A group of circumcised men is calling on British doctors to debate the ethics of the procedure at the British Medical Association conference this week.
NORM-UK is a support group for men who say they have been harmed.
It has held its first public demonstration in the UK, lobbying delegates in Cardiff.
It wants British doctors to recognise circumcision as major, irreversible surgery that should not be carried out on new-born babies.
There are no accurate figures, but an estimated 30,000 boys are circumcised in the UK every year. The majority of them as a result of their parents’ religious faith.
Islamic, Jewish and some Christian communities circumcise male children as a matter of course.
bbc.co.uk/news/health-13932711
Hi LemonAndLime:
Circumcision used to be common in America (it is now declining), but it is not “normal” by any stretch of the imagination. It is rare in all of Europe, China, India, and Latin America. It is only common in the Middle East and North/West Africa. See here:
who.int/hiv/pub/malecircumcision/infopack_en_2.pdf
Worldwide,
over 70% of the world’s males are not circumcised, and of those 30% that are, most are done for religious/cultural reasons, rather than medical ones. As for the claim that opposition to circumcision comes from anti-semitism, this is easily refuted by looking up the statistics; the majority of circumsized males are not Jewish, but rather Muslim. And yes, Muslims are “semitic” peoples, but this is clearly not the sense of the term being used here.
I come from the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” school of thought (in other words, don’t circumcise an infant unless you can show a real, definable, medical benefit from it…with today’s emphasis on modern hygiene and germ theory, this means very few, in practice). This is one of those things religions could easily give up, like the prohibition on pork, which used to make sense when trichinosis and other forms of disease were commonplace, but certainly not anymore. Religions in general need to be more open to adjusting non-essential practices such as these, particularly as science and medicine advance, because they will continue to advance, whether religions follow them and keep up, or are left behind.
In addition, I think that societal, legal or governmental support for male circumcision for religious/cultural reasons gives moral and spiritual ammunition to those who wish to circumcise females as well (yup, female circumcision is commonplace in North/West Africa and the Middle East as well, and it is similarly “justified” by religious and cultural reasons).
who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/
I don’t believe elective or cosmetic (and basically irreversible) surgery should be performed on anyone without their consent, and I especially would oppose it if a universality of people in a country were forced to fund it because they were living under a government-monopoly on health care, as they do in Canada, and in other countries.
Because so many American media sources promote circumcision, I thought it might be helpful to post a critique here, for what it’s worth:
circumcision.org/information.htm
I hope this helps:
Jacques.
