The Cruelty of Circumcision
October 26, 2009 · By Jonathan McLeod
Over at my blog, I comment on a recent story of the effects of routine circumcision on a boy’s brain. I’d love to hear people’s comments.
On a related note, here’s an old post by Freddie at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen in which he completely eviscerates a Matt Steinglass post on circumcision. Putting aside the substance, it’s a great explanation of how not to write a blog post.
You probably should have disclosed that the “study” on a boy’s brain only had but one subject, and thus can’t conclude anything.
Anyways, it was a good read but I also found that the exchange was fairly even between them.
Freddie merely outlined the blog-post formula, right down to the position paper 101 rule of having a provocative title (nice title btw).
He then employs much of the same tactics used by Matt while “eviscerating” him. I could picture them exchanging blows for weeks, gaining zero ground all while committing the endless sins they each accuse each other of committing.
To my knowledge, a circumcision is not a mandatory procedure. If people don’t want their child circumcised, they know what not to do. “Oops I booked an appointment and accidentally had my son’s foreskin removed…” unlikely.
I have some sympathy for the religious identity justification, if only because it is not dishonest. Unlike the medical justifications that have been offered for infant circumcision, religious identity does not presume an unlikely hypothetical scenario for which the proposed solution is to excise a normal part of the male body. Obviously, should one cut off any part of their body, one will not, ever again, have a problem with that part of their body in the future. At the very least, parents who want to circumcise their son for religious reasons are embracing the present and see a circumcision as a rite of passage for their son.
However, religious identity (the tenets thereof) is always open to criticism, and should be, because criticism tests one’s faith and encourages one to appreciate whether or not they are, in reality, acting in good faith. Here, it seems, there are two common sense reasons why a parent’s decision to circumcise their infant son is a failure to act in good faith.
First, every parent knows, or is capable of figuring out, that they do not know whether or not their son prefers to be circumcised; he is an infant and can’t make an informed choice for himself at that stage of life. Likewise, they know that when their son is older he will arrive at some understanding or another, for himself, as to whether or not he should have been circumcised at his parent’s discretion. Every parent knows that they do not know what conclusion their son will reach about any decision they make on this matter.
Second, every parent knows, or is capable of figuring out, that an infant circumcision is not necessary, and, at that stage of life, is most certainly a blatant cosmetic alteration of normal male anatomy. When their son is older, should he ever have a problem with his foreskin, every parent is capable of figuring out that there are demonstrable ways of treating such problems, one of which—the most drastic—is circumcision.
Given that everyone knows these two things, there is no sound justification for allowing infant circumcision at the parent’s discretion under Canadian law.
Parental discretion is a pragmatic solution. However, given what everyone knows or is capable of figuring out about infant circumcision, the practice is criminal in nature. It is criminal, not because of any explicit intent to do harm (Many people conclude that infant circumcision is best for the welfare of their child.), but, rather, because it is contrary to the substance of individual dignity under Canadian law. Every Canadian infant deserves to be protected under Canadian law against unnecessary cosmetic alteration—that is not to correct an anomalous deformity—they may or may not eventually desire.
Some of us Intactivists are uneasy about the brain-scan during a circumcision, because of its dubious ethics (the lack of anaesthetic is particularly troubling) and its doubtful provenance (the dog ate my homework). What it should do is prompt someone to do a properly approved, properly documented, controlled, double-blinded (at least after the first reading) study.
RD: “If people don’t want their child circumcised, they know what not to do.”
Unfortunately that is not the end of the ethical question. The child is under the protection of his parents; he is not their property. Cutting part of his genitals off may have been considered ethically acceptable in the past, but so are many practices that are no longer so. It is not a typical “decision that parents must make”. For one thing, in most of the English-speaking world and much of the developed world it is not offered. For another, there is no other healthy, integral, functional, non-renewable part of his body that parents may have cut off at their whim, and no such part at all of their daughter’s – and of course nobody may circumcise an adult man without his consent – not even his parents. So the question arises, why should the infant male foreskin alone be an exception?
I think I am having a change of heart on this one. You guys might be right — the government does know what is best for your children.
Law enforcement is one thing. What does this have to do with government?
To justify infant circumcision on the basis of a parent knowing what is best for their child—better than the government—assumes that a choice that can reasonably be made one way or another that does not infringe upon the prerogative of the one being circumcised to make that decision for themselves.
Every parent knows that they do not know their child’s preference regarding any cosmetic alteration. Everyone knows that that the procedure is not necessary.
It’s a false choice that cannot be made in good faith in a country that endows individual persons with dignity.
PS. The people who emphasize the equation of male circumcision with female circumcision are tiresome drones who do not appreciate the vast differences in procedure and consequence. While one form of female circumcision is somewhat comparable, that is not why these procedures should be banned.
They should be banned because it is simply not right to cosmetically alter someone else’s body without their consent and for no good reason, to correct something that is not problematic. A cleft lip or cleft palate is one thing, this is quite another; circumcision does not correct an anomalous deformity.
I better correct myself.
Men should be able to choose the procedure for themselves, once they reach the age of majority.
