2011-03-31 MedCity News - The Case for Circumcision

[Kyle]

http://www.medcitynews.com/2011/03/t...-circumcision/

The author may benefit from hearing your opinions.

[MelancholyLogic]

Originally Posted by Kyle

http://www.medcitynews.com/2011/03/t...-circumcision/

The author may benefit from hearing your opinions.

If the author, Samantha Gluck, is clearly not interested in researching a topic before she writes about it then I don't have much hope for our englightening her. I shall write to her nonetheless but it may be better to contact the news outlet directly to express how incredibly biased and callous this article is.

http://www.medcitynews.com/contact-us/

I cannot express how profoundly shocked and disgusted I am to read that article on a site that is supposedly a source of medical news.

[MelancholyLogic]

There are already a lot of great comments on the article, but this astute observation caught my eye:

Unsurprisingly, the mistakes in this article begin in the first sentence. The foreskin does not cover the tip of the penis, it IS the tip of the penis. Definining the foreskin off the penis is the first step in making circumcision acceptable.

[MelancholyLogic]

Meet Lisa Cruz, CMT (aka ladydove). She is a self-described "writer of senior care, medical, and mental health Issues. Advocate for seniors, and caregivers. A believer that respect and dignity should not be compromised." She has earned Continuing Education Certificates in many important areas including elder abuse prevention, rights of senior citizens, wound care, infection control, and last but definitely not least medical ethics. From her profile : "[Ms. Cruz] has experience in upholding her belief that respect and dignity should not be compromised."


She left this charming reply to the comments on the article "The Case for Circumcision":

This is a very well written article. Of course, you will always get a response from men when you are talking about their best friend. I had my son circumcised shortly after his birth and there were no problems. I personally do not apologize or feel like I have to defend my actions when it comes to making a parental decision. I discussed it with the health professionals before I had the procedure done to my son and had his best interest at heart. It is a fact that most men do not even take the time to wipe after they urinate, and I for one think that is a nasty habit. This can cause more damage to their penis, because of the bacteria that can cause infections. Some of these infections can cause problems for their sexual partners later on in life as well. What I am seeing in a lot of the post here is “ego” rather than facing the fact that what was done was done. It sounds like some of you are angry over something YOU did not have control over in making the decision in the first place. I say get over it, move on, and appreciate the fact that someone cared enough to make the decision and had your best interest at heart. I suggest that if a man has a problem with the decision that their parents made, then maybe they should discuss it with the parents. I would love to be a fly on the wall, and be able to hear that discussion.
Comment by Lisa Cruz — April 2, 2011 @ 8:49 pm

Please consider sharing your thoughts with her via the contact page on her website.

[Kyle]

Originally Posted by MelancholyLogic

Meet Lisa Cruz, CMT (aka ladydove). She is a self-described "writer of senior care, medical, and mental health Issues. Advocate for seniors, and caregivers. A believer that respect and dignity should not be compromised."

...

People like this make me want to pull my hair out. It never ceases to amaze me how fucking dumb some people can be.

[MelancholyLogic]

Originally Posted by Kyle

People like this make me want to pull my hair out. It never ceases to amaze me how fucking dumb some people can be.

Indeed. She, like Barbara Kay and the writer of this article, Samantha Gluck, seems to be completely entrenched in furthering circumcision at any cost. I wonder what can trigger such a vast amount of denial. It reminds me of a religion in that it seems completely faith based. They pick and choose information and sugar coat it like some pick and choose stories from the bible.

It's very disturbing to me to read how much control over men's genitals these women want. What they are proposing is an assault on men's sexuality, taking away the right of men to have their own sexual destiny.

[Kyle]

Originally Posted by MelancholyLogic

Indeed. She, like Barbara Kay and the writer of this article, Samantha Gluck, seems to be completely entrenched in furthering circumcision at any cost. I wonder what can trigger such a vast amount of denial. It reminds me of a religion in that it seems completely faith based. They pick and choose information and sugar coat it like some pick and choose stories from the bible.

It's very disturbing to me to read how much control over men's genitals these women want. What they are proposing is an assault on men's sexuality, taking away the right of men to have their own sexual destiny.

Agreed. I tried to point this out, in my own way, but my comment was deleted. I suppose that I was too offensive and snarky.

Originally Posted by Devil's Advocate

The Case for Female Circumcision

Female circumcision involves the surgical removal of the clitoral prepuce, and labia minora. This simple surgery is often performed on pre-pubescent girls, but should ideally be performed the first or second day after birth. There's no better way to welcome your baby girl into the world than performing unnecessary surgery on her genitals. Religious or cultural traditions may prompt many parents to arrange for the circumcision of their daughters, but female circumcision has unparalleled health benefits as well.

