Circumcision in Modern Times

[ahs]

…doesn’t really pose an argument against the procedure itself anymore than…

This is what has me wondering where we went wrong as a society. Why would people feel that they need to pose an argument against a needless procedure? Shouldn’t we demand that, if hospitals/doctors are going to keep recommending Routine Infant Circ, that they need to pose a strong argument for it? But they don’t. All they do is throw the same tired reasons that don’t hold up under scrutiny.

 

[Allegra]

Well, you are approaching it from the conclusion that it IS a needless procedure. Not everyone has reached the same conclusion.

 

[ahs]

Well, you are approaching it from the conclusion that it IS a needless procedure. Not everyone has reached the same conclusion.

Yes, I am, because it is needless. I understand that not everyone agrees with that. But the facts are what they are, and they all point to “this is not necessary”. There are no facts, none, that show Routine Infant Circ to be necessary.

 

[Allegra]

You say so, but other people, including many medical professionals, believe that it IS beneficial and the benefits outweigh the risks.

 

[ahs]

You say so, but other people, including many medical professionals, believe that it IS beneficial and the benefits outweigh the risks.

Of course they say that. And yet, all the while, there STILL are NO facts that show that RIT (Routine Infant Circ) necessary, nor that it is even “beneficial”. They makes lots of claims, but the claims all pan out empty when placed under scrutiny.

 

[Loud-living-dogma]

Yeah my brother, a pediatrician, says sometimes the babies don’t even cry.

"Anatomical, neurochemical, physiological and behavioural studies confirm that newborn responses to pain are 'similar to but greater than those in adult subjects' Infants circumcised with no anaesthesia (reflecting common practice) experience not only great pain, but also an increased risk of choking and difficulty in breathing. Increases in heart rate of 55 bpm have been recorded, i.e. 1.5 times the baseline rate. After circumcision, the level of blood cortisol increased by a factor of 3-4 times the level before circumcision. As a surgical procedure, circumcision has been described as 'among the most painful performed in neonatal medicine'. Investigators reported, 'This level of pain would not be tolerated by older patients' . Using a pacifier during circumcision reduced crying but did not affect the hormonal pain response. An infant may also go into a state of shock to escape the overwhelming pain. Therefore, while crying may be absent, other body signals show that severe pain is always present during circumcision.... From the perspective of the infant, all the elements in the DSM-IV description of traumatic events apply to circumcision; the procedure involves being forcibly restrained, having part of the penis cut off, and experiencing extreme pain. Based on the nature of the experience and considering the extreme physiological and behavioural responses, circumcision traumatizes the infant.

British Journal of Urology INTERNATIONAL, Volume 83 Supplement 1, Pages 93-102, January 1, 1999. http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/goldman1/

 

[Loud-living-dogma]

So, just to clarify, you are saying that Blackforest’s experience of hearing piercing screams of agony is “extreme”? Are you saying that the screams weren’t piercing, or she didn’t hear them? And how would you know?

 

[ahs]

You say so, but other people, including many medical professionals, believe that it IS beneficial and the benefits outweigh the risks.

Of course they say that. And yet, all the while, there STILL are NO facts that show that RIT (Routine Infant Circ) necessary, nor that it is even “beneficial”. They makes lots of claims, but the claims all pan out empty when placed under scrutiny.

I’ll give you an example of what I mean. One doctor (probably many of them, but I an going by personal conversation) said that RIT is “beneficial”, as you put it, because “it can prevent potential infections of the foreskin when the child grows up”.

You know, that’s the kind of nonsense that has me wondering what doctors learn these days in school. How is it more beneficial to routinely remove every boy’s foreskin at birth, in order to prevent a possible infection when he is older, when that possible infection can be treated with topical ointment/antibiotics, or even be prevented with simple proper hygiene? Not to mention the fact that, when you cut his foreskin off, you are exposing a wound on a newborn baby to urine and feces…because his bandage is his diaper.
Not to mention further that you have now removed an organ from his penis that actually has functions and benefits of its own.

Not necessary. Not more beneficial than simple hygiene, or a simple ointment if an infection ever does occur.

 

[Loud-living-dogma]

For the record, here is information about complications of circumcision:

In the United States, circumcision is a commonly performed procedure. It is a relatively safe procedure with a low overall complication rate. Most complications are minor and can be managed easily. Though uncommon, complications of circumcision do represent a significant percentage of cases seen by pediatric urologists. Often they require surgical correction that results in a significant cost to the health care system. Severe complications are quite rare, but death has been reported as a result in some cases.

This is from an article on pubmed. I would link to it but the photos are extremely yuck.

