dh003i's Journal: Stop sexual mutilation!

(incomplete)

Introduction:

• We've heard horror stories about female circumcision in third world countries. This is true, and its terrible. Worse, is the fact that the US government doesn't accept fear of sexual mutilation of a grounds for granting refuge to the US. This is a horrible unjustified procedure, which is a fundamental violation of human rights, and the greatest exertion of sexism and tyranny that is possible.

  Yet, what is commonly ignored is that here in the US, our own sexual mutilation massacre is occuring. For some reason, many argue that "female circumcision is a human rights violation" but ignore the fact that so is male circumcision. Both are, in short, forms of sexual mutilation. The perpetuation of male circumcision in the US is most likely the result of paranoid Christian views shunning masturbation. As has been proven by previously uncircumcised men who have been circumcised, circumcision decreases sexual pleasure and sensitivity for men. All men who have been circumcised report decreases in sensitivity. Thus, male circumcision is a form of sexual mutilation, which diminishes sexual pleasure and is painful, just as is female circumcision.

  Some may argue that because the baby doesn't remember being circumcised, its ok. This is a red herring. A baby also wouldn't remember a doctor masturbating on top of it -- yet this is a criminal action. A woman passed out drunk doesn't remember if she's raped, but yet that's illegal too. Simply because the victim will not remember the crime against him or her does not mean that that crime is acceptable.

  Others may argue that this is a religious issue (i.e., part of the Jewish religion) and that it is a choice for parents to make. While we have freedom of religion in this country, that freedom does not grant one the right to violate other's rights. Freedom of religion does not give me the right to use you as a human sacrafice. Freedom of religion also should not give parents the right to violate their children's rights -- performing a painful medical procedure on them without their consent. This is a life-altering decision which parents make, one which will affect their children for the rest of their lives, which their children had no control over and may subsequently wish had not been performed on them.

  No studies have shown that circumcised penises are cleaner than uncircumcised ones, of offer any health benefits on average.

  This entire foreskin issue is really just one giant example of the fallacy of ad populum, the fallacy is/ought, and the fallacy ad verecundum. Just because something is popular, is the current status, and has been so for a while, does not make it right.

  What if parents were removing the toe-nails and finger-nails from their born infants? Or using electrolysis to permanently remove the hair on their head? Or having their eye-lashes ripped off? Or their eyelids surgically removed? All of these actions would be regarded as abhorrent, yet for some reason cutting off the foreskin on a baby's penis without anesthetic is somehow considered OK.

  This is really a case of the "parents rights" non-sense, which I'm sick of hearing. Parents don't have rights over their children. Children are not property to be modified, reshaped, and surgically altered as pleases their parents. Children have rights, and in some cases that means the right to be protected against the harmful actions of their parents. Parents are there to support, guide, and raise their children, not force life-altering bodily changes on them against their consent. Parents are there to protect the rights of their children not to violate the rights of their children.