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JW55
Guest
To answer my other question, did you have your child baptized?
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Loud-living-dogma
Guest
I did! In fact he was a bit older so he did give consent. Also, it wasn’t elective surgery, and there are really no downsides to baptism! I also baptized my daughters, nor did I circumcise them for any reason!
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Hodos
Guest
Paul circumcised Timothy because he was taking Timothy with him to proclaim the gospel to the Jews among the diaspora. This was done so that his Jewish listeners in the cities in Asia Minor would not discount Paul’s testimony of Jesus Christ, for the purpose of advancing the gospel, not for reasons of salvation. Hope that helps.
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Hodos
Guest
To add to your point, I wasn’t aware that infants, or even school-aged kids make their own medical decisions. That’s our job as parents. If given the choice to get vaccinated, I know my kids would turn it down, but I know that it is beneficial for them, so in doing my job as parent, I make the decision for them.
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Sleepy2
Guest
Myths About Circumcision You Likely Believe
With my first child, I just thought that circumcision was what you did, no big deal. Then one day I saw a picture of a baby being circumcised, and everything changed.
www.psychologytoday.com
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JW55
Guest
Female circumcision is an entirely different issue. I am not addressing it here in my comments.
You said your son was “older” when he was baptised? If he was 4 or 5 , I am not sure he understood a commitment, so hardly different than infant baptism. If he was a teenager he would have reached at least some age of reason under the logic of making a decision for himself. How old were your daughters at baptism? Were they older or infants? Not downplaying baptism. All of our children were baptized as infants. I felt they should be, and I agree with infant baptism. I am glad you had your children baptized.
My comparison was for the sake of determining if you were addressing male circumcision as an issue of consent, or you felt that male circumcision was bad for everyone. If so, the baptism comparison question is a valid comparison.
I am trying to understand your logic in reference to male circumcision. Are you saying NO male infant should be circumcised, or that laws should be in place to prevent it? if so, I would strongly disagree with you. If you are saying that the parent can choose to have it done or not, I would agree with you. If you have chosen to not have the elective surgery on your child that is fine. You made a choice for your child that you thought was best. I don’t feel the option not to should be denied to others who feel it is a better option. I personally know of no one who wishes they hadn’t been circumcised. I also no one who had it done when they were an infant who remembers the “pain”. I have recently seen a few references as to dissatisfaction by a few teenagers or millennials in the press as more and more people raise the issue of being able to determine their own sex, or such other politically correct issue.
On a side note to male circumcision, I believe in biblical times this was done on the 8th day. Interestingly enough, some modern studies indicate the baby’s immune system is highest about the 8th day. This seems to indicate a divine direction for the time it was done, since obviously scientific studies did not exist then. I think most are done today on the 2nd or 3rd day.
You said your son was “older” when he was baptised? If he was 4 or 5 , I am not sure he understood a commitment, so hardly different than infant baptism. If he was a teenager he would have reached at least some age of reason under the logic of making a decision for himself. How old were your daughters at baptism? Were they older or infants? Not downplaying baptism. All of our children were baptized as infants. I felt they should be, and I agree with infant baptism. I am glad you had your children baptized.
My comparison was for the sake of determining if you were addressing male circumcision as an issue of consent, or you felt that male circumcision was bad for everyone. If so, the baptism comparison question is a valid comparison.
I am trying to understand your logic in reference to male circumcision. Are you saying NO male infant should be circumcised, or that laws should be in place to prevent it? if so, I would strongly disagree with you. If you are saying that the parent can choose to have it done or not, I would agree with you. If you have chosen to not have the elective surgery on your child that is fine. You made a choice for your child that you thought was best. I don’t feel the option not to should be denied to others who feel it is a better option. I personally know of no one who wishes they hadn’t been circumcised. I also no one who had it done when they were an infant who remembers the “pain”. I have recently seen a few references as to dissatisfaction by a few teenagers or millennials in the press as more and more people raise the issue of being able to determine their own sex, or such other politically correct issue.
On a side note to male circumcision, I believe in biblical times this was done on the 8th day. Interestingly enough, some modern studies indicate the baby’s immune system is highest about the 8th day. This seems to indicate a divine direction for the time it was done, since obviously scientific studies did not exist then. I think most are done today on the 2nd or 3rd day.
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lonegreywolf20
Guest
This is basically the point I was trying to get at.
It should be left up to the parent to decide for the child. Don’t want it done, don’t have it done, want it done, have it done.
Too many people in other people’s business.
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JW55
Guest
Very correct.
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Loud-living-dogma
Guest
I certainly agree with you that parents have the right to make decisions for their underage child. I’m not sure about outlawing male circumcision - - is female circumcision against the law in the US? I believe it is. That’s probably not the way to go with male circumcision.
