A family says their newborn son nearly bled to death and is fighting for his life after he was circumcised at a New York City hospital.
A family says their newborn son nearly bled to death and is fighting for his life after he was circumcised at a New York City hospital.
Tim and Gabrielle Groth said their son, Cole, underwent the circumcision at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital in Manhattan, where he was born on March 31.
Stop circumcising children. Let men decide if they want to be circumcised when they reach the age of consent at the age of 18. I guarantee circumcision will drop by 95% or more.
And if that's the case, that circumcision only exists if you don't give the boy the choice, then don't fucking force this on an infant!
Yes and no. That's a much harder thing to argue in reality. I'm an atheist so I'm pretty anti-religion, but the reality is that all parents want to teach their child at least some of their worldview. If that worldview includes religion, who are we to say "no, you can't teach that"? The child can always change their mind when they're older and in theory there's no harm. But a child can't decide to get their foreskin back. (I know there is a surgery to try to add some back, but it's just aesthetic, the nerves will never be recovered.)
Until about a year ago or something I didn't even know that it's such a common practice in the USA. For me it always was just a religios thing of Jews and for some rare medical cases where the foreskin opening is too tight.
But now I know that it's apparently considerd normal? dafuq
Be assured it's defenetly not in germany unless you are jewish.
Yeah, it's said to have some kind of nebulous health benefits here.
It really goes back to the turn of the 20th century, when all kinds of health gurus claimed it would curb masturbation (which they blamed for a variety of ills), but nobody says that anymore.
There's a really easy way to tell whether or not you should decide to circumcise a penis. First, check if it's your penis. If it isn't your penis, don't circumcise it BECAUSE THAT IS NOT YOUR DICK AND YOU DO NOT GET TO DECIDE WHICH FLESH BELONGS AND WHICH DOESN'T ON IT.
I had a foreskin issue where I couldn't pull it back. Got it removed around age 10. Wasn't fun but now my captain doesn't wear his cap to dinner. Looks normal too.
It's both. Parents want their babies to have designer penises, so they pay doctors to mutilate them for aesthetic reasons. It is mutilation, and it is cosmetic surgery.
It's elective because there's no medical reason to do it. Babies don't get to choose anything for themselves. An adult can elect to have a circumcision, and parents can elect to have their babies circumcised. It would be a better world if the latter weren't true, but that ain't the kind of world we got.
Not for the newborn it isn't. Something as personal as your own genetals should be your own personal choice, but in this instance the owner of the penis gave no consent.
I agree with you fully but there's a discrepancy that needs to addressed. Now, before you get the wrong idea, I'm NOT defending or excusing anybody here. The medical staff and the parents should be held responsible for nearly killing this newborn. Child genital mutilation of any kind should be banned.
Now, with that out the way, Male circumcision and female genital mutilation (or FGM, which is what I believe you're referring to when you say 'only applying to girls') are not directly comparable. Male circumcision typically only removes the foreskin of the penis whereas FGM removes the both the clitoris and labia (I shudder while typing this out). It would be like castrating the entire penis and testicles.
Again, this sort of thing should be banned and no child should suffer from the decisions they had no say in.
It would be like castrating the entire penis and testicles.
That is very much not accurate. Genital mutilation (of both genders) generally focuses on removing the ability to obtain pleasure from sex while maintaining reproductive capability.
Circumcision is roughly analogous to clitoral hood amputation (one type of FGM). The foreskin also contains a substantial number of sensory nerves (Meissnar's corpuscles, and ~10k-20k nerve endings specialized for pleasure). Additionally, the glans (head) is subjected to the external environment in a manner which it was not adapted for, resulting in formation of thickened, layer of skin to protect it. These two things, taken together, result in greatly reduced sensory and pleasure capabilities in the penis. The reason for its commonality in the US is the historical puritanical belief that sexuality is wrong and desire to repress sexuality in little boys.
FGM is wrong. So is male genital mutilation. Inflicting either on those who can not consent is a crime against humanity that should not be accepted as commonplace.
I’m curious: the person you replied to didn’t say they were comparable, so why did you feel the need bring it up?
In my experience, people who point that out when no one has made the comparison are usually insecure about an issue that affects men getting attention and potentially eclipsing the issue affecting women. Like people who point out that female victims of domestic violence die more often from their assaults during discussions about male victims of domestic violence.
