Infant genetal mutilation is a blood sacrifice to the demon Yahwe.

[Broomstick]

@clairobscur

Actually, supporters of FGM have pointed at medical benefits, in particular reduced risk of contracting a STD, especially AIDS. I wouldn’t remember on what basis, but the claims are out there.

I’d say impairing a person’s enjoyment of sex or ability to engage in sex would reduce the incidence of sexually transmitted diseases in no small part by reducing the amount of sex going on.

@Blalron

One thing I’m uncertain about is whether this is because people are actually changing their minds in response to new information, or because the USA has a growing Hispanic population that doesn’t have a cultural habit of circumcising. I think there’s still plenty of reason to be depressed if the non-Hispanic white population is still circumcising at high rates.

Fewer medical insurance companies are paying for circumcision these days, too, which is contributing to the reduction in numbers - it seems that when parents have to pay for circumcision directly out of their own pocket they are more likely to forego the procedure.

@DPRK

I think that religions like Judaism unquestionably adapt or modify their practices over millennia or even centuries – eg is animal sacrifice part of mainstream Judaism today?

Due to the requirement that Jewish food animals be killed with a sharp knife across the throat some would argue that yes, it is.

But if I were a law-abiding Jewish parent in a European country where ritual circumcision was declared illegal today, not a far-fetched scenario, I imagine I would be facing a difficult dilemma (though I don’t foresee an “end to Judaism”).

If the penalty was only jail time I could imagine a lot of people risking it. Under Emperor Hadrian the penalty for circumcision was death yet the practice continued.

Can we compare to Islam, a much more popular religion? Muslims revere much of the same Biblical scripture as Jews (and Christians), yet infant circumcision is not universal AFAIK. This suggests that, at least theoretically, there is room for interpretation as to the timing of the ritual.

For Muslims, yes, there is some wiggle room. Actually, quite a bit.

@clairobscur

My stance doesn’t end Judaism. You can do everything Jewish except circumcision (and stoning adulterous women even if the temple is rebuild, etc…).

Uncircumcised boys and men can not participate in much of the ritual and tradition of Judaism. Basically, boys would be barred from practicing the religion until they were old enough to consent to circumcision. You think that wouldn’t have a huge impact?

I’m pretty sure that if every single Jew was forced as gunpoint not to circumcise, they would still practice the other parts of their religion, and would still consider themselves Jews.

They would consider themselves Jews but would be unable to participate in the religion.

Saying that’s it the equivalent of abolishing the whole religion is frankly a ludicrous claim.

A situation that results in half the children of a group not being able to participate in the religion of the group is going to have a pretty negative impact. Now, you may argue that the benefit of not circumcising infant boys outweighs the impact on the community that comes from those boys being cut off from the religious part of the community, but don’t think that the Jews will complacently yield to your viewpoint. In thousands of years of history they never have before, why would they do so now?

And in fact, the fact that some Jews don’t practice circumcision has been pointed (and I even think pointed specifically to you), so apparently they can manage.

Yes, the 2% or so of Jews that don’t circumcise always gets trotted out in these arguments. There has always been a low level of non-circumcising Jews, it’s a minuscule portion of the group, and it’s not a sign of some sort of sea-change in the group.

And remember that adult could get themselves circumcised, so it’s not even like circumcision would disappear for people who actually want it.

Yes, adults can get circumcised. The problem, from the Jewish viewpoint (other than the whole “G*d told us to do this” thing) is that it would prohibit Jewish boys from participating in religious rituals until they are circumcised.

I’ve no doubt that part of the Jewish community thinks that circumcision of infants is of crucial importance, and like to drape their opposition to ban it in the cloths of antisemitism, or forbidding their religion or abolishing their faith, but it’s obviously a ludicrous claim.

Yes, 98% of them.

Judaism won’t disappear just because you’ll need to wait until you’re 18 or whatever to get circumcised.

It’s going to have a major impact on them. Again, I get that you feel the benefits of banning circumcision on minors outweighs the impact on the group in question. But by making them wait until 18 the boys can’t be brought up in the religious tradition which means a lot of them aren’t going to stick around. You might not care about that, or even applaud it because then there will be even fewer people likely to promote IMC, but it’s going to have a devastating impact on Jews as a whole.

If society impose it (and I think it eventually will in our societies because it goes so obviously against our current values, and it won’t be ignored forever), they’ll adapt, and after a couple generations, they’ll just do what a fraction of them already do, and feel like it was ludicrous and shocking for their grandparents to insist on keeping circumcision of infants. Some super orthodox will keep doing it nevertheless and will end up in jail for it, and rightly so.

