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[Sheb]

Actually, I guess the only hope to forbid circumcision in the US would be a court ruling. Not sure what statute exactly they'd use though. Here in Europe it's a bit weird, because the anti-circumcision movement has been tainted by islamophobes (and to a lesser extent, antisemites), using it, in the same way that they started caring about animal rights once they realized they could use it to bash Muslims over Halal slaughtering.

Still, I hope that one day it'll be forbidden for non-medical reasons.

[martinuzz]

While I am not particularily fond of doctors cutting in healthy flesh, especially for religious-fundamentalist reasons...

Circumciscion of a man, contrary to the circumcision of a woman, will not take away the ability to have sexual pleasure for the rest of that person's life.
I have heard some men say it even increases it lol.

What's more, clinical data shows that circumcised men are much less susceptible to various nasty bacteria an viruses that can build up under the penis' foreskin.
Which in turn means, that by having himself circumcised, A man is being responsible, and preventing nasty cancers that can develop in women's uterus and vagina from being infected with certain bacteria and or virusses, as well as helping his own hygiene.

While in the Netherlands, child circumcision of girls is a criminal offense, for which parents can get punished by law, and their child taken away from them by child protective court,
circumcision of boys is still accepted, although the minimum age at which this is to be done is under debate.

Personally I'd say, never circumcise a child, wait until they are at least 18 and hopefully able to make a choice for themselves.

[Sheb]

I thought it was relevant that here we have real people, names and faces, rather than abstract arguments and the inevitable citation of endless studies.

I your goal was to put a face on the anti-circumcision camp, choosing a mother that was dumb enough to sign her power over such decision away and then delayed things for a long time to increase the chance that her son would remember may not have been the best decision.

[RedKing]

Moocow, my comment wasn't a "threat". It was merely a prediction based on past instances of this discussion. Maybe the Western world in general is pro-circumcision but I think you'll find B12 is strongly against it. Last time this came up, I think I was deemed just this side of Mecha-Hitler for having my son circumcised.

And for the record, I'm not "pro" circumcision in the same way that people aren't "pro-abortion". You can snip or not snip your own kids, I don't give a damn. But don't try to make me feel like a monster for making that decision. It's the same dynamic why people dislike militant vegans or militant atheists.

[GlyphGryph]

I think it was two years ago maybe that I tried broaching this topic in a more general way. RedKing's threat "it's not gonna end well" is something that matches my imperfect memory. In particular, someone will almost always frame it as "why do you care so much about dicks and foreskins?", disregarding that what is really at issue is children's rights. But here, when we are talking about an actual boy, and his mother trying to protect him, I think it's much harder to frame talking about this as some kind of sexual deviance. It always frightens me to post on this issue, because, if you've ever seen videos of people trying to protest it, there is some extreme hostility in the United States towards those opposing child circumcision.

If you decide the proper way to broach a subject is through dishonesty and trying to trick people into supporting you somehow, like you've apparently tried to do with this thread, I can understand why you might have difficulties.

Here's the problem: The mother wasn't trying to protect him. She specifically gave the father the right to do this.  If she didn't want it to happen, she had plenty of options that were "go back on my obligations and try to subvert the force of law while I'm at". Much as I dislike circumcision, no lasting harm to the child is likely as a result, but the mother's actions here (to delay the procedure for as long as possible), have only served to maximize the damage the inevitable (inevitable because she agreed it should happen) procedure.

Nothing about this scenario is a "children's rights" issue. Not a single bit of it. No one in this scenario is a good guy - you've got what seems to be two absolutely terrible parents and an innocent kid caught in the middle, probably in more ways than one. I doubt circumcision is the only disagreement these parents have.

As for your decision to approach this in the way you have - you have reduced this poor kid to nothing more than a dishonest tool in your agenda, and done so to such a poor extent that you've only managed to undermine your own argument. You obviously don't care about the merits of the case, or the kid, nor (for that matter) do you seem to have any real understanding of why people might not agree with you on issues, as evidenced by the fact that you thought this sort of subterfuge would somehow lend support to your ultimate argument.

[XXSockXX]

Maybe the Western world in general is pro-circumcision but I think you'll find B12 is strongly against it.

