It's pretty hard to take these arguments seriously, as it seems to be fuzzy logic at best-
Laurent Olszer wrote: > Regarding the "choice" argument, there are several issues: > * From a medical standpoint, the fact that some men have to have it done as > adults > (my colleague's mate, Colin's and Sarah's friends), and that at this age it is > very painful > could well be a justification to having it done as a baby. Taking this logic a little further, run over babies because they might in the future get hit by a truck. Seriously, if this were a statistically significant problem, maybe you would have a point, but it is not. > Having seen it done several times, I can tell you babies don't cry for more > than a few > minutes and they seem fine 1/2 hour later. Who knows what they go through in that 1/2 hour. > * Are circumcised men traumatized? Can't say whether my craziness comes from > that. > I'm afraid not. First you say you don't know, then decide not... > * So indeed it is not the kid's choice but the parents' or the doctors', based > on religious > or cultural reasons. Yep yep yep > (I'm excluding the strictly medical reasons here) > I had my tonsils removed at age 8, I couldn't make that choice then either. > So what? The tonsils are part of the immune system. Since I'm assuming they were removed for medical reasons, this is completely irrelevant. > If jewish fathers decide to do it to their sons, knowing the consequences, do > you think > they knowingly want to hurt their kids in any way? As Colin pointed out, yes, that IS what they are doing (because it is tradition ie someone in the past told me to) >From http://www.nocirc.org/symposia/second/moss.html by Jewish writer Lisa Braver Moss, B.A Let us return to the concerns mentioned above, starting with pain. According to Jewish law, it is forbidden to cause tsa'ar ba'alei chaim, or pain of living things. Even the necessary causing of pain is considered cruel in Judaism. Jewish law even prohibits the pairing up of a small and a large animal for plowing in case the asymmetry causes the littler one discomfort. Clearly, concern over the pain of others has strong Judaic roots. > So if > nobody who is > circumcised is complaining and in fact prefer it, what's the big deal about > the choice? > Why not let a custom carry on when nobody is bothered? Alot of people are bothered by this needless exercise of domination over helpless male children. There are a number of organizations that challenge the popular notion of circumcision. There laregest is called NOCIRC, and has 110 chapters worldwide. http://www.nocirc.org/ A few more facts from the web: Jews have always circumcised as have Moslems, only in the last sixty years have Americans favored circumcisions. Most of the World has never circumcised and does not now. the procedure, is typically done performed a few days after birth on 65 percent of American baby boys--the highest rate in any industrialized country Circumcision is much less frequent in Latin America and Europe. It has decline dramatically in New Zealand and Australia. " Thank God, some of us are finally beginning to realize its barbaric," says Marilyn Milos, a registered nurse, who 20 years ago founded NOCIRC.Milos notes that she began NOCIRC- which has affiliate chapters in most states and several countries- after witnessing a circumcision while training to be a midwife. The mother of four, whose sons had been circumcised prior to that incident says, " when you see the baby shrieking and pushing himself against his restraints, you can't come away thinking its anything but [genital] mutilation." http://www.uvm.edu/~gdavis/nocirc/media.htm (shows a baby with arms and legs strapped to a table awaiting the procedure) RR