Again, historically that is not how these things have played out. There have been prior attempts to stamp out the Jewish practice of IMC, using penalties harsher than mere jail time, and it didn’t work.

On basis are you arguing that this time would be different?

But again, please, don’t assume that “Jews”, without qualifier, would necessarily all disagree with me.

You should not assume that the majority of them would agree with you, because the majority will not.

[Broomstick]

@clairobscur

http://jewishcircumcision.org/index.htm

Wow. 400 Jews out of an estimated 12-15 *million *world-wide are on record as opposed to circumcision. And they keep the list confidential, so nobody knows who those 400 people are. Not impressive.

NOCIRC

http://www.beyondthebris.com/2011/07/brit-shalom-alternative-naming-ceremony.html

Outliers. As I said, it’s no secret that there have always been a small number in the Jewish community who don’t circumcise. Anecdote is not data. Yes, that 2% who don’t engage in the practice will have alternative naming ceremonies. So what? It doesn’t change the fact that the vast majority of Jews in the world are still performing IMC as they have for thousands of years, even during times when the practice was opposed by those around them.

Again - what makes you think this time will be any different?

[Blalron]

@clairobscur

My stance doesn’t end Judaism. You can do everything Jewish except circumcision (and stoning adulterous women even if the temple is rebuild, etc…). I’m pretty sure that if every single Jew was forced as gunpoint not to circumcise, they would still practice the other parts of their religion, and would still consider themselves Jews. Saying that’s it the equivalent of abolishing the whole religion is frankly a ludicrous claim.

If that were true, it would be the strangest kind of Achilles Heel ever. They can’t cut baby penis, and the entire religion falls apart? There’s nothing else redeeming, worthwhile, or beautiful about the other rituals or traditions that would make people continue to identity as Jews? I think religious Jews who argue this are selling their religion short.

[clairobscur]

@Broomstick

Uncircumcised boys and men can not participate in much of the ritual and tradition of Judaism. Basically, boys would be barred from practicing the religion until they were old enough to consent to circumcision. You think that wouldn’t have a huge impact?

They can’t because their communities and rabbis don’t want them to. They perfectly could decide otherwise. Judaism isn’t a monolithic, unchanging religion. For instance, homosexual Jews are getting religious marriages. Do you think that this was deemed acceptable previously? In fact there are rabbis stating that people can not circumcise their sons. Presumably, they wouldn’t be in favor of excluding said children from the practice of their religion, would they? They might be a small minority, but mindsets and practices definitely can change, as shown by the example of homosexuals.

People who will refuse the participation of the uncircumcised children are the same ones who wants to keep circumcision going. Basically, it’s what in law would be called : “nemo auditur propriam turpitudinem allegans” . Their reasoning is : since I won’t let my son participate if he’s not circumcised, he will be hurt if he isn’t, so you must let me circumcise him. Well…nope.

Besides, the importance of letting a child participate in his community religious life is much lower than the importance of preserving his bodily integrity and preserving a satisfying sexual life. I know that many people dispute that circumcision has any serious consequences on sexual life, but as I already wrote, it does have been proven to my satisfaction that it does, and that in some cases it very seriously impairs it.

They would consider themselves Jews but would be unable to participate in the religion.

See above. They won’t be able to only as long as their parent’s community doesn’t want them to.

but don’t think that the Jews will complacently yield to your viewpoint. In thousands of years of history they never have before, why would they do so now?

I in fact expect they will. Once again, don’t mistake “Jews” for “religious Jews”. Those supporting circumcision might only be the ultra-orthodox minority in a couple generations.

Yes, the 2% or so of Jews that don’t circumcise always gets trotted out in these arguments. There has always been a low level of non-circumcising Jews, it’s a minuscule portion of the group, and it’s not a sign of some sort of sea-change in the group.

And it’s also a minuscule proportion that was supporting homosexual marriage. Again, things can change. Besides, from the links that had been provided, you deliberately picked the lowest number you could find. From memory, it was 3.5% in Israel, but 40% in (Norway or Sweden? Can’t remember.) So, not circumcising kids might be widespread in a Jewish community (not surprisingly, in a country were circumcision isn’t normal in the general population), and already is in some, even though it might not be in your neck of the woods. Which definitely shows that Jews can, in large numbers be fine with the absence of infant circumcision. If it can be 40% in (whatever country it was) it can be 40% or even 95% in the USA too.

Besides, you also ignored the fact (also pointed out previously in this thread) that a significant minority of Jews practice circumcision for social reasons, because it’s expected, to please the grand-parents, etc… (someone linked to a poll about it) while they aren’t really committed to it. You shouldn’t include them in the 98% you assume think that circumcision of infants is of the upmost importance.

