The people that keep saying it has no medical baring what so ever are simply wrong. Medical fact is against you
What medical fact?... that it reduces the risk of penile cancer, which is already extremely rare in the first place?
That it reduces urinary tract infection, whose cause is poor hygeine in the first place? If a baby is getting that many infection in his first year of life, then more than likely the culprit is that his parents don't know how to clean his foreskin; and why would they not know how to do that? Because they live in a society that is completely ignorant of the function of the foreskin.
and you can go on with the absolutely bogus claim of "mutiliation" all you want, it doesn't change the fact you're wrong. Studies have shown it has medical benefits. Whether those benefits are enough to do it or not is entirely up to the Parents, but the main pediatric medical group in America does not recommend against circumcision and does state there are legitimate medical reasons for it.
I agree that there are legitimate medical reasons for it, but those are medical reasons that are self-evident when the baby is born, such as a foreskin that is too tight, or one that doesn't open enough to allow the glans to protrude. Those are natural problems that require medical help. Preventative circumcision (i.e. he "might" get an infection sometime in his life) is not medicine, but supposition.
As far as "just wear a condom or clean it well", again, even if you do those it can still be medically beneficial in regards to urinary tract infection, STD's, and general cleanliness and the ramifications that can bring upon you. Yes "just wear a condom" sounds great. If they had a vaccine for the common cold would you not get it because you "just wash your hands" all the time and avoid sick people? Vaccinations in and of themselves have been known to have serious side effects including death but we routinely give them to kids because parents decide taht the benefits outweigh the risks. I guess all those in the mutilator crowd will also now be saying that parents like to stab and shank their children too?
The AIDS argument is employed a lot but it doesn't add up. First of all, you get AIDS, not because you have a foreskin, but because you have unprotected sex and put yourself at risk. Secondly, even with the removal of the foreskin, your risk does not vanish, nor does it render you immune to all the other STDs out there.
Your comparison to circumcision being like a vaccination is completely and utterly flawed. Circumcision does not make you immune to
any STD.
Not to mention the ONLY way one could even fit circmucision into the definition of mutilation would require one also to believe they mutilate their child every time they cut their hair, pull a tooth, clip finger nails, or cut the umbillical cord.
More red herrings. You pull a tooth when the mouth is overcrowded, or when a cavity has progressed to becoming a potential abcess and is thus life threatening. Hair, nails, and the umbillical cord? Please tell me you are joking. You're a fine debater and even you must see that none of these things are comparable to a foreskin? A foreskin never grows back, and it is a functional part of the entire apparatus. Furthermore, its removal is painful and unnecessary. Maybe if you compared it to something irreplaceable, like cutting off a finger, you'd be closer to the mark.
I have read more about doctors who don't perform circumcision properly (i.e. they make it too tight, don't remove enough of the foreskin, or the incision marks leave scarring that causes complications later) than I have about non-circumcised boys suffering terribly in life for having a foreskin.
I agree that it's the parents' choice over whether or not to have this procedure performed, but let's not delude ourselves into believing there are such overwhelmingly good reasons for doing it. The medical reasoning behind it is shaky at best, since most of the "risk" to men with a foreskin can be easily mitigated with proper hygeine. Most of the belief in circumcision stems from the religious crowd, or from the last medical generation that didn't even know what they were talking about. Both of those go hand in hand for why organizations like the UN advocate it so much.
The world's three largest religions, accounting for billions, all advocate for circumcision. Of course people think a circumcised penis looks attractive... because we have generations of people who have
never seen what a natural penis even looks like. So of course that will establish an aesthetic norm.
