CIRCUMCISION
From Philosopedia
CIRCUMCISION
Male circumcision is an operation - a barbaric custom, according to many - which removes the foreskin covering the glans (so-called because of its acorn-like shape; acorn in Latin is glans) of the penis. As a religious rite it was widespread throughout the Middle East before being introduced among the Hebrews, presumably by Abraham. Jews ordinarily perform the rite on the eighth day after the birth of the male child, and the practice is said to be a sign of the covenant between God and man.
(Jewish comics have been known to say that although a mohel’s pay is lousy, at least the guy gets good tips. . . . Inflation has apparently resulted, and five hundred dollars was charged in 1996 “for hacking a foreskin.”)
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ACTS
Acts 15, however, states that Christians need not practice circumcision. Saint Catherine of Siena claimed that Jesus gave her his foreskin as a wedding ring, allowing her to become his bride “not with a ring of silver but with a ring of his holy flesh, for when he was circumcised just such a ring was taken from his holy body.” She whipped herself three times a day, according to Diane Ackerman: once for her own sins, once for the sins of living people, and once for the sins of the dead.
Views in the 1990s
Since 1989, the American Academy of Pediatrics has been neutral on circumcision, leaving it up to parents and pediatricians. “Which is better, to be or not to be circumcised?” Neither, according to current views, unless there is some specific medical reason.
Are all Jews circumcised? Ronald Goldman, a Boston psychologist who founded The Circumcision Research Center in 1991, claims more than 200 Jewish-identified members are not. For example, Moshe Rothenberg is a Brooklyn, N.Y., social worker and high school guidance counselor who has held a bris-sans-circumcision meeting for more than a hundred local families, “a welcoming ceremony, a celebration of the newborn” that includes tree-planting, singing, dancing, or similar events. His son, 9-year-old Samuel is not circumcised. He cites scripture that he believes supports abjuring circumcision, but the majority of Jews counter that his interpretations are twistings and distortions.
In England, circumcision levels dropped from 85% to near zero in the 1950s. In the 1990s, the United States was the only Western country (except for Israel) that still circumcised a majority (66% in 1995) of baby boys. Pediatrics (March 1999), summarizing new information, reported that the American Academy of Pediatrics found no “medical indication” for circumcision, reversing its findings in 1989 that circumcision might bring “potential medical benefits.”
Although in the 1960’s over 90% of American-born boys were circumcised before leaving the hospital, the figure has dropped to 60% today. The figure for Hispanic and Asian immigrants is closer to 36%. Female circumcision, which involves the excision of the labia minora and clitoris (clitoridectomy), is common in Islam and in certain tribes of Africa, South America, and elsewhere.
A 1997 study by National Health and Social Life researchers at the University of Chicago found that circumcision in the United States was most prevalent among white men and men from educated families (96% in Jewish families questioned but only 54% for Hispanic men). Circumcised men were found to be engaged in a wider range of sexual practices, like oral and anal sex and masturbation, but that routine circumcision did not, contrary to some past studies, lead to lower rates of sexually transmitted diseases.
As times change, mohalim (the plural form for mohel, pronounced moyle) are presented with new problems. At a Bethesda, Maryland, conference in 1998, they discussed how the mohalim could make the rite as meaningful as possible to a gay or lesbian couple who have given birth to or adopted a baby: does the child of an interfaith couple need to be immersed in a mikvah, or ritual bath, or does the bris itself suffice? What should the mohel do when families ask for a postponement so that a grandparent can afford to attend from afar? Is a religious circumcision covered by insurance or managed care? And how do mohalim use the Internet to inform the public?
Pros and Cons
Since the 1960s, some children in presumably frivolous lawsuits have demanded of parents that they replace their lost foreskins. Some studies indicate a reduction of such operations in the United States, although Jane E. Brody in The New York Times (25 May 94) estimates that 86% of newborn boys in this country are being circumcised.
Although male circumcision is said to be performed as a sanitary measure, there are arguments both pro and con. Those who favor circumcision sometimes point out that penile carcinoma is almost unheard of in circumcised men; that circumcised boys are ten to twenty times less prone to urinary tract and bladder infections than their uncut peers; and that circumcision is associated with a 50-90% reduction in transmission of HIV (Nature, 1994).
Three Needles, Thom Fitzgerald's global triptych about the struggle against the common enemy of AIDS that manifests itself differently in Asia, Montreal, and Africa, stars Lucy Liu, Chloë, Olympia Dukakis, Sandra Oh, and Stockard Channing. One African explanation about why circumcision needs to be delayed until a male child is older: "You don't peel a banana until it's ripe enough to eat."