Yes, adults can get circumcised. The problem, from the Jewish viewpoint (other than the whole “G*d told us to do this” thing) is that it would prohibit Jewish boys from participating in religious rituals until they are circumcised.

Already answered : nemo auditur propriam turpitudinem allegans .

but it’s going to have a devastating impact on Jews as a whole.

No, it won’t. It will just piss off a lot a large part of the current generation of Jews in some communities whose dearly held beliefs will be hurt. It’s not an existential threat for Jews as a whole, as those 40% from whatever country could attest, and not even for Judaism as a religion. If they can change their mind about what YHWH thinks of homosexuality, they can too about what he thinks of baby mutilation.

Religious people have been fighting tooth and nail against progress and humanism at every turn, clamoring that the end of everything holy and worth living for is at stake every time. And eventually they come to embrace these values (most of them at least). This isn’t any different, Jews aren’t any different.

Again, historically that is not how these things have played out. There have been prior attempts to stamp out the Jewish practice of IMC, using penalties harsher than mere jail time, and it didn’t work.

On basis are you arguing that this time would be different?

The world has changed. Mindlessly following traditions and religious leaders say-so isn’t much of a value in the modern world. Jews aren’t immune to that. As long as circumcision is generally accepted, they don’t have much reason to reconsider it, think much about it or not do what will please grandpa and their neighbors. Once it will become a serious ethical issue in the society they live in, it will become a serious ethical issue for them too, because for the most part they don’t have an ethical system significantly different from the rest of the population (people for whom a religious commandment is more important than anything else and trump any moral consideration are fortunately a minority).

You should not assume that the majority of them would agree with you, because the majority will not.

Time will tell.

[puzzlegal]

@clairobscur

…

Evidences that children recover more quickly than adults from a circumcision?.

babies heal more rapidly from any injury than adults do. If you’ve had a child you probably noticed. For instance, one day I came home and found that my toddler had gotten into an altercation with the cat, and had some scary scratches on her face. Coincidentally, I scratched myself less badly that evening. Her face was completely healed in two days, my arm took more than a week.

On the flip side my elderly mother broke a rib and it took months to heal. The rule of thumb for younger adults is that bones knit in six weeks.

I’m sure you can find more formal cites if you want, but honestly, this is both obvious and common knowledge.

@clairobscur

And of course, children have erections, in case you wouldn’t know (if female) or have forgotten (if male). And stretching a tissue in the process of healing is obviously unpleasant. They also masturbate, since you seem to think that not having sex for one month is an unacceptable burden to impose on an adult…

yes, children have erections. That’s why I specified “large erections”. Baby penises don’t change as much during an erection as adult penises do. At least, they certainly don’t look as different.

But 8 day old babies certainly don’t masturbate. They haven’t yet mastered the easier art of sucking their thumb. (And we can’t ask them, but I’m willing to bet that babies have a stronger urge to suck than towards anything sexual.) That’s one of the many things they don’t do yet at that age.

[Broomstick]

@Blalron

If that were true, it would be the strangest kind of Achilles Heel ever. They can’t cut baby penis, and the entire religion falls apart? There’s nothing else redeeming, worthwhile, or beautiful about the other rituals or traditions that would make people continue to identity as Jews? I think religious Jews who argue this are selling their religion short.

I think so, too, but for most observant Jews who think there are all sorts of “redeeming, worthwhile, or beautiful” rituals and traditions also believe that uncircumcised men and boys can’t participate in them.

@clairobscur

They can’t because their communities and rabbis don’t want them to. They perfectly could decide otherwise.

I’m not sure you grasp that the religion of Judaism is not a democracy. While there is much to quibble about the circumcision thing, like prohibitions against killing or worshiping other gods is pretty straightforward and not subject to ambiguity.

Judaism isn’t a monolithic, unchanging religion. For instance, homosexual Jews are getting religious marriages. Do you think that this was deemed acceptable previously?

It’s not acceptable now for most rabbis… again, you’re mistaking outliers for some sort of massive internal change.

they might be a small minority, but mindsets and practices definitely can change, as shown by the example of homosexuals.

Historically, that small minority of Jews has not had an effect on the opinions and practices of most Jews. Again, why do you things will be different this time? The Jews have thousands of years of written history, it’s not like we have to guess what they thought about these things, they wrote them down themselves.

People who will refuse the participation of the uncircumcised children are the same ones who wants to keep circumcision going.

Yes. That is self-evident.

Besides, the importance of letting a child participate in his community religious life is much lower than the importance of preserving his bodily integrity and preserving a satisfying sexual life.

That is YOUR position. The problem here is that other people have a different position - that circumcision doesn’t cause damage, or that the benefits of participating in community religious life outweighs the harm, or some other viewpoint.

