Also: given the historic role of circumcision in religious and cultural conversion, one could view infant circumcision as removing that possibility for certain religious or cultural conversions later in life. In this sense, it might be viewed as culturally immunizing as well as being a cultural marker.
In 1996 the Federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act made it illegal to perform FGM on minors for non-medical reasons, and in 2013 the Transport for Female Genital Mutilation Act prohibited transporting a minor out of the country for the purpose of FGM.
Male genital mutilation on minors for non-medical reasons should also be made illegal. It is amazing Medicaid still pays for it in many states. The American Academy of Pediatrics is failing the United States.
I would answer, but I rather not, publicly, because of HN privacy policy (nonexistent) and handling of personal data (abysmal), and also because is impossible to delete your comments.
They're clearly different. FGM generally has much more severe consequences than circumcision. They should both be banned but FGM is clearly much worse.
Baffling that male genital mutilation persists to this day due to momentum, misinformation, and a small religious niche alone. Really makes me think there’s an empathy gap between gendered issues. 1996 we got rid of FGM, yet 30 years later baby boys still get their tips of their penis cut off, often incorrectly/too far.
Humbling reminder we really are a bunch of well dressed apes playing house, I forget that sometimes
However this practice has become deeply culturally ingrained, whether through religion or other custom, so it is going to be a hard slog to eradicate it worldwide.
I have seen babies with pierced ears and studs. Even when there is no religious pressure some people are just so sick in their head, they will have their babies put through mutilation just because they think it looks "cute". Those people deserve to have railroad spikes driven through their skin.
I would advocate for banning all non-necessary body modification on small children. And before anyone tells me "it's better to do it when they are small, then they won't remember it": no remembering the source of a trauma makes is even worse. That's like saying date rape drugs are no big deal because the victim can't remember it.
Good, it's barbaric child abuse. No other form of permanent body modification surgery (especially to genitals!) would be allowed on infants who can't consent. An adult wants to get circumcised? Go for it. It's pretty wild that we allow it on babies that can't even speak.
We've banned this account for using HN exclusively for political/ideological/national/religious battle and ignoring our requests to stop. That's not allowed here, regardless of which political position you're advocating.
(Before somebody pounces with "so we're not allowed to post about $TOPIC now?": no, I'm not secretly advocating for circumcision (of all things) and this comment is not about $TOPIC. I just had to hang it somewhere so I chose the most recent thread.
The issue is the overall pattern of the account's behavior, which is clearly against HN's rules.)
We've banned quite a few accounts on either side of that issue—theirs as well as yours—not because of their/your view on the issue itself, but because they/you were posting abusively. It's obviously a divisive topic, and people's strong feelings and political commitments are unfortunately leading them to break HN's rules pretty much irrespective of where they stand on it.
You can't derive much signal from cherry-picked examples, because we don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here. When accounts are posting abusively and not getting moderated, the likeliest explanation is that we just haven't seen it yet. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here.
It isn't hard to find people with different religious views from their parents, so no, I don't think defaulting a baby to any religion should be a thing.
In general, I'm surprised by the vitriol in these comments.
I think your claim proves too much:
If you pick a different religion (my siblings and their kids are religious - not Jewish), you could similarly say "even though they're happy being raised in their religion, they have no way to know whether they would prefer to have been raised agnostic/atheist" (or some other religion)
Of course that's true for many decisions parents make on behalf of their children.
I am curious if folks in this thread are similarly incensed by young children having their ears pierced? It's obviously different, but it still seems like a cultural decision.
To my knowledge (having only learned about it incidentally during the pregnancy/birthing process since it wasn't a relevant decision) it didn't seem like circumcision had strong medical recommendations for or against
You can stretch it to religion, if you consider being inculcated in a certain religion a 1-way door.
Circumcision removes nerve endings and results in an exposed glans, which thickens the skin and further dulls its nerve endings. This is a 1-way reduction in sexual capacity, which the child doesn't have any say in. Comparing it to ear piercing isn't the same, which, while cartilage doesn't heal easily, there's no sexual sensation interaction and leaving piercings empty tends to reverse them over time.
Respectfully, this is a case where a lack of "field experience" combines with asking AI about peepees, and it gets weird after that.
Like another commenter said, this is a small (62) group of men tested for stimuli that don't appear to resemble sex.
To be blunt, I think it is apparent to those with experience that uncircumcised penises are significantly more sensitive than circumcised ones. If you wanted to test this - get a big sample size and simulate the 3 common types of copulation in a standard way (lol).
