Agreed. People need to drop the comparison to FGM if they want their arguments to be taken seriously. It’s a separate issue that exists within a radically different social context. If one can’t argue for or against male circumcision on its own merit, there is no case. No piggybacking off of high-emotion issues, just lay out the facts.
The facts as described suggest to me that the results are inconclusive. I probably will never be in a position to make this decision, but when the evidence is inconclusive, I, like clairobscur, will err on the side of not slicing up a baby’s genitals. Yet I’ve yet to see evidence persuasive enough to justify punishing parents who make the decision to circumcise.
I am not going to speculate on something I neither know nor remember, that’s all. I was circumcised at some point in my infancy and I don’t remember the event or the levels of pain. Therefore it would be wrong for me to claim that it’s painful, or not. Though I assume it would be very painful. But assuming (and “pretty sure”) is not the same as knowing. Again, that’s all I was saying.
“Pain” is kind of tricky for very, very young infants. It isn’t that “they don’t feel pain.” They just don’t comprehend it quite the way older children (or adults) do.
Do you remember teething? Neither do I…but I’ll bet it hurt a lot worse than circumcision.
A friend of mine had a baby that would pull its own hair out. And scream from the pain. And continue to pull its hair. And scream. It had no conception of causing pain to itself.
I probably should not have used the word “woo.” What I am describing is the fact that the “circumcision is evil” crowd have not proven this, and yet want to demand that everyone stop doing it. To me, that is like a religious belief.
Circumcision is a religious practice for some, sure. But its use in the U.S. is largely not. Nearly half of all males are circumcised here. And yet there is still no proof of harm by the practice. This is unlike the other issues being brought up as supposedly similar. Slavery is clearly harmful to the slaves. And something more appropriate like spanking a child, while originally thought to be beneficial, has been shown to be harmless.
FGM is harmful. This has been shown. Linking circumcision to that is a “woo” argument. It’s borrowing the emotional hatred for one thing to attack another. As are most other attempts to say it is wrong. You need to show actual harm by the practice, beyond your own personal revulsion.
The reason I say that I will circumcise my future son (though it’s likely I’ll never have one) is that I do not want to support this belief that circumcision is wrong. It is not proven, and the actual studies seem to show somewhere between no harm to actual benefits. Also, when it comes to penes, I am aware of how my own works, but not how an uncircumcised one works. And I would want to actually be open about sex stuff with my kid (withing reason and age-appropriateness).
All of that put together takes what was once a 50/50 issue and pushes it over to “will circumcise.”
(My response might have actually went like Spice Weasel’s if not for everyone telling me it was wrong without proof, since the default in a 50/50 situation is “don’t.”)
As for the question in the OP–unless you can prove that there is actual harm in circumcision, I see no reason that Jewish people would ever change their religious practices. It’s hard enough to get actual harmful practices stopped. The fact that you find it barbaric is no more important than someone thinking that them not believing in Jesus is wrong.
If anything, stopping FGM first would actually be a good sign that, if you can ever prove there is something harmful about circumcision, that we could get it to be stopped.
The situation is slightly odder than that, since the current situation is apparently that many American doctors will cheerfully decide to do circumcisions on their own initiative due to habit or standardized procedure. So the question is less “should I circumcise my kid” than “should I actively and aggressively prevent the circumcision of my kid if the doctor wants to do it.” And thus the default “don’t” approach is just to permit the doctor to do whatever he wants.