History is replete with examples of one group insisting another group change their ways, assuming that other group will see their wisdom and comply without fuss. Then there’s all sorts of surprise when, no, the other does NOT meekly submit. They sneak around doing the forbidden thing(s) on the sly, or go to open rebellion.

I’m not arguing this because I’m in favor of circumcision - I’m not, I’d also like to see the practice abolished outside medical need - but because I see that Jews (and probably Muslims, but I’m not as familiar with their viewpoint) are not going to meekly submit. Again, they never have before, why would they now?

I in fact expect they will. Once again, don’t mistake “Jews” for “religious Jews”. Those supporting circumcision might only be the ultra-orthodox minority in a couple generations.

That is your hope. I think you underestimate how important IMC is to conservative and even may reform Jews.

I agree that completely secularized Jews might go along with getting rid of IMC, but since they aren’t part of the religious community or religious life it’s a non-issue for them.

The rest of them are most likely going to interpret banning IMC as being anti-semitic and yet another attempt to eliminate them. You’re talking about a group of people that other groups have tried to exterminate more than once (most recently, of course, in WWII) and are still around. That’s pretty damn stubborn.

And it’s also a minuscule proportion that was supporting homosexual marriage. Again, things can change. Besides, from the links that had been provided, you deliberately picked the lowest number you could find. From memory, it was 3.5% in Israel, but 40% in (Norway or Sweden? Can’t remember.)

There are *maybe *20,000 people in Sweden who meet the halakhic criteria of being Jewish… which only requires that your mother be born of a Jewish mother regardless of whether or not they (or their parents, or their grandparents) converted to some other religion. Only 7,000 belong to a religious community/congregation. 40% of that is 2800… against, contrasted against 12-15 million Jews world-wide. Again, I’m not impressed.

Which definitely shows that Jews can, in large numbers be fine with the absence of infant circumcision. If it can be 40% in (whatever country it was) it can be 40% or even 95% in the USA too.

It’s not large numbers. Especially since they aren’t concentrated in one spot but here and there all over the world.

Historically, Sweden at one point used to insist that any Jew that settled in Sweden be baptized as a Lutheran, so you have to question just how devoted such a person would be to either religion. They don’t require that anymore so far as I know.

It’s not an existential threat for Jews as a whole, as those 40% from whatever country could attest, and not even for Judaism as a religion. If they can change their mind about what YHWH thinks of homosexuality, they can too about what he thinks of baby mutilation.

Two points: you have provided no evidence than any but a small minority have changed their minds about homosexuality (and the Biblical prohibitions were against male acts, not what women might get up to), and many Jews do, in fact, view your proposed ban as an existential threat. That is THEIR viewpoint. That is what you fail to grasp. However YOU view it, they see it as a threat to their existence.

The world has changed. Mindlessly following traditions and religious leaders say-so isn’t much of a value in the modern world.

Is that so? Then explain all the killing done in the name of religion in the modern world, please. LOTS of people still follow religion traditions and leaders even if you wish they would not.

Jews aren’t immune to that. As long as circumcision is generally accepted, they don’t have much reason to reconsider it, think much about it or not do what will please grandpa and their neighbors.

What makes you think that circumcision was “generally accepted” in prior centuries or places outside the Anglosphere? Outside of the Middle East/Northern Africa I see no evidence of widespread acceptance in Europe/Asia and neighboring areas in any historical period.

Once it will become a serious ethical issue in the society they live in, it will become a serious ethical issue for them too, because for the most part they don’t have an ethical system significantly different from the rest of the population (people for whom a religious commandment is more important than anything else and trump any moral consideration are fortunately a minority).

Under the Roman Emperor Hadrian the penalty for circumcision was death. The Jews didn’t stop. A bunch of them were executed so the threat wasn’t empty, yet they did not stop. You’re only threatening jail time. Pfft! What makes you think that Jews would be unwilling to sit in jail for a bit to continue their way of life?

You want them to come around to your viewpoint, you hope they will, you point to outliers, but I see nothing to indicate they’d be any less stubborn with a modern ban than they were 2000 years ago.

[clairobscur]

@Broomstick

I’m not sure you grasp that the religion of Judaism is not a democracy. While there is much to quibble about the circumcision thing, like prohibitions against killing or worshiping other gods is pretty straightforward and not subject to ambiguity.

People are under no obligation to follow an authority they disagree with. When they feel strongly about something, they don’t put up with the rantings of a cleric. Like in the example of homosexuals. If they don’t, it’s their choice, not some inescapable fate.

It’s not acceptable now for most rabbis… again, you’re mistaking outliers for some sort of massive internal change.