*** Is It Safe? ***
Many people associate female circumcision with ritual genital cutting in unhygienic conditions, but when performed in a sanitary environment by a trained professional, the risks associated with female circumcision are miniscule. These risks are so minute, so infinitesimal that I'm not going to bother listing a single one.

*** What Are the Benefits? ***
Although the majority of pediatricians consider female circumcision to be a human rights violation, the procedure has many undeniable medical benefits. Surgical removal of the clitoral prepuce prevents phimosis, with the added benefit of greatly reducing clitoral smegma. Surgical removal of the labia minora prevents or reduces a host of problems which affect this non-essential body part, such as cysts, adhesions, vaginitis, furunculosis, eczema, fibroepithelial polyps, papillomatosis, cancer, and many, many other problems. STD infections are also be reduced by this simple principle: when the area available to be infected is reduced, the number of infections are also reduced.

*** Why Newborns? ***
Because newborns are unable to say no, and too small to stand up for themselves, so parents can safely ignore their human rights and perform any irreversible, non-therapeutic surgery they like on their children.


Wow, I can see why someone would be attracted to writing articles like this - it's quite easy when you don't have to cite sources or mention any of the downsides.

[Dasher]

Why is Samantha Gluck writing this article in the first place? Circumcision became so widespread in the U.S. that the rate reached nearly 90% at its peak in the 1960s -- thanks to the various government health agencies promoting it with millions of taxpayer dollars. The U.S. Army got the "more effective" (i.e., more violent) fighting force it wanted. Thousands of doctors and hospitals got to ring their cash registers from the windfall profits of all these circumcision procedures. Everyone became fat and happy. So why does Samantha Gluck feel she has to proselytize for routine infant circumcision at this particular time? Is it because the circumcision rate is dropping like a rock?

Here's the money quote from her article:
"The newborn days represent what physicians call the ’window of opportunity’ for circumcision."

Besides truthfully revealing the circumcisers as opportunists, Ms. Gluck has to mention the "window of opportunity" because if the boy isn't circumcised when he is born, he is unlikely to want to get circumcised later on -- like after he turns 18. So the only chance to nail him is when he is a defenseless baby and can't say much about it -- except to scream his lungs out as part of his body is sliced off.

Ms. Gluck doesn't mention the dark side of circumcision, such as the culture of violence it creates. The U.S., which has the greatest number of circumcised males in its population of all the countries on earth, is also the most violent. We lead the world in serial killers, nearly all of whom had been circumcised. We have 10,000 murders per year in the U.S.; there are only about a hundred per year in Germany, and only 15 in Japan -- both countries where boys are not circumcised when they are born.

Did you see the Book TV program on C-Span this weekend about violence in America? It was an interesting program, but no one mentioned that circumcision might have something to do with it. As for the rather high number of murders in the U.S. and other violence, some people -- but not the author -- blamed it on the National Rifle Association, gun shows, or kids watching too many Wily Coyote cartoons. Of course, the author never considered circumcision might be to blame, or even partly to blame, either.

There are even some on this forum, who may still be in denial to some extent about circumcision, who don't want me mentioning the connection between infant circumcision and violence in America. Or between RIC and divorce. Or between RIC and you name it. We can't even discuss these connections, they say, because we don't have any data, and all the research isn't in yet. This might be a logical concern if the national discussion of RIC were on a level playing field. But it's not. The U.S. government, through its public health agencies, has consistently promoted RIC since as far back as the late 1940s. It backed off slightly after Congress banned FGM in 1997, fearing that MGM might be next. But it has never changed at heart. It is now spending over a billion dollars (including millions in stimulus funds) to either promote the notion that circumcision prevents AIDS or to spread other disinformation, such as foreskins are dirty and dangerous and need to be washed in a special way. You are never going to have truthful research and data about circumcision if the U.S. government's public health agencies have anything to say about it. Thinking otherwise is naive and harmful to the cause of intactivism, because in waiting for "official data" and "research" about the connection between RIC and violence in America, we would be waiting for a bus that will never arrive.

The decision to circumcise should not be based on phonied up and rigged "science". It should be based on common sense.

[MelancholyLogic]

Originally Posted by Kyle

Agreed. I tried to point this out, in my own way, but my comment was deleted. I suppose that I was too offensive and snarky.

Loved your comement, Kyle! The first comment that I posted was something similar but it was removed as well. Nice to see they are not just omitting important information like the complications (both physical and psychological) from the article but censoring feedback about the article as well.

[Pedantic Nuts]

My comment was deleted. That doesn't bother me. Our goal should be to get more people to oppose or at least question circumcision, which we aren't going to accomplish on the comments page of an article like that one.