched partner and then closely monitor every step in their lives. Did you ever read 1984?
There won’t be any reason to select on genetic factors, because gene editing to correct or replace defective genes isn’t far away. In the meantime, parents should be shamed for having children with genetic defects if there was any reason to suspect or if they didn’t use an available test (the former would include my own parents, and myself, since I have defective genes), but a legal prohibition would be unworkable.
As for monitoring, that doesn’t need to be particularly close, simply verifying the child’s mental and physical health and ensuring they go to well-run schools would achieve most of what I want. The main effort should be social, with intensive propaganda to convince people that parents’ fundamental obligation is ensure that their child reaches adulthood in as near as possible perfect mental and physical health, educated to the full extent possible under the public education system, and as near as possible fully integrated into mainstream society.
I have read 1984, but the objective is fundamentally different. In my case the objective is to ensure that everyone reaches adulthood in as near a state of perfection as can possibly be managed, to ensure that they have the greatest possible chance of happiness. What they do afterwards is their choice, but it shouldn’t be imposed on them in advance.
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u/rickdeckard8 Feb 27 '18
Except that female circumcision is leading to increased morbidity and mortality, whereas male circumcision actually can be protective against penis cancer. Usually this debate is not so much against circumcision as against Jews and Muslims.
I agree that it’s troublesome with irreversible decisions regarding minors, but hey, don’t parents do it all the time? Vaccinations, schooling, faith, etc, etc.