Is Circumcision an American Christian Tradition? (disciple, agnostic, gospels, bible)

[sun queen]

Originally Posted by MontanaGuy

sun queen wrote:

I presume you're talking about a baby elephant.

-U r funny. Maybe we should have included this on the keep it lite thread, but God has freely given more liberally to some

[Virote]

Originally Posted by sun queen

Hi I just wondered if u had sons because typically when they are born or shortly thereafter u have to make a decision about circumcision one way or the other. It is not until much later a man will be able to choose for himslef. Then you run the risk of serious complications I had an uncle who was not circumcised. After being married for severaly years it was medically necessary for him to undergo circumcision. He almost died (so he says) from the sheer pain of it. He had to be hospitalized and he miss several weeks from work. It was a big deal. He says he wishes he had been circumcised as a baby.

If I remember from my research correctly, sixteen otherwise healthy infants die from circumcision a year...I don't think I could stand the guilt.

And, I prefer not to have my son refusing to speak to me twenty years down the line because I didn't leave him as God meant him to be.

[sun]

In the U.S.? Maybe there were infections that weren't properly treated?

I did read this:

Of the men between the ages of 45 to 59, sexual dysfunction was reported by 40% of the circumcised men and by 58% of the men intact.

The Foreskin Does Not Cause STDs

[Virote]

[quote=sun;1036909]In the U.S.? Maybe there were infections that weren't properly treated?

Of the men between the ages of 45 to 59, sexual dysfunction was reported by 40% of the circumcised men and by 58% of the men intact.

--

“Circumcised men appeared ‘slightly more likely’ to contract a sexually transmitted disease during their lifetime.” [Perlman] In the survey of 1400 men, “circumcised men reported several cases of the bacterial infection called chlamydia, while the disease did not occur at all among the uncircumcised men.

--

But studies are always being refuted and challenged, irregardless. How I view it is how I view it.

[yhwhshalomjr]

It's best for hygiene purposes if nothing else since the foreskin is a breeding ground for a kinds of germs. Google it you should get some pretty accurate answers from the Levitical Laws and from the Post Laws. But my answer would be pretty accurate to your OP, but my answer is no

[akm4]

Wow! Such strong feelings on this subject. Almost as if each is trying to convince themselves they made the right decision for their infants. Just a possibility, NOT claiming to speak for anyone. (Honest- just an observation.) The American Academy of Pediatricians no longer recommend it for infants. That says something. I realize the one poster's dad had a problem "keeping it clean", but given the global numbers, I doubt that's the norm for the uncircumcised.

I would say every parent's first instinct and responsibility is to protect their baby and spare it any harm, so why cut up a healthy penis? Isn't that basically what the procedure is? Cutting off perfectly healthy foreskin?

[9/9]

The first time I witnessed a circumcision in person was the moment I decided it would never happen to any son of mine.

[Jason_Els]

Wow.

Circumcision is not, I repeat, not a Christian tradition or requirement. In fact, circumcision is rejected by Christianity:

We have heard that some who went out from us have troubled you with words, unsettling your souls, saying, 'You must be circumcised and keep the law' -- to whom we gave no such commandment -Acts 15:24 (Wouldn't you love to be the priest who received that letter? "Uh sorry guys... oops?")

As many as desire to make a good showing in the flesh, these try to compel you to be circumcised, only that they may not suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. For not even those who are circumcised keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh. -Galatians 6:12-13

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. -Galatians 5:6

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation. -Galatians 6:15

Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all. -Colossians 3:9-11

But he [is] a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision [is that] of the heart, in the spirit, [and] not in the letter; whose praise [is] not of men, but of God. -Romans 2:29

For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. -Philippians 3:3

Finally, for the more broad-minded:

His disciples said to him [Jesus], "is circumcision useful or not?" He [Jesus] said to them, "If it were useful, their father would produce children already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become profitable in every respect. -Thomas 53

No church requires, suggests, recommends, nor believes circumcision to be of any spiritual value.

[Jason_Els]

Originally Posted by jeffncandace

Well, that would be true, except that my dad was actually not an exception to the rule. His problem is actually quite common. Since it's a definite possiblity, I see circumcision as nipping the problem in the bud.

As far as cultural goes? Well, I'm an American, and like many I'll admit I think uncircumcized do like kinda funny.

If his problem was phimosis then it's easily treatable with cortisol creme and simple manual stretches. Circumcision is pretty much unheard of for phimosis in the rest of the world.

[Jason_Els]

The foreskin has more nerve endings than any other part of the male anatomy. In females it is analogous to the clitoral hood. Circumcision severs those nerves.