Well, I’m not going to answer you again in detail, I would just repeat myself. Simply put, things can change and things do change. If they don’t, the responsibility lies with the practitioners who don’t want to change. If they felt that circumcision was a moral problem, they would have or create religious authorities that would be supportive of this change. People very rarely do things that they feel is wrong in the name of religion. They adapt their religion to fit in with their moral beliefs because they can believe in and follow religious teachings that they personally find immoral. If they feel that infant circumcision is wrong, they’ll feel that a rabbi stating that the should do it nevertheless is necessarily wrong.

I assume that we agree on this because reading you sometimes sounds like Jews have no choice in the matter and can’t possibly decide to abandon infant circumcision. If they don’t , it’s because they don’t want to, or at least don’t care about it, not because they can’t, and they’re fully and personally responsible for this moral choice. Once again I assume we agree at least on that.
One point I want to answer to, however :

There are *maybe *20,000 people in Sweden who meet the halakhic criteria of being Jewish… which only requires that your mother be born of a Jewish mother regardless of whether or not they (or their parents, or their grandparents) converted to some other religion. Only 7,000 belong to a religious community/congregation. 40% of that is 2800… against, contrasted against 12-15 million Jews world-wide. Again, I’m not impressed.

You should be. It’s not a matter of percentage of the global population. It’s an example of a Jewish community that had in large part abandoned infant circumcision on its own accord, despite it being lawful. While you’re arguing that Jews would never submit to laws banning it, and that if they did, that would somehow be the end of Judaism and the destruction of the Jewish community. Sweden is a clear example that Jews can have no problem abandoning infant circumcision even in the absence of laws against it.

The wide majority of American Jews might not want to abandon it, and it’s not terribly surprising in a society where even people who have no religious reason to support circumcision somehow keep grasping at straws to defend it and keep doing it on their own children with a variety of ludicrous excuses. But the Swedish example (I searched for figures for France or other countries but couldn’t find any. But it’s not obvious that Swedish Jews are an exception) shows that they perfectly could and that they likely would if circumcision was simply becoming unpopular and/or unusual, while you’re asserting that they’d never submit even to laws banning it and/or would be destroyed as a people/religion (not sure which) if such laws were passed.

American Jews aren’t just Jews culturally. They’re Americans. They live in a society where utmost respect for anything religious is expected, where circumcision is considered normal and widely practiced by a large part of the population, and where people talk about taking their guns from their cold hands if the government looks like it might do someday something that might slightly inconvenience them. In this context, the kind of views you report (“not being able to snip my baby’s penis in the name of god would be the end of everything and I would never submit to such an horrible oppression”) aren’t surprising. But it doesn’t mean that Jews in general can’t decide to stop circumcising infants, or that abandoning it would be the end of Judaism.

That’s what the Swedish example demonstrates, and it doesn’t matter if Swedish Jews are only a tiny percentage of the global Jewish population (and once again, at this point there’s no evidence that there isn’t a similar situation in other countries). It shows that you’re wrong when you state that Jews can’t adapt to this change (in fact they can even initiate it by themselves in large numbers), that you’re wrong when you state, based of historical examples, that they would do anything rather than accept it, and that you’re wrong when you state that it would be the end of Judaism. That might be what your Jewish friends think and say, but it’s demonstrated to be false by this example alone.

[Broomstick]

@clairobscur

People are under no obligation to follow an authority they disagree with. When they feel strongly about something, they don’t put up with the rantings of a cleric. Like in the example of homosexuals. If they don’t, it’s their choice, not some inescapable fate.

If a Jewish congregation has problems with the rabbi they just fire him and hire a new one - it’s not like Christianity where people go to a pastor’s church or the Vatican assigns a priest to a parish. Jews hire their rabbis, the rabbi works for the congregation in a pretty explicit employer/employee relationship. It’s not the rabbis driving this, it’s the members of the temple/synagogue.

Simply put, things can change and things do change.

But they do not HAVE TO change.

You’re also assuming they’ll change in the direction you want them to, but, again, experience with other cultures shows that sometimes when you try to ban a practice the group doing it doubles-down on their efforts to continue it.

If they felt that circumcision was a moral problem, they would have or create religious authorities that would be supportive of this change.

As it stands, the vast majority of Jews apparently don’t have a moral problem with IMC.

I assume that we agree on this because reading you sometimes sounds like Jews have no choice in the matter and can’t possibly decide to abandon infant circumcision. If they don’t , it’s because they don’t want to, or at least don’t care about it, not because they can’t, and they’re fully and personally responsible for this moral choice. Once again I assume we agree at least on that.

Yes. Of course Jews have a choice, where I think you’re going astray is thinking that they’re going to change course on this any time soon in any significant numbers.

