The Problem of Circumcision

The Problem of Circumcision


I put it to you that circumcision is one of the biggest insults to human rights today.

It's possible that you might think that there are some valid reasons to routinely circumcise a child. Indeed, there are conditions under which a man would ostensibly benefit from being circumcised. These include phimosis, in this context when the adult's foreskin is too tight or small to allow full retraction. Usually, this is not a serious condition, but in extreme cases found in a small percentage of males, such a condition can make sex very uncomfortable, and can make for inconveniences throughout life during urination and erection. Phimosis as an ailment is not particularly common, but it is a valid cause for circumcision in adult males. It tends to be difficult or impossible to identify until adulthood since phimosis is actually a natural stage of development in the infant penis.

Another suggestion which is quite common is that circumcision prevents the spread of HIV AIDS. This is at most a partial truth, and in actuality it is a subject still under considerable dispute. However, even if it were universally true, it would not be a viable reason to accept widespread circumcision for a number of reasons. Doctors stress that, whether or not a man is circumcised, wearing a condom is vital for preventing the spread of HIV. Thus, actually removing the foreskin is a meaningless precaution since its influence is negligible when compared to the powerful preventative impact of contraception in the form of a small flap of latex. The number of men who would be aided by circumcision decreases when it is taken into consideration that circumcision has not been proven to affect the transfer of HIV during homosexual intercourse. Furthermore, precautions such as circumcision are utterly unnecessary when attempting to prevent HIV transfer in most Western cultures where HIV remains a relatively minor disease. Though this does not rule out circumcision in problem areas for HIV such as sub-Saharan Africa, in actuality condoms are far, far more effective and less painful and hold no possibility (as far as can be logically conceived) of psychological or physiological injury.

Unfortunately, condom use seems to be frowned on in many parts of the world, because, along with so many other things, there is evidence for it. Does that sound ridiculous? Well, it should, because it's the position held by the Catholic Church! The official position reads something along the lines of faith being more representative of scientific fact than empirical evidence, and that it's morally acceptable to indirectly murder millions of men, women and children painfully and unavoidably because the Church is also unwilling to accept any debate on the concept of sperm.

This point is indisputably tangential, but it's also vital. If you consider each sperm to be a possible human life, and that thus, waste of sperm is a primitive form of murder or at least an abortion, then that's questionable, but fine, that's your belief. The problem with that, though, is that that same sperm dies inside the testicles every day. Masturbation simply releases sperm - it doesn't force it to die. Sperm constantly dies and replenishes itself inside the testes, and so you're killing it just as much by living and breathing as you are by masturbating or otherwise 'spilling seed'. Further, by impregnating a woman, you are allowing one sperm (or in very rare cases two or more, as in the case of non-identical twins) to contribute towards a possible new human life, but in the process killing millions upon millions of other sperm cells. Is each of those a murder?

Thus, the Catholic Church's opposition to contraception is founded on misinformation, non-science, propagated lies and a fundamental misunderstanding of the human body.

'So what?', you may say. You may believe that circumcision can be legitimately practiced so as to promote hygiene and prevent unnecessary spread of disease. Well, that's actually one of the best-spread myths in Western society. NetDoctor.co.uk reminds us that,

"prevention of disease is the second most commonly given reason for circumcision after religious reasons, although the evidence that it has any beneficial effect on future health is very poor. The practice is, more likely, rooted in cultural traditions, although western societies may find this an uncomfortable conclusion."



It's true that certain sexually transmitted diseases are more common in uncircumcised men, and these include syphilis, chancroid and some other diseases which cause the growth of penile ulcers. However, equally, some STDs are far more common in circumcised men than uncircumcised ones (generally diseases relating to urethritis, such as gonorrhoea and non-gonococcal urethritis). The only conclusion one can make is that circumcision does not live up to the medical benefits it is praised for.

Before moving on to the big issue, it is important for you to appreciate just how barbaric circumcision is. It is not the simple, painless procedure which ignorance has perhaps presented to Western society. This is the device used for restraining babies while they are circumcised, known as the 'Circumstraint'.



And this is the rather scary-looking clamp used to remove the foreskin of newborn babies:



You can watch a video of the procedure at http://www.intact.ca/vidphil.htm - this may contain disturbing images. As the website states,

"This video was taken in the Toronto area in 1998. The circumcision was done with a Gomco clamp and apparently with local anesthetic, though in Canada today anesthetic is often not used in circumcisions, and in the U.S. the majority of are still carried out without any anesthetic of any kind. There has been no adjustment of the video images or sound, and the full-length version is without editing of any kind, save for the audio removal of the baby's name."








"Because a baby's prepuce is usually naturally adherent to the glans (this is true of both males and females), it must first be torn away in order to perform the circumcision. The doctor applies clamps and inserts the nose of a pliers-like instrument to tear away the foreskin from the glans."





"Now the doctor puts the bell of the clamp over the glans and arranges the base plate over the foreskin. Note that the flange of the bell is slightly larger than the beveled hole in the base plate."