Views in the 2000s
In 2006, an increasing number of South African clinicians and policy makers favored circumcision as a "possibly highly effective weapon in the battle against the spread of HIV." Studies were cited that suggested male circumcision could reduce the chance of HIV transmission by men in sex with other men and possibly with women, according to health workers in Zambia and Swaziland. Dr. Kasonde Bowa, a urologist at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia, told The New York Times that "The evidence is very strong." His facility offered circumcisions for about $3. and received about 400 requests per month for the procedure. A January 2006 workshop in Swaziland, backed by the Health Ministry, trained 60 doctors in circumcision to meet demand.
Of 219,755 boys born in United States armed forces hospitals, a tenfold increase in the incidence of urinary tract infection was found among those who were uncircumcised. As for any pain involved, rabbis stated that a 30% lidocaine cream is applied thirty minutes before the procedure. Others, however, find it a brutal practice and blame organized religious groups for abusing children before they are able to object.
Kenyan microbiologist Maina Kahindo in 1999 described his study that found circumcised men were less likely to become HIV-infected. But according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a 2008 study, there is not enough evidence to show that circumcision reduces the risk of AIDS in sex between men, despite previous studies in Africa.
A 2008 movie, Delwende by S. Pierre Yameogo, depicts how female circumcision in Burkina Faso is based upon superstition, and this supports patriarchy that easily slides into misogyny.
In 2009, Operation Abraham (4, Eliezer Hagadol St., POB 7179, Jerusalem 91072, Israel) publicized its organization as one that favors circumcision of all babies. It is named after the biblical figure, Abraham, who was circumcised at an advanced age, "according to the book of Genesis".
Humanist Views
A number of Humanist leaders have said circumcision should be for medical reasons only. On the topic, Joseph Lewis wrote In the Name of Humanity (1956). In the 1990s, secular humanist groups have met to discuss circumcision, and Robert Gorham Davis in “The Unkindest Cut of All” (Free Inquiry, Fall, 1993) discussed the subject.
Africans who have worked to abolish the removal of all or part of a girl’s external genitalia, usually to insure virginity or control sexuality, include New York human rights lawyer Seble Dawitt and Wellesley College filmmaker Salem Mekuria. Both oppose the practice and call for its eradication, but they argue that Africans must lead the fight, that “superior Western attitudes do not enhance dialogue or equal exchange of ideas. . . . Neither Alice Walker nor any of us here can speak for [African women]; but if we have the power and the resources, we can create the room for them to speak, and to speak with us as well.” In 1993, Sudan, Kenya, Egypt, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso had taken legal or policy measures against genital mutilation.
A leading secular humanist, Bangladesh’s Taslima Nasrin, herself a physician, has written of her utter contempt for individuals who would genitally mutilate a child. In 3001, according to Arthur C. Clarke’s science-fiction novel, much will have changed:
- Circumcision made a lot of sense in primitive times but no longer. By the mid-twenty-first century so many malpractice suits had been filed that the American Medical Association had been forced to ban it. The practice, however, continued a century later, until “some unknown genius coined a slogan—please excuse the vulgarity—“God designed us: circumcision is blasphemy.”
August 2009 - Circumcision Does NOT protect Against HIV for Gay Men
An August 2009 study, citing Dr. Peter Kilmarx of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- Circumcision "is not considered beneficial" in stopping the spread of HIV through gay sex, said Dr. Peter Kilmarx, of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, the CDC is still considering recommending it for other groups, including baby boys and high-risk heterosexual men.
- Previous research has suggested circumcision doesn't make a difference when anal sex is involved. The latest study, by CDC researchers, looked at nearly 4,900 men who had anal sex with an HIV-infected partner and found the infection rate, about 3.5 percent, was approximately the same whether the men were circumcised or not.
Critics, however, immediately objected to any government proposal that would recommend circumcision for babies in the United States.
Pro's and Con's in New York Magazine - October 2009
In its 26 October 2009, New York had a thorough article about circumcision, including sections on the following:
- The Anti-Cutting Crowd
- Snip-by-Snip Primer
- How Bad is the Pain?
- A Pro-Circumcision Mother's Defense
- What Can Go Wrong?
- Hospital vs. Bris
- Uncut Jews
- Sex Partners' Stories
- Cancer and AID Questions
- Cut and Uncut Both
{ACK; Sheila Anne Feeney, NY Daily News, 27 May 1997; The Economist, 27 Nov 1999}
