And?
There is wide range of medical and health benefits from male circumcision. Ear piercing hurts like fuck but its still done to minors, and it has no M/H benefit what so ever.
Piercing a child's ear against the child's wishes is a crime, and to think body piercing to be analogous to circumcision is at the extreme end of the fucking ludicrously stupid spectrum. But I assume you do realise that the biggest difference between these procedures is that one is reversible. Indeed, it is easily and naturally reversible, which is one of the many reasons why there are no age limitations on body piercing, but it remains illegal to tattoo an under-18. This is why we, in our developed society, afford the child a modicum of autonomy in certain realms - the consequences of a child undergoing a piercing are trivial at best.
But how many kids do you know asking for their penis to be mutilated? Of course, to ask that question is to miss the point; circumcision is performed not on minors who might vocalise a desire - brainwashed or not - to be cirmcucised, but on infants, who by definition cannot verbalize an intent of any kind.
The argument for the health benefits of circumcision are spurious at best. First of all, circumcision is a TREATMENT for phimosis and posthitis among others, much in the same way that an appendectomy is a TREATMENT for appendicitis. To argue that there are health benefits in regards to phimosis is therefore to suggest circumcision is a valid preventative surgery. It is to say your child MIGHT one day suffer this affliction, just as your child MIGHT one day suffer from appendicitis. But do you advocate the removal of appendix from a newborns? I don't even care if you do; any doctor would scoff at the idea and think the parents insane for suggesting appendectomy of an infant as a preventive. But do you know why they don't for circumcision, or at least will acquiesce to a parent's wishes? Because some fucking desert dwellers a few thousand years ago thought it was a good idea, and we've been doing it ever since - with a bunch of contortions along the way, like the notion that circumcision prevents masturbation. The reason it is a legitimate surgery is because of cultural inertia, not enlightenment; parents, drawing on the traditions of their long deceased desert dwelling antecedents, think the uncircumcised penis unclean, unsanitary, and decide that it must go.
Yes, there are other health benefits to circumcision. In the developing world, where HIV/AIDS is rife, circumcision of both infants and adults will undoubtedly save lives, and also contribute to the diminishment of the epidemic. In this circumstance, a right minded person can conclude that the trauma inflicted on an unconsenting infant is justified; particularly as it becomes less and less likely as a person grows older that they will undergo the procedure, for various reasons. In the developed world, the evidence for the health benefits of circumcision are far less convincing. Circumcision does little to prevent the incidence of STIs, though there is evidence that it has a small impact on the transmission of genital herpes (HSV-2). Circumcision also slightly reduces the risk of urinary tract infections and penile cancer, among other things.
Circumcision has a health benefit; a slight reduction of the incidence of certain conditions in adult males. But
no studies have concluded that circumcision must be performed on an infant for these benefits to accrue. It is a decision, therefore, that an adult, cognisant of the benefits, is capable of making himself. This ridicules the notions that parents, in their capacity of determining what is best for their child, should have the right to decide whether to inflict a traumatic surgery on an infant; one in which an infant loses a part he was born with; a part of corporeal being.
So stop with the fucking ridiculous propaganda that it is a parent's right to decide whether an unconsenting infant should have a traumatic surgery inflicted upon him for the sake of 'prevention'.