Still thinking about whether or not women should have that choice, which is not presently the case in Canada. I’m inclined toward yes.
What do you think?
I can’t fathom anyone (male or female) choosing this procedure if given the choice. However, I can’t imagine any barrier – even for women – to the procedure if you’re a consenting adult. What stopping a doctor from preforming the procedure on a women in Canada?
Chris,
If you want to wage a holy war against Jews and Muslims over their religious practices, go ahead but I do not want you to use my money and I reject your justification for doing so.
Wrong.
The justification lies with bestowing parents the over-riding authority to make the decision.
You can disagree with it or bemoan it, but parental authority is sufficient to warrant circumcision, inoculation, ear piercing, dietary regimens, mole excising, naval hernia repair, hydrocoele correction, religious indoctrination, and a litany of other non-essential, non-life-threatening choices that a child might otherwise not have made for him or herself.
Canadian law agrees and endorses parental choice.
You may question why it agrees, but I offer that the line between state and parental control over children should remain where it is, which with the authority squarely in the hands of the parents.
We, the people, need to be very, very careful about the basis upon which we invite the state to control parental discretion.
I also have a question: Has anyone in here besides me actually witnessed an infant circumcision by a medical professional? I am asking because my experience is MARKEDLY different than the one described in the linked post.
I, “child mutilator,” have witnessed two male child circumcisions, those of my boys. One slept through the entire thing (they use a topical anesthetic before administering the local anesthetic). The other one cried only when the local anesthetic was given.
Once the anesthetic was in place there was no apparent stress whatsoever on the child. No crying, no discomfort. Afterward there was extremely little bleeding and the skin healed completely in about a week.
I have witnessed my boys under more distress at gas pain or a dirty diaper or diaper rash or allergic response or fatigue than I’ve seen during or after a circumcision procedure.
While I’m personally indifferent to the circumcision debate, I have to certainly agree with Mark on one thing in particular:
And I have to say, good on the government for doing so.
Why? Well so long as parental control and authority rests in the hands OF parents, so too does responsibility and liability.
Again I agree completely. Not only to protect our responsibilities and for lack of a better word, “rights”, as citizens and parents, but also to assure that responsibility and accountability do remain the burden of parents for their children and the raising of them.
Charles, I’m sure you’ll appreciate that the more the state takes away those responsibilities from parents, the more they themselves become financially responsible for those assumed responsibilities, which in turn leads to larger government that spawns more government programs.
@RD
In the post to which I link, I write:
@Christopher Northcott
Well argued. I’m not one for criminalizing circumcision. I’m a little too wary of infringing on parental rights. Nonetheless, you’re starting to sway me.
@Hugh7
It seems to me that doing a circumcision without providing any form of pain management is pretty nasty. Unfortunately, that’s what a lot of hospitals do. And I agree, the study may not be conclusive, but it’s a good jumping off point.
@Mark Peters
I’m with you on the parental choice aspect. And I applaud you for being present for the circumcisions of your boys (and I’m glad they had anesthetic). There’s certainly more to the issue than the aspect that this study addresses, but I don’t think this should be ignored (and I think it’s abhorrent that the hospital demanded that all the results be destroyed – that gives me faith in that hospital to get informed consent from all patients).
@Charles Anthony
Can’t you get a militia together and just fix this country’s ills already? You owe it to the rest of us :)
It is worth recalling that I’m the guy who has argued for the accommodation of freedom of conscience in an unrelated thread.
http://www.thepolitic.com/arch.....e-his-job/
Likewise, I am making a freedom of conscience argument against infant circumcision at the discretion of the parents, the government, or anyone else, when the procedure is not necessary.
With respect, Jonathan, I think the title of this thread is confusing, and, well, over the top. Mark’s experience of the procedure is shared by other parents, so the substance of your initial post does not appear to hold true given this exception, as you acknowledge.
FIRST, male circumcision is not mutilation. The circumcision of an infant is not, necessarily, an act of cruelty.
Many men choose to undergo this procedure for a variety of reasons, one of which is to signify a religious covenant with God, indentifying with a community of believers. Other men choose the procedure for medical reasons. However, a medical justification only holds true when a circumcision is undergone for the correction of some anatomical pathology impeding the normal functioning of the foreskin. In the absence of any such condition, there is no medical justification.
Now, there might be the PRESUMPTION of a medical justification based upon some belief that “problems” will likely ensue in the absence of a circumcision. With respect to infant circumcision, such a belief EITHER possesses no scientific credibility—because there is no way to predict such things, INDIVIDUALLY, especially when the outcome is influenced by lifestyle and choice, and infants are, by definition, underdeveloped creatures—OR it makes as much sense as, say, cutting off any part of one’s body for the sake of never encumbering any infirmity from that specific anatomy in the future.
I am not aware of any instance where the circumcision of an infant is necessary for the treatment of an established anatomical pathology; simply having a foreskin is not one. In all instances, it seems, infant circumcision is, from a medical standpoint, cosmetic. In other words, it is a “making-up” of an infant’s physical condition for a better way of living; be it for some perceived wellness, be it to make him look more like his Dad, or, be it to honour God, etc.