The US is pro-circumcision, Europe for the most part is not at all. It was almost outlawed in Germany a while ago, and it probably would have been if it wasn't a Jewish custom (for obvious historical implications, it would mostly have affected the Muslims here and if it was a Muslim-only custom, I guess it might actually be illegal now.)

I agree though that a pro/contra circumcision debate here is probably pointless and would go nowhere (or up in flames).

[Owlbread]

Moocow, my comment wasn't a "threat". It was merely a prediction based on past instances of this discussion. Maybe the Western world in general is pro-circumcision but I think you'll find B12 is strongly against it. Last time this came up, I think I was deemed just this side of Mecha-Hitler for having my son circumcised.

It is kind of hard not to see you as Mecha-Hitler for doing that though, I'm sorry. But then again considering 75% of the male population of the USA (compared with 5% in the UK, who are virtually all Muslim or Jewish men or African immigrants) is circumcised then that's a whole lot of Mecha-Hitlers out there.

I have heard that in many cases the reasoning behind parents having their sons circumcised is because they fear that they would be bullied in communal showers, in some cases they don't want their child to be "different from them" or to feel different in general. Though they're morally wrong they aren't necessarily Mecha-Hitler reasons and I'm sure that RedKing has his own. Circumcision in the USA is just an example of an unpleasant cultural quirk/custom, like so many others across the world. A circumcision discussion thread would be a better place to discuss these points.

[GlyphGryph]

It is kind of hard not to see you as Mecha-Hitler for doing that though, I'm sorry. But then again considering 75% of the male population of America is circumcised then that's a whole lot of Mecha-Hitlers.

It's actually kinda pretty easy - all you need to do is (temporarily) adopt a worldview where actual consequences and outcomes are at least on par with ideological concerns in moral weight. Then you can see that such behaviour obviously isn't worth a quarter of a mecha-hitler.

[Glowcat]

Moocow, my comment wasn't a "threat". It was merely a prediction based on past instances of this discussion. Maybe the Western world in general is pro-circumcision but I think you'll find B12 is strongly against it. Last time this came up, I think I was deemed just this side of Mecha-Hitler for having my son circumcised.

I'm sure this perception of past events isn't largely exaggerated by your own defensiveness over the issue.

If you decide the proper way to broach a subject is through dishonesty and trying to trick people into supporting you somehow, like you've apparently tried to do with this thread, I can understand why you might have difficulties.

...What dishonesty? The OP literally posted about a legal event, and commented that he was upset that a child who wasn't an infant (and thus could easily forget the entire incident) was being forced to get a circumcision. I'm not sure what kind of reading you guys take that sees using the event as a springboard for discussions as deceitful.

[Sheb]

Because the OP wasn't interested in that case, but wanted to use it as an emotional argument in the larger issue of whether circumcision is good or not. Even the thread title is misleading: a more objective one would be "Mother forced to honor contract she signed with her ex".

[Bauglir]

It's dishonest because it's an attempt to get people to link the outcome of the case with their position on circumcision - OP's specifically said that the thread is about putting a face to the real argument, which is about circumcision in general.

Well I could have made a thread "the ethics of infant circumcision", filled it with arguments and statistics, and could expect to be abused and ridiculed for my efforts. I thought it was relevant that here we have real people, names and faces, rather than abstract arguments and the inevitable citation of endless studies.

The problem is that there's a lot of bullshit in the way this attachment of faces is being pushed - the court isn't a tyrannical authority pushing an evil agenda, it's doing exactly what courts are supposed to do. We're supposed to sympathize with this kid and rally against the evils of circumcision, when instead I sympathize with the kid and want to complain about lousy parents. The court is basically saying, "We can't stop you from being shitty parents without a law backing us up," and I don't know about you, but I don't want a judiciary that thinks otherwise. There are a lot of ideas floating around about what qualifies as bad parenting, ranging from the obvious (sexual abuse) to the batshit (bed times), and when it comes to what the law can impose, I don't want "Whatever the judge thinks is right" to be what I'd have to live with.

Perhaps you think there ought to be a law against unnecessary circumcision of children. That's one thing, but it's not a problem with the courts, it's a problem with legislators. Trying to construct unnecessary villains isn't the sort of thing I associate with a cause that actually needs support, and that's (largely) why this thread is damaging the position the OP is trying to argue for.