The linked study doesn’t measure sexual stimulation, only touch, pain, and heat. The study also found that the foreskin was more sensitive than any other area, which supports the prior commenter’s point.
Parents can definitely decide how to raise their child, within reason. It is in no way reasonable to conduct a non medical non consensual surgical procedure on your child. Simple as, really.
Polygamy is a fundamental religious practice by some religions too, but the US Supreme Court already ruled that the government can restrict it. (Though this article is talking about England and Wales... which also don't allow polygamy, so...)
I think it would be better to have the debate on circumcision in the legislature/parliament, but I am not opposed to outlawing it.
> 7 deaths in 20 years out of who knows how many hundreds of thousands if anything is a testament to how safe the procedure is.
That's still seven deaths too many for a surgery (without anesthetics!) which has no medical necessity. Tonsillectomy is also a very safe procedure, yet we don't just do them willy-nilly because any form of surgery carries its own risk, no matter how small.
Some people are traumatized by it. There have been suicides. These experiences never candidly enter public policy discourse, because keeping people from getting depressed etc. is important for productivity, birth rates, and trust in public institutions.
What Trump has proven is that millions of single issue voters can be created on any issue if a political party desires it.
Underestimating this reality will only keep political parties that depend on unwritten rules of decorum from winning more and more elections.
There are now new unwritten rules of election issue decorum. Which is to say there are no longer any unspoken rules of election issue decorum. I'd strongly urge everyone to acclimate themselves to that reality sooner rather than later.
This is satire, right? Or reasoning by analogy... right??
I looked up "SCP object", and boy that was a rabbit hole. Interesting and entertaining, sure. But if you "fully believe" in anything on that website, please try to confirm your reality with observations or lived experience rather than text from the internet.
Here's an excerpt from SCP's "Guide For Newcomers"[1]:
> This is the SCP Foundation Wiki, a collaborative writing site based around the premise that… in essence, magic is real. It's not exactly like the traditional fantasy style magic you've come to know, but that's the best way we can describe the stuff we have here - Anomalies; items and critters that do not follow the rules of nature as we know them. Staircases that go on forever, mechanical gods from the beginning of time, otherwise regular humans who reshape reality with their mind: these are the kinds of things that, if known to the public, could cause mass hysteria and start wars on scales unprecedented. Due to that, there exists an organization called the SCP Foundation, whose job is to research paranormal activity, keep these creatures and objects concealed from the public, and protect humanity from the horrors of the dark.
You don't need a "Ketar class SCP object", simple conflict of interest from the Medical-Industrial Complex will do.
All those skin banks could turn into liabilities instead of profit centers, since preservation of the product is also preservation of the evidence.
A functioning government would waltz in, keep the power on, start sequencing the tissues and cells to identify at least some of the victims, and do this in a transparent and public way.
> “enormously powerful symbolic act of identity”.
That's revolting in a way. Identity OF THE PARENT, not of the baby who definitely doesn't know.
And maybe the teenager doesn't want to have that identity, but now it's too late
Also: given the historic role of circumcision in religious and cultural conversion, one could view infant circumcision as removing that possibility for certain religious or cultural conversions later in life. In this sense, it might be viewed as culturally immunizing as well as being a cultural marker.
In 1996 the Federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act made it illegal to perform FGM on minors for non-medical reasons, and in 2013 the Transport for Female Genital Mutilation Act prohibited transporting a minor out of the country for the purpose of FGM.
Male genital mutilation on minors for non-medical reasons should also be made illegal. It is amazing Medicaid still pays for it in many states. The American Academy of Pediatrics is failing the United States.
[flagged]
They're not different: they both irreversibly violate body autonomy for non-medical purposes.
So does getting your kid's ears pierced. So does fixing their teeth for aesthetic reasons.
if those are done without the child consent, yes, obviously they violate their body autonomy.
Have you ever argued in favor of aborting children? That is mutilation without the child’s consent, almost always for non-medical purposes
I would answer, but I rather not, publicly, because of HN privacy policy (nonexistent) and handling of personal data (abysmal), and also because is impossible to delete your comments.
FYI I think you can email dang and ask to delete old posts. Or at least I think he said that once.
You wouldn't fix a child's teeth until well after they can talk. They have much more capacity to consent at that age.
They're clearly different. FGM generally has much more severe consequences than circumcision. They should both be banned but FGM is clearly much worse.
