Serious injury? Nope. Mutilation? Yup.
Sunrazor I am happy to have that conversation in the appropriate venue and the link is provided. I am however mindful of appropiate board ettiquette. IMHO is not for debates. Polls do belong here.
The linked GD thread is a debate in which some are claiming that circumcision is a serious enough injury as to warrant being labelled abuse of babies. Some in that thread would like to see this “barabaric practice” outlawed and have no interest in even hearing about why it is such a critical part of Jewish identity and tradition. No one is trying to convince anyone else to circumcise. Some are trying to defend their own individual preference for it for themselves and for their sons.
Feel free to chime in there although again I think the arguments have become very circular by now, to be most kind about it.
I’m not sure how to answer; I don’t like the idea of circumcision. I would consider it a grievous injury if someone performed it forcibly on me today. In terms of how seriously upset I would be about it - less than if someone blinded me - more than if someone cut one of my ears off or broke a bone. Probably about the same as if they removed all my teeth.
To me, “injury” implies that it can heal. I’ll echo MostlyClueless: It’s not an injury, it’s a mutilation.
Not at all. But thanks to lack of education and condom supply in the third world, and the influence of the church groups either forbidding condom use or vainly attempting to promote abstinence in many such places, this isn’t looking very likely.
Another vote here for not a serious injury, but definitely a mutilation.
Mutilation. Disfigurement. Injury to me implies unintentional.
Mark me down as “not an injury, but a mutilation.”
Serious injury, defininitively, not only to the penis, but also to the soul…
Someone else said that an injury was something you can recover from. Well you cannot recover from amputation.
Infant Circumcision is serious mutilation without consent. How anyone can justify this I know not.
I agree, not so much an injury since its deliberate, but not serious.
Serious to me would be breaking a limb badly or damaging an internal organ. Circumcision would be like loosing a few teeth. Somewhat cosmetic, but with some discernable physical effects.
Actually, the OP seems to feel differently:
Well, so is ear piercing.
I am uncircumcised. I like it that way, but wouldn’t know any difference if I had been circumcised at a few weeks or months old. It’s unnecessary but far from serious.
‘Serious injury’ is the wrong term, but it is not a trivial modification and I would NOT be happy if I had to be circed for some reason.
“Serious injury” to me implies something with significant risk of death or permanent disability. I don’t see that circumcision qualifies in that department.
Having said which, if anybody wants me to part with even a small portion of my anatomy, they’d better have a damn good reason. And the pro-circumcision arguments I’ve heard don’t (to coin a phrase) cut it.
You should take a look at the stats on botched circumcisions. There are babies that die and others that suffer pain permantly. There were some boys that had such botched circumcision that doctors advised the parents to give the baby hormones and try to raise it as a girl.
NajaHusband says he’s unsure how to answer the question, and like many says “injury is the wrong word, implies accidental.”
Ear piercing is quite mild in comparison and heals over completely AFAIK.
Not wanting to turn this into a debate, but once the holes ‘heal through’, they are there for good - I have a piercing in my left ear in which I haven’t worn anything for fifteen years, but I can still push a pin through it when I want to (and I do, occasionally, to gross out unsuspecting kids).
I always thought when women talked about getting their ears reholed or repunched that meant the holes healed completely. In any case, would you swap an unblemished ear for your foreskin