Even as the circumcision rate for newborn baby boys in the United States reaches its lowest level in decades, the American Academy of Pediatrics reported Monday that the health benefits of circumcision outweigh the risks. It’s the first time that the influential medical group has updated its circumcision policy since 1999. The academy said that medical insurers should cover the procedure.
A review of medical literature published Monday in the journal "Pediatrics" finds that circumcision may protect heterosexual men against HIV infection. The policy shift comes as circumcision becomes a charged political topic from the Bay Area to Germany, where a court ruled in June that circumcision is illegal. Jewish groups are asking the German government to pass legislation that protects the practice.
The academy's position does not endorse circumcision, but suggests that it should be an option available to parents, according to an article in the New York Times.
According to a federal study of circumcisions performed in community hospitals published in February, there were 1.2 million hospital circumcisions in 2009. California counts one of the lowest circumcision rates in the country with 22 percent.
Last year, Berkeley's Peace and Justice Commission passed a resolution condemning a comic book character created by an anti-circumcision group called Foreskin Man that many deemed to be anti-Semitic.
What do you think? Should circumcision should be banned, or should parents be allowed to have the choice, as the American Academy of Pediatrics suggests?
I am pleading with you not to call CPS on me with your false neglect claim that you stated you would report and ask that you consider you've not even met me or my chldren to know and that basing such complaints on nothing more than thou "chosen one's" opinion of the amount of time I spend posting is really not fair even coming from thou "chosen one". Also, I would ask you have mercy on my limited financial resources due to being poor, disabled & stupid and that you not file frivilous lawsuits to create "legal fees I cannot afford".
Tamerlane (Timur) quite a handle you have there. Tamerlane: the Muslim fellow who is estimated to have killed seventeen million people. It's rather like someone going by the name of Stalin ... or Hitler. Where are you coming from with all this anyway ... anti-abortion, but advocating Genital Mutilation, while using the handle of one of history's greatest butchers. Explain yourself, man.
Especially since, in the most all cases, the newborn is healthy and RIC is not without risks and lifelong losses. The losses significantly outweigh the benefits and that part of the story is not told adequately to us by our Physicians . The US Health Care System is broken and behind the rest of the world in many ways. All other developed and nonsectarian countries oppose RIC and ours does not. To me this is a great embarrassment.
Idi Amin, Robert Mugabe, Kim Jong-Il, Genghis Khan or Pol Pot, but Tamerlane won out. :-)
It's the other way around, English Lady. Male Genital Mutilation negatively affects a man's female partner's experience. Check out Kristen O'Hara's book Sex As Nature Intended It. http://www.sexasnatureintendedit.com Circumcised sex results in painful chafing and endless pounding, as circumcised men attempt to achieve a modicum of the subtle sensations which are characteristic of the the gentle, loving intercourse women can have with intact men.
Attempts to conflate the issue of Male Genital Mutilation with the controversy over abortion demonstrates how little you seem to know or care about the rights of living children. Using this ploy suggests you lack any valid defense for the tradition of Male and Female Genital Mutilation. As a consequence you refute your very premise, which casts doubt on the reliability of your argument.
If my parents had thought this through, and realized that there was an alternative to conforming my body to please the god of the Jew, they would have done exactly the same thing. They are violent too. OK with my penis. Not OK with the lack of choice. Absolutely detest the symbolism. Is that clear?
In my endless quest of virality, before your fwd, I drew an initial sketch of a penis running away from the doctor with a scalpel. Product of the Victorian Age that I am, I couldn't even send it to you for an opinion. It definitely would need the NSFW label. Then we had a disagreement with a friend over whether it even portrayed an uncircumcised penis correctly. I'm afraid to use Google Image search for clarification - who knows what spam that might attract! Then I considered some non-NSFW options -- like a dog pondering the problem -- but nothing really grabbed me. I'd say the entire issue has been blown out of proportion.
@WInifred -- actually this story was on Albany Patch within minutes of its initial post on Patch. It was, a very short time later, shared with a number of other sites. You're right that this gets away from our mission of keeping the conversation local. But every once in a while I think that can be interesting for people too. I definitely suggest you simply un-follow this conversation if you don't want to see the comments. Then it should be easy enough to ignore. Stick to the rest of the home page if you're looking for local. :)
After we finish talking about how evil Circumcision is...Can we then talk about how evil racism is?
Sorry to bore young Winifred with all this trifling ; )
Yes, Nadja, and though I haven't seen the genitalia of many females, I must say that I'm very happy not to have witnessed any before breakfast this morning. I'm sure I would have lost my appetite, straightaway. I mean how can women go around displaying themselves like a bunch of female dogs and cats with their rumps up in the air, begging for attention. It defies imagination. I'm sure you agree with me that we'd all be better off if women would have those ugly flaps removed. Then we could all eat our meals without undo concern.
LET IT GO ALREADY!!!!!!!
Gay men who have anal sex, on the other hand, pass bodily fluids from one to the other, and male geital mutilation doesn't seem to make any difference in rates of transmission.