Now researchers ... have found that the five areas most receptive to fine-touch are routinely removed by the surgery. -British Journal of Urology (BJU) 4/07.

Skin and mucosa sufficient to cover the penile shaft was frequently missing from the circumcised penis. Missing tissue included a band of ridged mucosa located at the junction of true penile skin with smooth preputial mucosa. This ridged band contains more Meissner's corpuscles than does the smooth mucosa and exhibits features of specialized sensory mucosa.

The amount of tissue loss estimated in the present study is more than most parents envisage from pre-operative counselling. Circumcision also ablates junctional mucosa that appears to be an important component of the overall sensory mechanism of the human penis.-BJU 02/96.

At birth the glanz and the foreskin are fused together, usually not releasing until several years later when the glanz has become fully independent of the foreskin. When a neonatal circumcision is performed, a probe is inserted between the foreskin and the glanz, ripping the foreskin from the glanz, leaving it raw and bare.

Circumcision is exceedingly painful. The old idea that infants do not experience pain has been debunked:

Circumcised infants showed a stronger pain response to subsequent routine vaccination than uncircumcised infants. Among the circumcised group, preoperative treatment with Emla attenuated the pain response to vaccination. We recommend treatment to prevent neonatal circumcision pain.- Lancet 03/97

Numerous lines of evidence suggest that even in the human fetus, pain pathways as well as cortical and subcortical centers necessary for pain perception are well developed late in gestation, and the neurochemical systems now known to be associated with pain transmission and modulation are intact and functional. Physiologic responses to painful stimuli have been well documented in neonates of various gestational ages and are reflected in hormonal, metabolic, and cardiorespiratory changes similar to but greater than those observed in adult subjects. Other responses in newborn infants are suggestive of integrated emotional and behavioral responses to pain and are retained in memory long enough to modify subsequent behavior patterns. -New England Journal of Medicine 11/87

And should you still have any doubt, get this:

Newborns in the untreated placebo group exhibited homogeneous responses that consisted of sustained elevation of heart rate and high pitched cry throughout the circumcision and following. Two newborns in the placebo group became ill following circumcision (choking and apnea). The 3 treatment groups all had significantly less crying and lower heart rates during and following circumcision compared with the treated group. -Journal of the American Medical Association 12/97 (JAMA)

In fact, the study above was halted because the APGAR responses of the infants being circumcised without anesthesia scored on par with people experiencing torture.

Complications? There are plenty:

...it may be suggested that the higher rates of penile problems among circumcised children during infancy coupled with the complications of circumcision including the small risks of death and mutilation do not justify the alleged benefits of circumcision. -Pediatrics 08/88

Between August 2001 and April 2003 we saw 31 children with complications because of community performed circumcision. Their age range was from 4 weeks to 9 years (median 3 months). Nineteen boys had been circumcised with a Plastibell® ring. Twenty-five children presented with bleeding from 4 hours to 6 days post-circumcision. Haemoglobin (recorded in 21 patients) ranged from 6.2-15.2 g/dl. Five patients received a blood transfusion. Ten children needed surgical intervention under general anaesthesia to secure haemostasis. Four children presented from 8-30 days post-circumcision with the Plastibell® ring still in situ. Each had marked swelling of the ***** and skin-mucosal dehiscence requiring recircumcision. A neonate presented 12 hours following Plastibell® circumcision with a completely displaced ring; bleeding was minimal and so management was conservative. One child presented 5 days post-circumcision with a purulent infection that settled with oral antibiotics.

Over 21 months, at least 31 children presented with complications of "community circumcision." Most children with bleeding were managed with compressive dressing alone, but a significant number required surgical haemostasis. Some of the infants had life-threatening blood loss requiring blood transfusion, which is not in itself without risk. The Plastibell® ring, made by Hollister Incorporated, is used with good results. One source of bleeding was due to failure to tie the string tightly enough. This problem was the cause of bleeding in one infant that we saw and was probably to blame in the case where the ring fell off prematurely. Vigilence when tying the string may prevent such complications. -[I]HJ Corbett, Specialist Registrar in Paediatric Surgery, Royal Manchester Children's Hospital[/i]
Royal Manchester Children's Hospital

Routine circumcision routinely claims 2-3 infants a year. Not a large number, statistically speaking, but tell that to the parents who thought their son was having a simple procedure and then died from post-operative infection or uncontrollable bleeding (circumcision does sever an artery).

The United States of America is the circumcision capital of the world. We circumcise more neonates than anywhere else in the world despite the fact that not one peer reviewed medical journal or medical association in the world including the United States, recommends that routine neonatal circumcision be performed!

