Try this thought experiment. Imagine waking up tomorrow morning to find yourself tied to your bed and rendered mute, your naked genitals exposed to the harsh glare of hospital lights. Your parents have decided that some skin should be hacked from your penis; perhaps so you can be forced into their religion, perhaps because they don't trust you to clean yourself in the shower, or perhaps simply because they think your penis should look more like your father's.
If you don't like the thought of this happening to you, if this offends your belief in self-determination or the rights you have over what happens to your body, then how can you justify this practice being inflicted on infants?
Now, try this thought experiment.
Imagine waking up tomorrow to find yourself a writer on a deadline who finds circumcision revolting. You want to write a compelling argument against it but you use citations from Wikipedia and Youtube. Then, you appeal to people's desire for "self-determination" when you try to compel them to follow your opinion.
If you don't like the thought of reading weak arguments, or if you believe that arguments that rely on using scare-words and wikipedia to compel the reader are worthless and degrade the argument in general, then how can you link to these articles on your incredibly popular blog?
Look, here's my problem with circumcision opponents, be they Andrew, Freddie, the people writing these hilariously one-sided wikipedia articles, or even members of my immediate family: mind your own damn business. It's my kid. I don't tell you that your children are screwed up by your decisions, so leave mine alone. That is, if you even have kids (I'd love to see a statistic of how many circumcision opponents are childless). The disgusting, bygone cultural practices that my parents followed and I follow cause you revulsion (I'd love to see a statistic of how many circumcised men are anti-circumcision for their sons)? The seemingly uncivilized cultural practices of Africans or Asians or people from not-your-culture cause you revulsion? Well, sorry to hear that. The diversity of cultures on this planet is one of humanity's strengths. I'm sorry that my penchant for desensitized, easy-to-clean penises frightens you, and makes you think I'm an evil scumbag. But it's my culture. It's different than yours. Deal with it.
There's this trend, (when 'modern' people write medical-ish opinion articles) to suggest that some sort of homogenous medical future could exist, where we all had the exact same top-of-the-line health care and that we'd all be better for it. Typically these people say "look how healthy people are at location X, someday maybe people at location Y and Z could have that same level of care" and then they extend that to basically attack every part of that culture Y and Z that differs from Culture X as unhealthy or unethical and therefore unhealthy.
As though every culture would be better off and happier if the people could live 85 years like we try to do. And that if we just assimilate all cultures into a giant, tapioca, planet-spanning mega-culture that does all the same things and acts in the same ways and has the exact same standards for morality and ethics the world will be a better place for it.
And yet there's a deep hypocrisy here, and it deserves to be mentioned: these people who would desire my conformity to their ethics for the sake of the children are quite happy to expose their children to any number of carcinogenic compounds, suicidally-unhealthy foods, violent behaviors and culturally-inherent risks.
All of us backwoods, violent, evil parents that will circumcise our children will end up with 117 infant deaths (per year in the US), according to some statistics.
Guess how many infants die in vehicular collisions in the US in the same period? Ten times as many. So you parents that are putting your children in cars and driving them around? You offend me by essentially attempting to murder your child. What? Putting your kids in car seats and driving around is part of your culture?
You parents that give your children pillows? You cause 900+ infant deaths a year. Good work, MURDERERS. What? Sleeping on something other than dirt and animal skins is part of your culture?
There's a solution: make circumcision safer. The arguments against it typically come in two fronts: either 1) the child is being put in unnecessary risk by having an elective procedure or 2) the child has some sort of right to defer the procedure until older. To the former, the reverse of logic is true: higher prevalence of circumcision would lead to a decrease in risk: more doctors doing it more often would make them better at it and lower their risk of error. Standardizing it as part of physician training in residency would help as well. To the latter, I have to ask: if there were clear, indisputable evidence that infant boys would grow healthier, smarter, happier, and live longer because they were circumcised...would you still argue that it is genital mutilation? Would you still find it morally reprehensible to force it upon a victim/child even though it would clearly help them? If so, I applaud your purism but are you also against Vitamin K injections? Routine vaccinations like tetanus and diptheria? Diapers? Making children take naps? Making them go to school? Making them brush their teeth? Ask me to make a list of things I've "forced" on my child the last 4 years and then bring me a ream or two of paper. Conversely, if clear medical benefits of circumcision would cause you to change your objection to it...well if I can erode your argument that easily why are you even bothering?
Look, I'm never going to convince anyone who opposes circumcision to suddenly be okay with it. Similarly, nobody is going to convince me that I was "mutilated" as an infant when I was circumcised. And that is the crux of a world with different cultures: there is no normative ethic for circumcision, just my applied ethic and your applied ethic. People don't seem to grasp that.
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