German court rules religious circumcision on boys an assault

[garbon]

what's up with garbon and Seedy being so defensive on this?
You know, nails require constant maintenance as well otherwise they get fugly, dirty, and possibly infected. Let's remove them all for health's sake!

From the looks of this thread it seems mostly uncut Euros cheering out a do-nothing decision by Germany.

Wrong.

Care to point out where?

[Sheilbh]

I can't think of a rational principled reason why they should be allowed.  But I still think they should.

[Ideologue]

what's up with garbon and Seedy being so defensive on this?
You know, nails require constant maintenance as well otherwise they get fugly, dirty, and possibly infected. Let's remove them all for health's sake!

From the looks of this thread it seems mostly uncut Euros cheering out a do-nothing decision by Germany.

Wrong.

Care to point out where?

...No.

But it's still a great thing Germany has done today.

[Iormlund]

Pretty sure I'm not looking for a partner who will raise me healthy children.

Not consciously.

[garbon]

Pretty sure I'm not looking for a partner who will raise me healthy children.

Not consciously.

OK.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I can't think of a rational principled reason why they should be allowed.  But I still think they should.

It is too trivial for the state to be involved (except as a regulator so that certain standards are met). There are all sorts of things that are legal that we do not necessarily approve of, that is right and proper in my opinion, the alternative is a dreadful tyranny.

[Sheilbh]

Maybe and I agree on your general point.  But I can't help thinking that cutting a child's genitals, especially given that it can affect their enjoyment of sex through their life is something the state can be legitimately concerned with

Though as I say I still think it should be allowed.  Certainly I think that it should require explicit legislation, not just the court interpreting assault, because of the effects on particular religious communities.

[Iormlund]

Rubens would have run out of canvas space in modern America.

Spain is right up there with us: http://www.theolivepress.es/spain-news/2010/10/16/obesity-public-enemy-number-one/

At least we can fall back on our freedom to inflict brutal bodily assault on our infants.  The Spanish will soon have nothing to console them in their obesity.

I'm not that surprised, sadly. It seems people have less and less time for traditional Med diet and we've been shifting to fast food for a while.

[garbon]

Maybe and I agree on your general point.  But I can't help thinking that cutting a child's genitals, especially given that it can affect their enjoyment of sex through their life is something the state can be legitimately concerned with

Which makes sense then in the case of female circumcision but in the case of male, evidence of its affects on enjoyment of sex is mixed at best.

[Viking]

There is no health benefit you can get from circumcision (apart from treatment of phimosis (the inability to retract the foreskin)) that you cannot also get from keeping it clean and practicing safe sex. 

Because in general males are very good about keeping clean and practicing safe sex.

Yes and? If we had some doctors here they would tell us that surgery is always the last option when behavior can make it redundant.

[garbon]

There is no health benefit you can get from circumcision (apart from treatment of phimosis (the inability to retract the foreskin)) that you cannot also get from keeping it clean and practicing safe sex. 

Because in general males are very good about keeping clean and practicing safe sex.

Yes and? If we had some doctors here they would tell us that surgery is always the last option when behavior can make it redundant.

If such measures are having noted positive effects vs. those not receiving surgery then clearly there is some need.

Besides, why does a standard cosmetic procedure need justification?

[Viking]

Since "die wende" Jews have been returning to Germany in quite large numbers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Germany

"some health benefits" - all these "benefits" boil not to not suffering all the various maladies related to the foreskin - mostly infection, inflamation and transmission. Basically if you don't have a foreskin your foreskin cannot get infected. The same applies to hands, legs, penii and noses.

There is no health benefit you can get from circumcision (apart from treatment of phimosis (the inability to retract the foreskin)) that you cannot also get from keeping it clean and practicing safe sex.

So, you are saying there are no benefits from circumcision - except for a bunch of benefits? 

No, I'm saying that the only benefits you get from removing he foreskin is avoiding diseases of the foreskin. Just like removing the teeth will prevent all diseases of the teeth and removing the appendix will prevent diseases of the appendix. And I am saying that you will also avoid all these diseases of the foreskin by keeping it clean and having safe sex.

Point is, on the state of medical knowledge today there is a perfectly acceptable non-religious case for circumcision. A perfect atheist may, acting rationally, choose to have the procedure performed on his or her children. Or not. The benefits are relatively minor - and so is the procedure.

Motivated reasoning. Infant foreskin removal is never done for medical reasons without some pathology (phimosis) and when it is done without some pathology it is only done for religious and cultural reasons. There is not a perfectly acceptable non-religious case. I can say this because the argument is accepted by no-one. It is only used to justify and support the religious motivation; much like Halal/Kosher slaughter.

This fatally undermines the notion that the decision to perform the procedure is an "assault" - unless, of course, the rationale for so classifying it is to give a sock in the eye to religious types generally (or Muslims and Jews, specifically). I'd love to see the German Court arrest a doc for performing the procedure where the rationale for performing it was to obtain the reputed health benefits.

It is an "assault" because it does physical harm without medical justification to a person who is incapable of deciding if they want this done or not.

Norway already has a borderline ban on male circumcision as non-doctors are banned from performing surgery and doctors refuse to on grounds of medical ethics. In addition to it not being paid for by the state health insurance. You won't need to arrest any doctors, you'll just need to shame them by exposing them.

Right now the muslims and jews import "doctors" to come and do this. From time to time. There is an effort to ban this as well in Norway.

[Viking]

There is no health benefit you can get from circumcision (apart from treatment of phimosis (the inability to retract the foreskin)) that you cannot also get from keeping it clean and practicing safe sex. 

Because in general males are very good about keeping clean and practicing safe sex.

Yes and? If we had some doctors here they would tell us that surgery is always the last option when behavior can make it redundant.

If such measures are having noted positive effects vs. those not receiving surgery then clearly there is some need.

Besides, why does a standard cosmetic procedure need justification?

Adjectives adjectives. There are no "noted" positive effects. You just have one less body part to get infected. Admittedly a body part well suited to grow bacteria, but still, the only benefit is that the foreskin is no longer there to get infected or infect somebody else.

Doctors don't recommend this procedure to deal with the supposed need.

The basic difference between performing cosmetic surgery on babies and performing cosmetic surgery on consenting adults should be obvious.

[Martinus]

I think only an idiot is incapable of noticing a qualitative difference between a parent educating the child in a certain manner and a parent causing irreversible bodily modification to the child. That's all I have to say about Tamas's posts.

If I were facing a choice of being brainwashed for the first 18 years of my life, and having my foreskin chopped off, I'll whip it out faster than Siege after seeing a picture of a pre-teen girl.  That said, there is no reason to dismiss small victories just because big victories are out of reach.

Perhaps, but the problem with "brainwashing" is that it gets into the delicate grounds of parent's apparent right to educate his or her children (which I think is definitely not absolute and should be significantly curbed but a lot of people feel differently), whereas body mutilation is more of a clear cut (pardon the pun) issue. So you gotta pick your battles when fighting the hydra of religion.

[garbon]

Adjectives adjectives. There are no "noted" positive effects. You just have one less body part to get infected. Admittedly a body part well suited to grow bacteria, but still, the only benefit is that the foreskin is no longer there to get infected or infect somebody else.

Doctors don't recommend this procedure to deal with the supposed need.

They just did in South Africa.