You should be. It’s not a matter of percentage of the global population. It’s an example of a Jewish community that had in large part abandoned infant circumcision on its own accord, despite it being lawful.

And, again - there have always been splinter groups of Jews that abandoned circumcision (the early history of Christianity documents some of those) but the vast majority of Jews apparently have zero desire to give up IMC. Even under pain of death as in Hadrian’s time. Jews have martyred themselves for IMC as early Christians faced death rather than recant their beliefs.

While you’re arguing that Jews would never submit to laws banning it, and that if they did, that would somehow be the end of Judaism and the destruction of the Jewish community.

>I< do not claim that. I do, however, hear some Jewish people claim that. Also, as I have mentioned numerous times, there have been past attempts to ban IMC and the Jews pushed back hard.

Sweden is a clear example that Jews can have no problem abandoning infant circumcision even in the absence of laws against it.

I get that you really, really want world-wide Judiaism to go the way Swedish Jews have, but I think it’s a vain hope on your part born of ethnocentrism and failure to grasp just how important IMC can be to observant Jewish people, and even some not-so-observant Jewish people.

But the Swedish example (I searched for figures for France or other countries but couldn’t find any. But it’s not obvious that Swedish Jews are an exception)

The Swedish Jews are very much an exception - IMC is nearly universal among other Jewish groups with, apparently, and exception in the San Francisco area, which sort of belies your argument that American Jews keep on with IMC because of the wider culture in which they live.

But it doesn’t mean that Jews in general can’t decide to stop circumcising infants, or that abandoning it would be the end of Judaism.

It doesn’t mean they will abandon it, even if they are able to do so.

That’s what the Swedish example demonstrates, and it doesn’t matter if Swedish Jews are only a tiny percentage of the global Jewish population (and once again, at this point there’s no evidence that there isn’t a similar situation in other countries).

You provide zero evidence to support your claim that there are any significant percentage of Jews in other countries abandoning IMC - you are hoping that is the case, but it is a hope entirely without any factual basis to support it, in the face of a culture that has been practicing IMC for thousands of years even in the face of strong opposition to the practice.

[puzzlegal]

It’s also not a change that’s easy for one family to make. Failing to circumcise your son means cutting him off from the rest of the community. If you are secular enough that you don’t care if he is unlikely to be able to marry a Jew, that might not be a problem for you, but otherwise, that’s a really big cost.

[Blalron]

@Broomstick

Under the Roman Emperor Hadrian the penalty for circumcision was death. The Jews didn’t stop. A bunch of them were executed so the threat wasn’t empty, yet they did not stop. You’re only threatening jail time. Pfft! What makes you think that Jews would be unwilling to sit in jail for a bit to continue their way of life?

That was during ancient times. They didn’t have the cultural influence of the Enlightenment and Modernity that people in the West have now. When people believed in God, they fricking believed in God. While a relative handful of Ultra-Orthodox die hards will break the law, I don’t think most American Jews in 2018 are willing to maryr themselves over this issue.

The fact that some people are willing to break the law is not a good argument against passing a law. Most American circumcisions are non-religious anyway, and performed by doctors, so a law will probably result in a 95% reduction in circumcisions. Doctors aren’t performing it for religious reasons, and they aren’t going to risk losing their medical license of this.

[Blalron]

There’s a non-profit organization called Foregen that is working on using stem cells to regenerate and reattach the foreskin. They estimate that the procedure will cost $10,000. Let’s say they succeed in their mission. Should parents be required to pay for foreskin restoration surgery if their children reach adulthood and decide they aren’t happy with their circumcision?

[Broomstick]

@Blalron

That was during ancient times. They didn’t have the cultural influence of the Enlightenment and Modernity that people in the West have now. When people believed in God, they fricking believed in God. While a relative handful of Ultra-Orthodox die hards will break the law, I don’t think most American Jews in 2018 are willing to maryr themselves over this issue.

You aren’t asking them to martyr themselves. At most, you’re asking them to sit in jail for a bit.

And the Enlightenment and “Modernity” hasn’t eliminated all stupid traditions and practices in the West, either. I offer up the severe corseting of the 19th Century and modern high heels as just two examples of stupid, harmful practices that can lead to deformity and health problems and neither of those had/have a religion justification.

Most American circumcisions are non-religious anyway, and performed by doctors, so a law will probably result in a 95% reduction in circumcisions. Doctors aren’t performing it for religious reasons, and they aren’t going to risk losing their medical license of this.

