Circumcision classed as possible child abuse in draft CPS document
theguardian.comIn 1996 the Federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act made it illegal to perform FGM on minors for non-medical reasons, and in 2013 the Transport for Female Genital Mutilation Act prohibited transporting a minor out of the country for the purpose of FGM.
Male genital mutilation on minors for non-medical reasons should also be made illegal. It is amazing Medicaid still pays for it in many states. The American Academy of Pediatrics is failing the United States.
Female genital mutilation is done by Them, and bad. Male genital mutilation is done by Us, and not bad.
I had to read it twice to get your point, well said!
> “enormously powerful symbolic act of identity”.
That's revolting in a way. Identity OF THE PARENT, not of the baby who definitely doesn't know.
And maybe the teenager doesn't want to have that identity, but now it's too late
Also: given the historic role of circumcision in religious and cultural conversion, one could view infant circumcision as removing that possibility for certain religious or cultural conversions later in life. In this sense, it might be viewed as culturally immunizing as well as being a cultural marker.
As it should be.
However this practice has become deeply culturally ingrained, whether through religion or other custom, so it is going to be a hard slog to eradicate it worldwide.
Definitely, and unfortunately. FGM is also on the rise in Europe :(
Good. It is barbaric and mutilation.
It should be, right along with FGM
Baffling that male genital mutilation persists to this day due to momentum, misinformation, and a small religious niche alone. Really makes me think there’s an empathy gap between gendered issues. 1996 we got rid of FGM, yet 30 years later baby boys still get their tips of their penis cut off, often incorrectly/too far.
Humbling reminder we really are a bunch of well dressed apes playing house, I forget that sometimes
the discussion got flagged
why is it not possible to vouch for the discussion?
It is not possible to vouch for any discussion, afaik. Only comments.
I asked "why" it is impossible not "if" it is.
It's flagged but not dead. These are not the same thing. See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. Also:
hackers gonna hack
Finally taking this seriously as what it is: religious genital mutilation
I have seen babies with pierced ears and studs. Even when there is no religious pressure some people are just so sick in their head, they will have their babies put through mutilation just because they think it looks "cute". Those people deserve to have railroad spikes driven through their skin.
I would advocate for banning all non-necessary body modification on small children. And before anyone tells me "it's better to do it when they are small, then they won't remember it": no remembering the source of a trauma makes is even worse. That's like saying date rape drugs are no big deal because the victim can't remember it.
There isn’t an equivalence between pierced ears, which is reversible, and circumcision, which is not.
Good, it's barbaric child abuse. No other form of permanent body modification surgery (especially to genitals!) would be allowed on infants who can't consent. An adult wants to get circumcised? Go for it. It's pretty wild that we allow it on babies that can't even speak.
We've banned this account for using HN exclusively for political/ideological/national/religious battle and ignoring our requests to stop. That's not allowed here, regardless of which political position you're advocating.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(Before somebody pounces with "so we're not allowed to post about $TOPIC now?": no, I'm not secretly advocating for circumcision (of all things) and this comment is not about $TOPIC. I just had to hang it somewhere so I chose the most recent thread.
The issue is the overall pattern of the account's behavior, which is clearly against HN's rules.)
Oh, but every Zionist gets to stay. We know you're a tool for censorship dang.
You happily let this account continue: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=soldthat
We've banned quite a few accounts on either side of that issue—theirs as well as yours—not because of their/your view on the issue itself, but because they/you were posting abusively. It's obviously a divisive topic, and people's strong feelings and political commitments are unfortunately leading them to break HN's rules pretty much irrespective of where they stand on it.
You can't derive much signal from cherry-picked examples, because we don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here. When accounts are posting abusively and not getting moderated, the likeliest explanation is that we just haven't seen it yet. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here.
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I don't believe there are very many circumcision single issue voters
You are shortsighted.
What Trump has proven is that millions of single issue voters can be created on any issue if a political party desires it.
Underestimating this reality will only keep political parties that depend on unwritten rules of decorum from winning more and more elections.
There are now new unwritten rules of election issue decorum. Which is to say there are no longer any unspoken rules of election issue decorum. I'd strongly urge everyone to acclimate themselves to that reality sooner rather than later.