[Neonivek]

Circumciscion of a man, contrary to the circumcision of a woman, will not take away the ability to have sexual pleasure for the rest of that person's life.

Actually unlike men who have one form of circumcision. Women have three forms and basically one is harmless (even more so then male), one is somewhat harmful but still allows them to have sexual pleasure, and the final one eliminates it.

The more you know!

Note: In all fairness the third type is the most commonly done

[Helgoland]

Well I could have made a thread "the ethics of infant circumcision", filled it with arguments and statistics, and could expect to be abused and ridiculed for my efforts. I thought it was relevant that here we have real people, names and faces, rather than abstract arguments and the inevitable citation of endless studies.

This is Bay12. You think people care about a face here? Faces are just an excuse for forgetting statistics and arguments.

I'm in the anti-anti-circumcision camp, by the way: I'm circumcised, but not for religious reasons - and it hasn't done me any harm. And the same thing goes for 75% of male Americans, apparently. I hold it to be an unnecessary procedure with no grave negative consequences, which decides the child's rights vs. parental rights issue in favor of (beeh, biased way of saying that) the parents.

There, RedKing, I got your back~

[moocowmoo]

Judge has granted emergency motion to stay the court order:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/224093434/Order-Granting-Emergency-Motion-for-Review

I think it was two years ago maybe that I tried broaching this topic in a more general way. RedKing's threat "it's not gonna end well" is something that matches my imperfect memory. In particular, someone will almost always frame it as "why do you care so much about dicks and foreskins?", disregarding that what is really at issue is children's rights. But here, when we are talking about an actual boy, and his mother trying to protect him, I think it's much harder to frame talking about this as some kind of sexual deviance. It always frightens me to post on this issue, because, if you've ever seen videos of people trying to protest it, there is some extreme hostility in the United States towards those opposing child circumcision.

If you decide the proper way to broach a subject is through dishonesty and trying to trick people into supporting you somehow, like you've apparently tried to do with this thread, I can understand why you might have difficulties.

Here's the problem: The mother wasn't trying to protect him. She specifically gave the father the right to do this.  If she didn't want it to happen, she had plenty of options that were "go back on my obligations and try to subvert the force of law while I'm at". Much as I dislike circumcision, no lasting harm to the child is likely as a result, but the mother's actions here (to delay the procedure for as long as possible), have only served to maximize the damage the inevitable (inevitable because she agreed it should happen) procedure.

Nothing about this scenario is a "children's rights" issue. Not a single bit of it. No one in this scenario is a good guy - you've got what seems to be two absolutely terrible parents and an innocent kid caught in the middle, probably in more ways than one. I doubt circumcision is the only disagreement these parents have.

As for your decision to approach this in the way you have - you have reduced this poor kid to nothing more than a dishonest tool in your agenda, and done so to such a poor extent that you've only managed to undermine your own argument. You obviously don't care about the merits of the case, or the kid, nor (for that matter) do you seem to have any real understanding of why people might not agree with you on issues, as evidenced by the fact that you thought this sort of subterfuge would somehow lend support to your ultimate argument.

I obviously don't care about the kid or the outcome of the case? I care very much that a healthy 3 year old boy is facing painful and irreversible surgery on his genitals. The legal cause and effect (of which we have an incomplete picture) I admit was secondary to the emotions the thought gives me. I'm not "using him as a tool in my agenda". I am just tired to death of seeing this issue treated entirely in the abstract (like it's really a scientific debate about "health benefits"), or applied to adults and how much they do or don't like their own penis. It's always children being cut, almost never adults and the latter is always voluntary. The root cause of this child being cut is not that signed contract, but the disgraceful turning of needless genital surgery into a "parental right".

This kid is old enough to elect out of something completely cosmetic, and he is old enough to question why this is being done to him, and remember it afterwards. The mother it appears signed the agreement 3 years ago? She has since changed her mind to err on the side of caution and I don't see why that should not be respected. Legally, I see why it is not, yet it is still an injustice to her and to the child, punishing them both for a mistake she made years ago, who knows in what circumstances.

[Neonivek]

Because from the child's perspective... He is 3 he is a toddler.

Most people don't even remember themselves from the age of 3. A child at the age of 3 is almost COMPLETELY incapable of making real decisions.