So outlaw non-medical circumcision and make an exception for Jews. You’ll still eliminate your 95%. That would be a fantastic harm reduction right there. Make the requirement for Jews that it be done under hygienic conditions and require the *mohel *to be trained medically (some already are, so that reform should be relatively easy to introduce). Work with them to promote less extreme forms of IMC, mandate anesthesia, push towards just trimming the very tip of the foreskin and leaving most intact (which even has some historical precedent in Jewish history). Much less disruptive and might even get better results than a blanket ban that results in the practice going underground where it will be even more dangerous.

Not sure about the Muslims - I think most that practice circumcision don’t do infants but older children, teens, and adults where true consent is possible, especially in the older cohorts.

[Blalron]

@clairobscur

The wide majority of American Jews might not want to abandon it, and it’s not terribly surprising in a society where even people who have no religious reason to support circumcision somehow keep grasping at straws to defend it and keep doing it on their own children with a variety of ludicrous excuses.

Yes, I think what’s going on here is an example of escalation of commitment

@Wikipedia

Escalation of commitment is a human behavior pattern in which an individual or group facing increasingly negative outcomes from some decision, action, or investment nevertheless continues the same behavior rather than alter course. The actor maintains behaviors that are irrational, but align with previous decisions and actions.[1]

Economists and behavioral scientists use a related term, sunk-cost fallacy, to describe the justification of increased investment of money, time, lives, etc. in a decision, based on the cumulative prior investment (“sunk cost”) despite new evidence suggesting that the cost, beginning immediately, of continuing the decision outweighs the expected benefit.

In sociology, irrational escalation of commitment or commitment bias describe similar behaviours. The phenomenon and the sentiment underlying it are reflected in such proverbial images as “throwing good money after bad”, “in for a penny, in for a pound”, and “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again”.

There’s a clear commitment bias here. Because circumcision is irreversible with current technology, there’s understandably a strong psychological aversion on the part of circumcised men to considering whether circumcision is bad. When a new father is faced with the decision to circumcise his son, to admit that circumcision is wrong would be to open yourself up to feeling that something bad happened to oneself, to one’s own penis. Who wants to admit to themselves that they have a mutilated, desensitized penis?

[puzzlegal]

@Broomstick

…
So outlaw non-medical circumcision and make an exception for Jews. You’ll still eliminate your 95%. That would be a fantastic harm reduction right there. Make the requirement for Jews that it be done under hygienic conditions and require the *mohel *to be trained medically (some already are, so that reform should be relatively easy to introduce). Work with them to promote less extreme forms of IMC, mandate anesthesia, push towards just trimming the very tip of the foreskin and leaving most intact (which even has some historical precedent in Jewish history). Much less disruptive and might even get better results than a blanket ban that results in the practice going underground where it will be even more dangerous.

Not sure about the Muslims - I think most that practice circumcision don’t do infants but older children, teens, and adults where true consent is possible, especially in the older cohorts.

Heck, just convince pediatricians it shouldn’t be done unless there isa religious or medical necessity. That would eliminate 95% of infant circumcisions right there.

I’m not sure about the “trained medically” part, though. As a Jew, I have attended several circumcisions, and the one that was done by a doctor was by far the most brutal. It also removed the most foreskin. The “traditional” procedure has the infant in the lap of the god parent. The infant is given a small amount of sweet wine. Then the moyel swipes with a disinfectant, yanks the foreskin forward, slides a metal shield between the tip of the penis and the extended foreskin, and then uses a sterile disposable blade to slice off the end of the foreskin. The metal shield is perpendicular to the penis, isolating the part of the foreskin that extends beyind the tip. The whole thing takes about 30 seconds, and then the infant is passed to the mother, who nurses it.

The “medical” procedure started by strapping the infant into a plastic board to hold it in place. The infant started screaming as this was done, as that’s obviously not a normal thing to be done to an infant. Then the doctor peeled the foreskin from the glans, slowly, and invoking screams of pain as well as fear. Then a metal piece was inserted between the foreskin and the glans, (sort of a tube-shaped shield, up next to the glans, rather than the flat shield beyond the glans in the traditional procedure) and finally the surgeon started slicing around the contraption, severing pretty much all of the foreskin. It must have taken at least fifteen minutes, all of which was traumatic to the baby, and most of it painful.

Maybe train doctors to perform less traumatic circumcisions while you are at it.

[puzzlegal]

Actually, the most traumatic circumcision I went to was one where they learned that the infant had hemophilia, and he had to be taken to the OR and treated with clotting factor. His younger brother was tested for hemophilia and would not have been circumcised had he tested positive. So there is an out for Orthodox Jews.

And I guess I left out the bit at the end where the mohel dabs away the blood with a bit of sterile gauze (and observes that the blood flow has stopped) and applies some petroleum jelly and gives the infant a wine-soaked rag to suck on briefly before being passed to the mom. That was the same in all the circumcisions I’ve been to except the hemophiliac one.