A cosmetic justification—the only justification that can be made for infant circumcision, it seems—is cultural, not for the treatment of an immediate medical condition.
Being cultural, it is not an act of mutilation from the standpoint of the parents who decide to do that to their son for the sake of some better way of living (Although it could be mutilation from the standpoint of the son once he arrives at his own understanding of the matter.). And this is why I write above that I have some sympathy for religious justifications for infant circumcision. They are not dishonest. They are sincerely held and believed.
BUT ….
SECOND, just because you sincerely believe something does not make it true. To believe ANYTHING is an act of faith. And because belief is an act of faith, the truth of which is contingent on the actual created order of reality, acting in good faith is always better than acting in bad faith. To do so is to try one’s best not to evade living in the real and common world.
On all matters of faith, being reasonable is entirely different from being rational. To be reasonable requires some appreciation for the limits of what one knows and how one knows it. To be reasonable requires the humility to understand what one loves and how one chooses to love it, relative to everything else, including Creation itself. In contrast, rationality provides a logical explanation on some matter or another; any one rationale may or may not hold to be true.
Whereas a reasonable man loves what is true, being humbled by it, a rational man does not necessarily love the truth. Rational men can just do rhetoric. Being aware that one is endowed with a soul—that they are limited and dependent Creatures in reality—is no requirement of rationality.
To make a long story short, freedom of conscience is necessary so that men can exercise their souls, trying, as they might, to act in good faith, not in bad faith. This is why freedom of conscience and individual dignity is so central to understanding liberty!
As I have explained above, choosing to circumcise an infant is not a choice made in good faith because it is not necessary. Instead, it presumes to make an unnecessary choice for someone else when it is not clear what that someone else desires. In other words, it shows no appreciation for the limits of what one actually knows and how one knows it. It is an act of disordered love because it shows no humility for the fact that unnecessary cosmetic procedures—not for the correction of any anomalous deformity—should remain the prerogative of the one undergoing them.
The prerogative to make this choice for oneself needs to be protected. Protecting this prerogative justifies why parental consent over unnecessary infant circumcision is untenable. I do not see how accommodation for the sake of parents who want to circumcise their children, for unnecessary reasons, can be excused.
As things stand at present, in Canada, the state is enabling parents to encroach on the individual dignity and freedom of conscience of their male children—boys who will one day be men—for the sake of what is almost always an unnecessary cosmetic procedure.
Is it necessarily cruel? No.
Is it necessarily mutilation? No.
Does it offend freedom of conscience and individual dignity? Yes. No doubt about it.
P.S. I write the above not to condemn anyone but to explain my reasoning.
With any parent’s decision to circumcise their son(s), I certainly hope they acted in good faith rather than bad faith. However, I’m not going to patronize anyone. I think parents who choose to circumcise their children for cosmetic reasons are mistaken, that doing so is wrong.
Infant male circumcision is a common enough convention and presently lawful. Decisions get made. As with all choices parents make for their children, they have some bearing on one’s relationship with their children; sometimes significant, sometimes not. No doubt, some men who were circumcised as an infant will thank their parents for it. I don’t know. But neither did their parents and it wasn’t necessary.
That much is known!
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Christopher. There’s not much that I can disagree with in principle; I think we might just disagree on process. Though I support parental choice on this (though, again, you’re quite persuasive), I appreciate your argument for the need for parental humility (and, no, I’m not claiming that only people who agree with me have the appropriate humility – the point of the original post was about truly informed consent).
A couple of points on which I can’t agree:
The circumcision procedure in the study (which is a common procedure) is cruel, they’re doing surgery with no pain management. I’m glad that (as Mark pointed out) this is not universal, but it still happens, so I stand by the word “cruel”.
Circumcision cuts off a part of the body that does not grow back (yes, there are methods to re-create it, but it’s not like hair or fingernails). That counts as mutilation to me. Sure, there are a lot of connotations to the word but it still seems apt.
The title of the post isn’t particularly measured, sure. It wouldn’t be specific enough to stand on its own as a blog post or article. Nonetheless, there is cruelty in some circumcision, and the post was about a study that helps to demonstrate that. The title was perhaps inflammatory, but I don’t think it was out of bounds.
Further, it seems to me that we have had a lot of thoughtful discussion on the topic. I assume this means that people are thinking about the issue. That, more than converting people to my “side” of the debate, makes me quite happy (as open debate was the basic point of my original post).
Thanks. You provoked a worthwhile conversation, Jonathan.
For the sake of clarity, when the procedural exception that Mark points to is not the rule, I agree with the conclusion that infant circumcision is cruel.
On mutilation, as with all forms of body modification, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Circumcision excises a unique and otherwise normal part of male anatomy. The consequence of doing so is permanent, as you point out.
It is for this reason that parents, the government, or anyone else, should have no any legal standing when it comes to deciding whether or not to circumcise an infant male for cosmetic reasons.
It is a matter of upholding the dignity of everyone to make decisions over unnecessary cosmetic body modification—not for the correction of an anomalous deformity—for oneself.