Anyway, I think there is a difference in parents allowing / choosing elective cosmetic surgery for their children, and choosing scientifically proven and desirable practices like vaccinations.
I think that fewer and fewer parents are choosing that for their boys, especially as we have more immigrants from countries where that boys are not routinely circumcised.
I thought this was an interesting paper:
www.dovepress.com
Anyway, I think there is a difference in parents allowing / choosing elective cosmetic surgery for their children, and choosing scientifically proven and desirable practices like vaccinations.
I think that fewer and fewer parents are choosing that for their boys, especially as we have more immigrants from countries where that boys are not routinely circumcised.
I thought this was an interesting paper:
Female genital mutilation and male circumcision: toward an autonomy-ba | MB
Female genital mutilation and male circumcision: toward an autonomy-based ethical framework Brian D Earp Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Abstract: The non-therapeutic alteration of children’s genitals is typically discussed in two separate...
www.dovepress.com
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Cabeelibob
Guest
Well, I can say that I grew up not even knowing what a foreskin was. So I have no memory or ptsd. My brother who is a pediatrician is looking into that essay as I speak.
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TheLittleLady
Guest
This is a frequent topic on many forums, it never ends well. Maybe just do a search and go from there.
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Wesrock
Guest
I was aware of that. Thank you for adding clarification.Wesrock:
Paul circumcised Timothy because he was taking Timothy with him to proclaim the gospel to the Jews among the diaspora. This was done so that his Jewish listeners in the cities in Asia Minor would not discount Paul’s testimony of Jesus Christ, for the purpose of advancing the gospel, not for reasons of salvation. Hope that helps.
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on_the_hill
Guest
Our son was not. We decided not to put him through it. If he wants to do it someday, he can. I was surprised to see the percentages of how many males are not. The image is showing rates of circumcision
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Hodos
Guest
No worries, thanks for indulging me.
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Dan_Defender
Guest
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) found that the health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh the risks, but the benefits are not great enough to recommend universal newborn circumcision. The procedure may be recommended in older boys and men to treat phimosis (the inability to retract the foreskin) or to treat an infection of the penis.
blackforest
Well-known member
On this note, it deserves mention that in spite of the AAP’s recent weasel-wording, no major medical association in the world outright recommends routine infant circumcision. (Some critics suspect that the AAP’s stance may be political, i.e. to retain Medicaid coverage for circumcision).
Before I had children, I worked in a medical clinic and heard the piercing, petrifying screams of baby boys getting circumcised. That got me researching the procedure and saying no to circumcision for my own sons; I could find no compelling reason to force them through so much pain. Fortunately, we’re down to only about half of baby boys being circumcised in the U.S., so the locker-room stigma won’t be around for much longer.
Before I had children, I worked in a medical clinic and heard the piercing, petrifying screams of baby boys getting circumcised. That got me researching the procedure and saying no to circumcision for my own sons; I could find no compelling reason to force them through so much pain. Fortunately, we’re down to only about half of baby boys being circumcised in the U.S., so the locker-room stigma won’t be around for much longer.
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Larry1700
Guest
I wonder what Psychology Today has to say about children “deciding” to undergo so-called “gender-reassignment” – particularly whether or not parents should “encourage” it?
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thistle
Guest
They are here in the Philippines which is around an 85% Catholic country.
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Loud-living-dogma
Guest
Wow – according to Wikipedia, I also see that most of those are done between the ages of 11and 13. Is that accurate, Thistle? That’s not exactly infant male circumcision, is it, though…Loud-living-dogma:
They are here in the Philippines which is around an 85% Catholic country.
I also see that South Korea has a high prevalence of male circumcision, apparently due to the influence of the American military. I wonder if that has also influenced the Philippines?
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ahs
Guest
I didn’t see if anyone answered this specific part of your question. The circumcision with which Jesus was circumcised is nothing like modern routine infant circ. In those days, only the very tip of the foreskin was removed. In modern practice, the entire organ is removed.
Also, the “circumcision” with which Christians are now “circumcised” is Baptism. So, we need not undergo the cutting of the infant’s foreskin any longer for any reason, whatsoever, unless some emergency happens (which doesn’t, unless someone forcibly retracts an infant’s foreskin…which there is no reason to do).
From a parent’s perspective who WANTED to have my son circ’d, but eventually relented after some research, I can offer some of what I would later learn of the matter.
Circumcision: Why Not? (with Briana Manthei)
“ Of course we are circumcising our son…the Bible says so! ” If you’ve read the Bible much, especially the Acts of the Apostles or Paul’s ...
daves-ahumbleservant.blogspot.com
And this was a follow-up Q&A from a subsequent discussion I had as a result of the above post:
Circumcision Q&A: A follow-up to “Why Not”
In THIS article, my wife and I gave some background on our own journey through making the decision whether or not to circumcise our future ...
daves-ahumbleservant.blogspot.com
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