I remember around 2016 seeing videos on social media of Clinton endorsing circumcision campaigns.
That's because of the IRL SCP object! Destroy it and they will soon exist in droves!
This is satire, right? Or reasoning by analogy... right??
I looked up "SCP object", and boy that was a rabbit hole. Interesting and entertaining, sure. But if you "fully believe" in anything on that website, please try to confirm your reality with observations or lived experience rather than text from the internet.
Here's an excerpt from SCP's "Guide For Newcomers"[1]:
> This is the SCP Foundation Wiki, a collaborative writing site based around the premise that… in essence, magic is real. It's not exactly like the traditional fantasy style magic you've come to know, but that's the best way we can describe the stuff we have here - Anomalies; items and critters that do not follow the rules of nature as we know them. Staircases that go on forever, mechanical gods from the beginning of time, otherwise regular humans who reshape reality with their mind: these are the kinds of things that, if known to the public, could cause mass hysteria and start wars on scales unprecedented. Due to that, there exists an organization called the SCP Foundation, whose job is to research paranormal activity, keep these creatures and objects concealed from the public, and protect humanity from the horrors of the dark.
I don't believe in that and it sounds totally out there, yet it's far less extreme than infant genital mutilation.
That's my point. Yes it's tongue-in-cheek. No I'm not an SCP version of a "furry" or "otherkin" who thinks that their make believe universe is real.
It's an analogy for the INSANITY of the current acceptance of mass circumcision uncritically by the masses.
You don't need a "Ketar class SCP object", simple conflict of interest from the Medical-Industrial Complex will do.
All those skin banks could turn into liabilities instead of profit centers, since preservation of the product is also preservation of the evidence.
A functioning government would waltz in, keep the power on, start sequencing the tissues and cells to identify at least some of the victims, and do this in a transparent and public way.
Are those victims not capable of identifying themselves if they feel they were indeed victimized?
(but for context, my own view on the subject is "Let's wait a hot minute before we go cutting parts off the baby")
The problem is evidence, its not like those urologists like incriminating themselves. Even though my trauma occurred in hospital, its not in my medical file. How does one even start to file an official complaint if it didn't happen according to your medical file?
Thank you for elaborating! Your original comment was abstract and high-handed, but this makes it clear you're coming from a place of wanting to solve your own specific problem.
Practically if you know you were circumcised shortly after your birth, can't you look at the record of your birth and subsequent care, make a list of doctors that attended or treated you in any way, and then make the complaint about all of them?
(this isn't arguing against your point, just exploring the problem)
You are making assumptions, I was effectively infibulated (by "partial circumcision") after a false diagnosis, age 11, where I clearly conveyed I did not want to before it happened.
I know the name of the urologist.
I go to the hospital as a young adult, made an appointment with another urologist at the same hospital (to prevent myself from ending up in jail).
I ask her to check my medical record, it's not there.
She proposes to check the record under my mother's name: nope, under my stepfather's name: nope, my father's name: nope, and my father didn't even know it happened.
Meanwhile the university had some recent philosophy thesis paper that tried to answer the question why no one in my country has sued any urologist regarding circumcision, their conclusion? some random psychological stuff.
Psychological? the suppression of evidence (or access to the evidence) is not something that happens in my head, but in the real outside world.
I my case I know the name of the urologist, but we are denied access to legal evidence.
And why would they incriminate themselves? its not like they "woops-what-are-my-hands-doing" accidentally put the sample of foreskin in the sterile packaging again boy after boy, and "woops-my-arms-uncrontrollably" put it in their fridge until the medical courier picks it up, and remuneration magically follows without these surgeons understanding what they are doing. Of course they perfectly know what they are doing. It's organised harvesting of foreskin tissue. Why would they incriminate themselves with a paper trail? How naive the rest of society can be: we know these people select their profession because it is an auspicious hidey hole.
And this is in a hospital setting.
Now reread the posted article, every time people argue to only ban religious settings they pretend there is no trauma in hospital settings. The real reason is they want to lucratively harvest the tissues for themselves. It's a limited hang-out every time. Journalists either aren't doing their job, or are being censored by their superiors.
WTF is a “Ketar class SCP object”?