Studies Agree: The Risks of Circumcision Outweigh Any Benefits. It’s Time For Europeans To Rethink Our Permissive Approach To Forced Male Genital Cutting

28 comments

  1. I thought it was mostly rare outside of Jews and Muslims in Europe or for medical reasons in Europe, I hardly know any men who are not Muslim who are circumcised in the UK.
    Everyone knows it’s not necessary here, this title makes it seem like it’s common practice.

    I know it’s common in the US but I don’t think so in Europe.

  2. Reform is way overdue.

    In principle, this should be banned for minors.

    In the interim, parents should at least be educated and required to sign a waiver that they were informed that the procedure has no medical benefits and is harmful and that doctors recommend the child make their own choice when the child is old enough.

    It won’t stop the die hard fundamentalists, but it will give most a pause to think.

  7. This is how nature works – if something exists and it doesn’t cause issues, it has to remain.

  9. I totally agree. This is unacceptable. And don’t @ me with religious freedom, its the freedom of the child that is infringed upon. Hell, I’m still annoyed that may parents had me baptized and I had to pay 20 bucks to get out of the club.

  10. We are trying to make it happen in Denmark, and we had a debate recently.

    However the argument used by the government politicians is that it is the same as banishing all Jews from Denmark, and because of holocaust and Muslim aggression, we need to protect Jews at all costs or something.

    They also mention it is against the “freedom of religion” part of our constitution. Which apparently means it is ok to cut genitalia parts off boys, but not girls.

    There is also A LOT of pressure from USA, Israel and Arab nations to keep it lawful. Why anyone listens to them on this matter, or most matters of state and freedom, is beyond me. I believe the US also pressured Iceland the same way. Maybe there is a lot of money and lobbyism involved.

    It is crystal clear to me that circumcision, and similar permanent surgical matters of religion, is something only adults can consent to. Religious freedom does not supercede the right to govern your own body. Parents should not be able to do anything of this sort regardless of being motivated by religion. And you can’t consent to anything like this until you are like 15 or 18.

  11. cutting off children body parts should land you in jail for a long time. The ban can never come soon enough.

  12. I know that this is an extremely contentious topic but I would like to share my personal experience. I’m a Spanish young man (28y old) that at the age of 3 had my foreskin forcibly retracted by my pediatrician (forced retraction at such a young age is no longer recommended by the Spanish pediatrics association but I don’t know about back then), he was so rough that he teared my foreskin which lead to me developing scars. He told my parents that trying to apply a cream could dissolve the scars but after some months he proposed circumcision to which my parents agreed.

    I remember the surgery as if it happened yesterday, I woke up in a hospital bed drenched in cold sweat, with a sewn up penis, inflammed and bloody. My circumcision has caused me pain for as long as I have had memory, all my erections have been painful and I’ve never really enjoyed masturbation nor sex, only being able to hold erections under extreme pain with cialis or other similar drugs.

    At 22 my situation depressed me so much that I started researching what was done to me and read about circumcision, how it’s supposed to be carried out and its effects. I was horrified, I couldn’t believe that the most intimate, erogenous and sensitive part of my body has been brutalized at the most defenseless moment of my life, how the medical community has the dogma that this mutilation has no effect on the victim and how the laws of the society I’m part of don’t protect the child in any kind of way, since there are no protocols/guarantees of how a “good” circumcision has to look like. I also learned that Spanish doctors carry out the most aggressive version of circumcision, cutting as much tissue as they’re able, and how mine was botched since I have part of my glans stitched to the shaft and that is never mentioned in any medical manual.

    I have been trying for years to get medical help, but doctors in the Spanish public health system have just laughed at me and told me to get over it. Only at a private clinic have I been able to receive corrective surgery to fix my scars.

    Genital mutilation is not simply a religious issue, it’s a civil one, there isn’t any kind of support for those people wronged by it, no protection to the children it’s forced on. The dogma that we hold as a society has to be discredited, genital mutilation harms male children too, I should have had a right to my body and I deserve to be treated with dignity now.

  13. At the same time, the WHO is actively promoting it in Africa because a slight reduction in HIV transmission under certain conditions. At least that is mostly adults though. But yeah, ritualistic genital mutilation of children should not be a thing.

  16. Agreed, being highly critical of the removal of female children’s sensitive genital tissue, while being totally indifferent of the removal of male children’s sensitive genital tissue is a strong double standard.

  20. Turkey could go fully Secular and circumsision would still be the norm. It’s weirdly ingrained into the culture, even Secular Turkish demographic who aren’t religious at all do it.

    If I have a male son I will not let it happen.

  21. Because a stupid dirty (literally) son of a bitch in the Sinai Peninsula discovered he could cut his dick off so he doesn’t need to wash his dick, a lot of children’s penises are getting mutilated.

  22. If someone wants to cut off part of their dick just let them wait until they turn 18. Stop making the decision for children, it is completely ridiculous.

  24. As a mutilated person, if you mutilate your children’s genitals because of your garbage beliefs, you are failed as a parent and should end up in jail. Period.

  25. We have got to stop calling it circumcision and call it what it is, genital mutilation. Also no your religion shouldn’t be a good enough reason to genitally mutilate your children.

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