You sure you wanna be that person? Try harder not to be, please.
I'm fine with adults mutilating their foreskin, but I want the decision left up to the individual. Having the parents do it when they are a baby leaves the individual with no choice
It would be like castrating the entire penis and testicles.
More like removing the glans and foreskin, but that doesn't make it much better. There are definitely varying degrees of awfulness, but it's all bad.
While there are some truly evil and horrific practices like removing the clitoris or sewing the vulva shut, some female genital mutation is "just" removing the clitoral hood, which is directly analagous to the foreskin.
Most people can agree that this practice is deeply wrong, and that it is still genital mutilation. And so I think categorizing male genital mutilation separately as "circumcision" is downplaying it.
In parenting classes in my liberal area, the nurses will say "I'm required to tell you that circumcision has medical benefits". Then they fume how it's based off bad research and cut themselves short. "However it's not like your son will be lined up for a nude photo. You can break the cycle of trauma". I'm lucky to live here.
Damn you have some good nurses. In my liberal area the best they did was mention that it's optional (literally some people think it's not). We also have liberal relatives who did it to their son just so he'd "look like dad." Wtf
In America at least most people don't really consider it until the kid is born. Then in the post birth rush of things happening someone asks if you want to circumcise your kid. Most Dads will say "well I'm circumcised, so I guess" and his dad said "well I'm circumcised, so I guess" and his dad said "well I'm circumcised, so I guess" and his dad said "HE IS BORN OF SIN! We must circumcise him to discourage sinful behavior!"
Most people really don't think too deeply about most things, try not to over think it
In the US, it's very often the mother's decision, because the nurses will ask her. Fathers mostly get very little say in the medical care of their children in the US at nearly any age if the mother is present.
It’s due to lack of education about not cutting it and indoctrination of what has been societal norms. It’s much less nefarious than you think on the part of many parents. Most people don’t generally think about this ahead of time and research it.
As a Jewish person im absolutely ashamed that my people still practice mutilation. When a tradition causes severe medical problems it should not continue.
It's not even strictly a Jewish thing, as much as it is just an American thing at this point. My parents were only mildly Christian and got me circumcised at the recommendation of the doctor. They didn't really think much about it because being circumcised is just "the norm". My dad is circumcised, and my mom said she wanted to make sure I looked like my father (why she expected me to be catching so many glances of dad-dong in life, I'll never know).
That said, whether or not it should be, a circumcision is still a very routine procedure, so it's kinda astounding that they botched it so badly. Hopefully the kid makes it without any lasting damage.
It's ironic because the whole reason I'm even here on lemmy is because I was permabanned from reddit for telling someone to crawl back in their hole because they were defending circumcision while claiming female genital mutilation was abhorrent. As if mutilating a penis is perfectly fine but don't dare mutilate a vulva.
I know this isn't the main topic here but it just reminds me that body shaming men is okay but body shaming women isn't. Especially when it comes to sex organs.
Yeah, I love how everyone loves "big dick energy" and "small dick energy", but if someone said "loose pussy energy" and "tight pussy energy" it's practically a hate crime lol.
I feel like your argument loses something by being stated backwards. It (and Hacksaws reply) comes off sounding like you are more angry at women than the patriarchy and want to be able to mutilate and body shame them. Rather than what I hope and assume is the case, that you want all genitals protected from mutilation and shaming.
Yeah maybe I missed the /s but I just wanted to show that body shaming and genital mutilation is fucked up and society's (patriarchy) acceptance of it against men is pretty shitty overall. It would be much better if nobody got body shamed or mutilated non-consentually.
I'm just bringing up the double standard. You're correct in your assumption that I don't want ANY genitals being mutilated.
But it's not patriarchal that circumcision is normalized for aesthetical reasons. Women circumcise their sons because they don't like uncut penises. I've NEVER heard a man say anything like that outside of not wanting their child to feel different because other boys are all circumcised. Women do it for aesthetics. Men do it because of a fear of being different. There's a difference.
It shouldn't be done at all but the idea that uncut penises look gross is inherently a woman thing.
It depends on the day for me whether increased sensitivity would be a good or bad thing for me. But that's mental illness and the accompanying drugs for ya.