Baffling that male genital mutilation persists to this day due to momentum, misinformation, and a small religious niche alone. Really makes me think there’s an empathy gap between gendered issues. 1996 we got rid of FGM, yet 30 years later baby boys still get their tips of their penis cut off, often incorrectly/too far.
Humbling reminder we really are a bunch of well dressed apes playing house, I forget that sometimes
Good. It is barbaric and mutilation.
the discussion got flagged
why is it not possible to vouch for the discussion?
It's flagged but not dead. These are not the same thing. See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. Also:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39676944
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38918548
It is not possible to vouch for any discussion, afaik. Only comments.
[dead]
It should be, right along with FGM
As it should be.
However this practice has become deeply culturally ingrained, whether through religion or other custom, so it is going to be a hard slog to eradicate it worldwide.
Definitely, and unfortunately. FGM is also on the rise in Europe :(
Finally taking this seriously as what it is: religious genital mutilation
I have seen babies with pierced ears and studs. Even when there is no religious pressure some people are just so sick in their head, they will have their babies put through mutilation just because they think it looks "cute". Those people deserve to have railroad spikes driven through their skin.
I would advocate for banning all non-necessary body modification on small children. And before anyone tells me "it's better to do it when they are small, then they won't remember it": no remembering the source of a trauma makes is even worse. That's like saying date rape drugs are no big deal because the victim can't remember it.
There isn’t an equivalence between pierced ears, which is reversible, and circumcision, which is not.
Good, it's barbaric child abuse. No other form of permanent body modification surgery (especially to genitals!) would be allowed on infants who can't consent. An adult wants to get circumcised? Go for it. It's pretty wild that we allow it on babies that can't even speak.
We've banned this account for using HN exclusively for political/ideological/national/religious battle and ignoring our requests to stop. That's not allowed here, regardless of which political position you're advocating.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(Before somebody pounces with "so we're not allowed to post about $TOPIC now?": no, I'm not secretly advocating for circumcision (of all things) and this comment is not about $TOPIC. I just had to hang it somewhere so I chose the most recent thread.
The issue is the overall pattern of the account's behavior, which is clearly against HN's rules.)
[dead]
Oh, but every Zionist gets to stay. We know you're a tool for censorship dang.
You happily let this account continue: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=soldthat
We've banned quite a few accounts on either side of that issue—theirs as well as yours—not because of their/your view on the issue itself, but because they/you were posting abusively. It's obviously a divisive topic, and people's strong feelings and political commitments are unfortunately leading them to break HN's rules pretty much irrespective of where they stand on it.
You can't derive much signal from cherry-picked examples, because we don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here. When accounts are posting abusively and not getting moderated, the likeliest explanation is that we just haven't seen it yet. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here.
[flagged]
> what gives you the right to impose your worldview on someone elses child Just because you think it's better?
And my question to you: what gives you the right to impose your worldview on someone elses *body* Just because you think it's better?
You cannot possibly know the alternative, since the the babies with the surgery performed will never know the alternative.
> What about freedom of religion
Babies don't have a religion.
Maybe the laws should explicitly encode babies' freedom of religion of their parents.
It isn't hard to find people with different religious views from their parents, so no, I don't think defaulting a baby to any religion should be a thing.
[flagged]
> those that are happy it was done to them specifically as babies
Who have no way to know whether they would prefer to not have it done.
It’s not FGM, but it’s in the realm of it relative to reduced sensory ability.
In general, I'm surprised by the vitriol in these comments.
I think your claim proves too much:
If you pick a different religion (my siblings and their kids are religious - not Jewish), you could similarly say "even though they're happy being raised in their religion, they have no way to know whether they would prefer to have been raised agnostic/atheist" (or some other religion)
Of course that's true for many decisions parents make on behalf of their children.
I am curious if folks in this thread are similarly incensed by young children having their ears pierced? It's obviously different, but it still seems like a cultural decision.
To my knowledge (having only learned about it incidentally during the pregnancy/birthing process since it wasn't a relevant decision) it didn't seem like circumcision had strong medical recommendations for or against
You can stretch it to religion, if you consider being inculcated in a certain religion a 1-way door.
Circumcision removes nerve endings and results in an exposed glans, which thickens the skin and further dulls its nerve endings. This is a 1-way reduction in sexual capacity, which the child doesn't have any say in. Comparing it to ear piercing isn't the same, which, while cartilage doesn't heal easily, there's no sexual sensation interaction and leaving piercings empty tends to reverse them over time.