"Now there is a wait to allow the clamp assembly to crush the blood vessels to lessen the chance of bleeding. The clamp is removed. Because of the crush, the remaining skin is stuck to the bell and must be pulled away with the fingertips and gauze."





The amount of pain this would cause to an adult is indescribable. There is also sufficient evidence to suggest that babies feel just as much, if not more, sensitivity to pain in their genitals as adult males. Some men even state that they have undergone significant psychological trauma due to being circumcised as a child.

Circumcision is only routinely performed for cultural reasons. Among Jewish, Islamic and certain other societies, this means upholding faith by mutilating your new child. In the United States, it often means disabling a boy for the sake of a ludicrous convention. Circumcision is often practiced in the US simply because it was demonised in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by overly suspicious malcontents with little or no knowledge of the science of medicine. A demonstration of how circumcision even originated in non-science is one of the first recorded circumcisions, performed by Claude-Francois Lallemand to 'cure' "nocturnal emissions", which are wet dreams. That fails to make a shred of sense to begin with. In 1845, E H Dixon published papers suggesting that circumcision 'cured' masturbation. Though it can be seen as a hindrance on the pleasure of the act, this is surely an argument against circumcision? Well, apparently not, because many of the 'pioneers' of this pseudo-scientific sadomasochism specifically wanted masturbation to end. What followed was a seemingly endless stream of papers not only agreeing, but asserting that circumcision could cure everything from epilepsy to bedwetting, cancer, nervousness, paralysis of the bladder, clubfoot, cervical cancer in women, tuberculosis, curvature of the spine, eye problems (Egglestone states that the foreskin is a direct cause of crossed eyes), being deaf and dumb, blindness, cancer of the tongue, rectal incontinence and even that it would prevent 'Blacks' from 'raping White women'. That... doesn't even begin to make sense.

Then, a Mr Kellogg (and yes, it is THAT Mr Kellogg) began a campaign in 1888 to promote circumcision as a way to prevent masturbation in children. Even though countless (false) claims existed at the time to show that circumcision cured lethal diseases, the reason he chose to back it was to prevent simple, personal pleasure among men. In 1893, M J Lehman published papers demanding the total circumcision of all boys in the USA. In 1900, J Hutchinson declared that circumcision's greatness comes partially from its ability to desensitise the penis. So, to 'prevent fun', essentially. How morally unacceptable. In 1914, A L Wolbarst presented a manifesto decreeing that all non-Jewish children (!?) in the US be circumcised. Even as recently as 1941, A F Guttmacher asserted that a baby's foreskin must be forcibly retracted and the glans (commonly known as the bell, or tip) of the penis daily scrubbed. During natural infant phimosis, this action can be extremely harmful to the child's genitals.

Luckily, more recent and evidence-based scientists have reversed the horrific fate of these children. In 1949, D Gairdner published papers demonstrating that circumcision had no perceivable medical benefits, and that it too frequently resulted in infant deaths. This caused circumcision in the UK to almost completely vanish in a few years. However, even in 1966 an assertion was made and unretracted for 40 years that sensitivity between circumcised and uncircumcised men is exactly the same. This is obviously and evidentially untrue. The intact penis has around FOUR TIMES as much sensitivity as the circumcised one. The most sensitive part of the penis, interestingly, is not the glans but the foreskin. Circumcision is, simply, the removal of the most pleasurable part of the male human body for no valid medical reason. In 1973, R Dagher, M Selzer and J Lapides declared that anyone who opposed universal circumcision was mentally ill. By 1985, around 85% of all newborn males in the USA were circumcised as normal practice. Luckily, the number has decreased, but around half of all US-born boys are still mutilated in this way in 2007.

Religion is the only excuse left for circumcision, and religion is no excuse for circumcision. Judaism and Islam not only make no sense, but prove themselves to be hideous and barbaric by performing and condoning this practice on newborns. Jewish boys are just eight days old when mutilated this way. We wouldn't tolerate the removal of part of the arm of an infant for 'reasons of faith', because that would be child abuse. So why does society allow genital mutilation? Genitals are extremely sensitive and the source, if unchanged, of intense pleasure to billions of people.

However, above and beyond every issue here is the concept of the child's choice. No child is old enough to say 'no' to circumcision. No baby can stop the doctor from ripping off the most pleasurable part of its tender, new body. Were circumcision medically neutral, and not negative as it actually is, it would still be wrong to act on the baby's behalf in this way.

I would suggest that circumcision even contravenes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948. Article 3 states that "everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person." Does removing the prepuce (foreskin) of a child not violate their security of person? Article 5 states that "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." Circumcision, as we have seen, is degrading AND inhumane. Article 17 declares two things:

"(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property."



Is a boy's foreskin not his property?

This is one of the saddest travesties ever committed, and anyone who is aware of this evidence and continues to back circumcision must be considered a child abuser.

For more information, please see www.nocirc.org