[coffeecat]

@Blalron

There’s a clear commitment bias here. Because circumcision is irreversible with current technology, there’s understandably a strong psychological aversion on the part of circumcised men to considering whether circumcision is bad. When a new father is faced with the decision to circumcise his son, to admit that circumcision is wrong would be to open yourself up to feeling that something bad happened to oneself, to one’s own penis. Who wants to admit to themselves that they have a mutilated, desensitized penis?

Yes, I’m sure you know the thoughts and feelings of men you’ve never met better than they do themselves. :rolleyes: Is one of the functions of the foreskin mental telepathy?

[Ambivalid]

@Blalron

There’s a clear commitment bias here. Because circumcision is irreversible with current technology, there’s understandably a strong psychological aversion on the part of circumcised men to considering whether circumcision is bad. When a new father is faced with the decision to circumcise his son, to admit that circumcision is wrong would be to open yourself up to feeling that something bad happened to oneself, to one’s own penis. Who wants to admit to themselves that they have a mutilated, desensitized penis?

O-M-G. This is the silliest thing ive read in a long time. See, circumcision is really NBD to most who have undergone it. Knowing today what I do about unnecessary circumcision, I would abstain from getting my son cut, if i were to have a child. Being circumcised myself, I don’t feel mutilated or like “something bad” happened to me as a baby.* Most circumsized men don’t either, I would wager.

If a father chose to go forward with circumcizing his son, simply because he was too scared to recognize/admit that his own circumcision was unnecessary, well, I think that man has bigger problems than his absent foreskin.

If the “desensitized” bit is true, then count me as one happy camper. I already take steps to avoid an ‘early exit’ without my foreskin. I’d be miserable if the head of my penis was more sensitive. So, for many of us guys, the decrease in densitivity is a feature not a bug.

[Blalron]

@Broomstick

So outlaw non-medical circumcision and make an exception for Jews. You’ll still eliminate your 95%. That would be a fantastic harm reduction right there.

Jewish babies are equally deserving of protection from harm as Gentile babies. To borrow a phrase from George W. Bush in an entirely different context, to not protect them would be the “soft bigotry of lowered expectations”.

I believe a broad ban on non-medical circumcision of minors would pass constitutional muster. Justice Scalia wrote in Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith:

@Justice Antonin Scalia

We have never held that an individual’s religious beliefs [p879] excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate. On the contrary, the record of more than a century of our free exercise jurisprudence contradicts that proposition. As described succinctly by Justice Frankfurter in Minersville School Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Gobitis, 310 U.S. 586, 594-595 (1940):

Conscientious scruples have not, in the course of the long struggle for religious toleration, relieved the individual from obedience to a general law not aimed at the promotion or restriction of religious beliefs. The mere possession of religious convictions which contradict the relevant concerns of a political society does not relieve the citizen from the discharge of political responsibilities.

(Footnote omitted.) We first had occasion to assert that principle in Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145 (1879), where we rejected the claim that criminal laws against polygamy could not be constitutionally applied to those whose religion commanded the practice. **“Laws,” we said,

are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. . . . Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself**.

Subsequent decisions have consistently held that the right of free exercise does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability on the ground that the law proscribes (or prescribes) conduct that his religion prescribes (or proscribes).

The Supreme Court has upheld many laws, despite religious objections to their universal application. Polygamy, child labor, peyote use, military selective service, Social Security taxes. I see no reason to treat circumcision differently. It would be a “valid and neutral law of general applicability”.

[Blalron]

@Broomstick

You aren’t asking them to martyr themselves. At most, you’re asking them to sit in jail for a bit.

The Federal law against FGM imposes up to 5 years in prison for removing any part of the labia (directly analogous to the male foreskin) or clitoris.18 U.S. Code § 116. If we were living in a sane and just society, we’d grant boys the same protection as girls. So we’d be talking up to 5 years. If you had to make a purely speculative guess, what percentage of American Jews do you believe would break that law?

[coffeecat]

@Blalron

The Federal law against FGM imposes up to 5 years in prison for removing any part of the labia (directly analogous to the male foreskin) or clitoris.18 U.S. Code § 116. If we were living in a sane and just society, we’d grant boys the same protection as girls. So we’d be talking up to 5 years. If you had to make a purely speculative guess, what percentage of American Jews do you believe would break that law?

Most of them. Please observe prohibition and the war on drugs, where millions of people have risked prison, not for any transcendent reason, but to fight for their right to party. Some Jews might circumcise because of that law, because fuck that bullshit. We are a stiff-necked people.

I have changed my mind because of this thread. I no longer oppose FGC.