I have no clue what possesses us, as a people, to routinely strap down unconsenting children and remove a perfectly normal, healthy, and useful part of their genitals. That's what we're doing. Were parents to demand that a doctor chop off their boy's pinky or his ear or anything else, the doctor would be horrified and call social services. Who are we to do this? What gives us the right to demand that a healthy part of our child be amputated? Seriously. You can say, "but we're the parents!" OK and...? The child isn't ill, won't die, or even be sick because he won't be circumcised. The foreskin is supposed to be there. By that argument, as parents, you should be able to demand that anything else be done to your child because you want it to.

There's the, "we want him to be like his father/brother." Why? If the father or brother is missing an arm, has lost a digit, are you going to demand your child have his arm or toe off too? Of course not. So how is it that because a father has a mutilated penis that the son should too? Wouldn't it be wiser just to end it? It takes all of three minutes to explain to your son why there's a difference. Certainly easier and cheaper and doesn't result in an innocent person having part of his penis cut off.

The argument does not answer. Nothing gives us the right to take another person and modify their body because we see fit to do so.

Teeth cause far more problems and cost more in treatment fees than foreskins do and you don't see parents demanding dentists knock out their kids' teeth and have implants put in.

Angered that I used the word, "mutilated?" You should be. To mutilate is to take what was normal and whole and somehow destroy it. No matter how antiseptic you make circumcision, you're cutting off part of someone else's genitals. That makes it completely and wholly, "genital mutilation." If you doubt it for a second, grab a dictionary and get literate. I'm using the correct term for what routine infant circumcision is.

For a country that prides itself on individual liberties, we're one of only a handful that still continue this barbaric practice. We give our boys no choice, risk their lives, remove sensitive and healthy parts of their penis, and risk deformation or later complications and for what? It's not for any medical reason. Using a social reason for taking such risks, violating another person's body in such a personal way, is absurd.

And as to railing against equating female circumcision with male circumcision, let me point out that men can't have their clitorises cut off because they don't have one. The only thing that can be mutilated is the penis. Are circumcised penises still functional? Yes. Is it as functional and as sensitive as it should be? No. Why? Because the boy had part of his penis cut off when he was a child. It's absurd and cruel to refuse to acknowledge that what is taking place is any less important because it's happening to males. It's like saying, "We only mutilate the penis a little bit."

Men who complain because they were circumcised have every right to complain like any other person who had something taken away from them by force that they can never have back and I can think of a lot of things people do to kids that kids can never have back. None of them are good. Complaining is only unjust when a person has made an informed choice and then says that they were unable to take back that choice. Men circumcised as infants had no choice. That should remind you of another debate about choice that our society so hotly engages in: the choice for a man or woman to have security of their own body, free from unwanted harm. If you're pro-choice then it should be a logical extension to see that controlling a woman's reproductive rights is no more equitable than controlling a male's reproductive organs. Both sexes should be entitled to be secure in their bodies. If you're anti-abortion then it should be a logical extension to see that controlling a neonate's body, cutting it up solely because the mother or father wants to, wrong for the same reason as killing the fetus?

As a society, we have spent an enormous amount of time, mutilated a huge number of children. A few have died, some are deformed or missing a penis or have very common complications like adhesions, skin bridges, turkey necks, bent penis, obvious scarring, meatal stenosis, or skin tags. All have a loss of sensitivity. Yet despite no medical reason, we continue to reject our own beliefs of personal liberty and risk the health of our boys for what amount to reasons that don't outweigh the arguments against it.

Circumcision is an ugly embarrassment to America and it's long since time we ended this perverse experiment in genital engineering and throw it on the trash heap of bad medicine.

I can't imagine seeing my newborn son, marveling at how his mother and I managed to produce such a beautiful thing only to hand him over to an intern to strap him down, strip his foreskin from his glanz, sever his frenulum, clamp his foreskin, cut it off, and then smear some Vaseline on it while he cries in agony. That's just child abuse. It's someone harming my child irrepairably and I'm letting it happen! I'm even asking for it! What is wrong with this picture?

You want your son circumcised I think you owe it to him and yourself to see what he'll go through. Hiding and pretending it's not happening should tell you that there's something wrong with what's going on. Cringing and making jokes should tell you there's something wrong with this. Listen to what your gut is trying to tell your head.

For your edification I present:


Routine Infant Circumcision part 1

Routine Infact Circumcision part 2

Go ahead. See what it is you're approving of, taking part in, just asking to be done your son. If you want it so much, it's the least you can do. It's nothing comapred to what he'll be going through.