I don't know that your claims about male circumcision have any basis in fact
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26724395/?utm_source=chatgpt...
Respectfully, this is a case where a lack of "field experience" combines with asking AI about peepees, and it gets weird after that.
Like another commenter said, this is a small (62) group of men tested for stimuli that don't appear to resemble sex.
To be blunt, I think it is apparent to those with experience that uncircumcised penises are significantly more sensitive than circumcised ones. If you wanted to test this - get a big sample size and simulate the 3 common types of copulation in a standard way (lol).
The linked study doesn’t measure sexual stimulation, only touch, pain, and heat. The study also found that the foreskin was more sensitive than any other area, which supports the prior commenter’s point.
Parents can definitely decide how to raise their child, within reason. It is in no way reasonable to conduct a non medical non consensual surgical procedure on your child. Simple as, really.
Religion is a personal choice, not something your parents or anyone else can enforce on you with surgery.
[dead]
[flagged]
Polygamy is a fundamental religious practice by some religions too, but the US Supreme Court already ruled that the government can restrict it. (Though this article is talking about England and Wales... which also don't allow polygamy, so...)
I think it would be better to have the debate on circumcision in the legislature/parliament, but I am not opposed to outlawing it.
> 7 deaths in 20 years out of who knows how many hundreds of thousands if anything is a testament to how safe the procedure is.
That's still seven deaths too many for a surgery (without anesthetics!) which has no medical necessity. Tonsillectomy is also a very safe procedure, yet we don't just do them willy-nilly because any form of surgery carries its own risk, no matter how small.
Some people are traumatized by it. There have been suicides. These experiences never candidly enter public policy discourse, because keeping people from getting depressed etc. is important for productivity, birth rates, and trust in public institutions.
The children being mutilated are not even able to consent to practicing a religion.
[dead]
[flagged]
I don't believe there are very many circumcision single issue voters
You are shortsighted.
What Trump has proven is that millions of single issue voters can be created on any issue if a political party desires it.
Underestimating this reality will only keep political parties that depend on unwritten rules of decorum from winning more and more elections.
There are now new unwritten rules of election issue decorum. Which is to say there are no longer any unspoken rules of election issue decorum. I'd strongly urge everyone to acclimate themselves to that reality sooner rather than later.
I remember around 2016 seeing videos on social media of Clinton endorsing circumcision campaigns.
That's because of the IRL SCP object! Destroy it and they will soon exist in droves!
This is satire, right? Or reasoning by analogy... right??
I looked up "SCP object", and boy that was a rabbit hole. Interesting and entertaining, sure. But if you "fully believe" in anything on that website, please try to confirm your reality with observations or lived experience rather than text from the internet.
Here's an excerpt from SCP's "Guide For Newcomers"[1]:
> This is the SCP Foundation Wiki, a collaborative writing site based around the premise that… in essence, magic is real. It's not exactly like the traditional fantasy style magic you've come to know, but that's the best way we can describe the stuff we have here - Anomalies; items and critters that do not follow the rules of nature as we know them. Staircases that go on forever, mechanical gods from the beginning of time, otherwise regular humans who reshape reality with their mind: these are the kinds of things that, if known to the public, could cause mass hysteria and start wars on scales unprecedented. Due to that, there exists an organization called the SCP Foundation, whose job is to research paranormal activity, keep these creatures and objects concealed from the public, and protect humanity from the horrors of the dark.
[1] https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/guide-for-newcomers
I don't believe in that and it sounds totally out there, yet it's far less extreme than infant genital mutilation.
That's my point. Yes it's tongue-in-cheek. No I'm not an SCP version of a "furry" or "otherkin" who thinks that their make believe universe is real.
It's an analogy for the INSANITY of the current acceptance of mass circumcision uncritically by the masses.
You don't need a "Ketar class SCP object", simple conflict of interest from the Medical-Industrial Complex will do.
All those skin banks could turn into liabilities instead of profit centers, since preservation of the product is also preservation of the evidence.
A functioning government would waltz in, keep the power on, start sequencing the tissues and cells to identify at least some of the victims, and do this in a transparent and public way.
Are those victims not capable of identifying themselves if they feel they were indeed victimized?
(but for context, my own view on the subject is "Let's wait a hot minute before we go cutting parts off the baby")
WTF is a “Ketar class SCP object”?