 

[Phemie]

Neither of our sons are circumcised. I figured if my daughter has a 1 in 8 chance to develop breast cancer and I didn’t have her breast tissue removed as an infant, I have no right to have my sons circumcised on the off chance they might get an infection later in life.

 

[gracepoole]

Calling @Mulligan2 …

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

Can we talk about something else really quick? I find the anti-circumcision lobby to be very very offensive to me. That they call it child abuse makes me see it as a slight against my parents.

I am fine. I was not mutilated. I cannot remember any pain at all, and I don’t feel like my parents did anything wrong: I agree with their decision. I’m normal, and the anti-circumcision lobby needs to stop talking about me like i’m a trauma patient that shouldn’t have been “abused.”

Think about how you word things before other people read them.

 

[Allegra]

I’m not sure how you can come to that conclusion. The most common claim I hear is that it is easier to keep a circumcised penis clean in order to prevent rash and infection. That seems to me to be somewhat common sense and somewhat matter of opinion. I’m not sure how one would go about disproving that. And there ARE serious infections out there, while rare, that circumcision prevents. That is a fact. It doesn’t “pan out empty”. You simply don’t believe that the likelihood of such an infection warrants doing the procedure preemptively. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable position either, though others disagree, based on the nearly equally unlikely chance of negative effects.

 

[Loud-living-dogma]

Thanks for sharing your opinion. I realize I sound like a nutcase at times.

I suspect that parents in your day didn’t have much access to information about the procedure, or even much say in whether or not is was done. I don’t think we mean to cast aspersions on the parents of decades ago - - but we are inviting people to see this surgical procedure with a fresh view.

If you think it’s no big deal, then I invite you to watch a “procedure” being done on youtube sometime (I haven’t, I don’t have the stomach for it). Then tell us your opinion…

 

[ahs]

I’m not sure how you can come to that conclusion. The most common claim I hear is that it is easier to keep a circumcised penis clean in order to prevent rash and infection. That seems to me to be somewhat common sense and somewhat matter of opinion. I’m not sure how one would go about disproving that.

Sure, it’s easier to keep clean when you’ve passed puberty (when the foreskin naturally retracts on its own). And by that time, hopefully the young man has learned to wash properly. But prior to that, no. It’s just like washing any other part of the body.

And there ARE serious infections out there, while rare, that circumcision prevents. That is a fact. It doesn’t “pan out empty”.

Rare being the key word though. We cannot predict which children will get this RARE condition, and somehow doctors want to tell us it is therefore necessary to circ ALL of them? No, that’s nonsense. And these RARE serious infections can be treated with ointments/antibiotics. Or, even in severe cases, an adult male might have to make the decision on his own to be circ’d. But at least he made that call himself, about his own body part. The statement that a rare infection can possibly happen isn’t an empty, but the argument to therefore engage in RIC is an empty one.

You simply don’t believe that the likelihood of such an infection warrants doing the procedure preemptively.

That’s right. I don’t believe that the minute potential to be infected by a rare infection which can be treated topically requires that we routinely circ all males. That argument would make better sense in arguing that we should remove all males breast tissue at birth, because males have a higher chance of contracting breast cancer than of contracting penile cancer.

 

[Allegra]

I would say that I’ve heard infants utter some pretty piercing screams when hungry, when their binky fell out, when getting a shot, or even when being Baptized. Just as not crying does not necessarily indicate a lack of pain, crying doesn’t necessarily indicate intense agony. And as has already been clarified in subsequent posts, circumcisions performed without proper pain management are wrong in my opinion, but not a strong argument against the procedure in general.

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

You think I don’t know how it goes? Right, i’m not against it so I must be some uneducated baby hater. I know how the procedure is done, and I don’t see an issue with it. By the way, i’m pretty young. “My day” was the turn of the century.

 

[Loud-living-dogma]

Oh dear. I don’t think you’re an uneducated baby-hater. I just think that most people think it’s no big deal - - but they might change their minds if they were to actually see such a procedure. I personally can’t even look at the photos of the medical instruments used for the procedure (they were in the pubmed article I quoted from earlier).

 

[CaptainPrudeman]

I can’t look at any surgery because i’m not a fan of seeing people get cut open. It’s not even about blood; Saving Private Ryan is fine. I just don’t like seeing cutting or incisions.

Doesn’t mean I don’t know how circumcision is done, also doesn’t mean I’m ignorant.

 

[Allegra]

It hasn’t been my experience that doctors claim that all males should be circumcised, though I realize that there are probably some people who feel that way. In my experience, it’s been presented as a low-risk procedure that has some hygienic and preventative benefits.