I hope she doesn’t. I think it is wrong to perform such a painful traumatic procedure on a child – he is old enough to remember, but not old enough to understand – the worst age.

Even the USA rates of circumcision are falling and as your article has been corrected to say, no other Western countries do it.

Adoptive parent or not, I think it is wrong of her to think she can permanently alter anybody else’s genitals for cosmetic reasons.

3 kinds of people circumcise their children:
1) stupid people
2) ignorant people
3) evil people

The baby’s biological father was right in saying circumcision is not part of the Christian faith. Yes Jewish do it for their faith, but in the New Testament, the bible says you don’t have to be circumcised to be Christian. The Catholic church banned it for hundreds of years.

Anyway, we have a son and did not circumcise him, basically because it’s not our body, so it’s not our choice. Sorry if I offend others, but those who do it for faith, who’s to say your son will continue to choose your faith when he is an adult? If you are doing it to avoid HIV, who’s to say your son will engage in risky sex as an adult? If you do it to guard against penile cancer, how do you know he will live long enough to be at risk?

Circumcision is a one-way road that we did not choose to push our son down.

The WHO (World Health Organization) said today that Circumcision is second to safe sex practices. Period.

In Africa, the vast majority of AIDS cases are from hetrosexual contact…not needles or gay sex. Furthermore, these studies are of men contracting HIV from women.

Safe sexual practices are essential. While circumcision alone may keep one in 20 heterosexual men from getting HIV…it won’t by any means solve the problem.

It is also to be noted that African men who are circumcised have a higher risk of infection during the time the circumcision scar heals AND after surgery they may assume that they can still practice unsafe sex…at perhaps an even higher frequency.

Amercians are not from the same culture as Africans. We should not deduce that babys in the USA should now be circumcised.

Remember that the US has the highest non-religious circumcision rate of any industrialized county and we also have the highest HIV rate. What does that tell you about circumcision?

We need to step back and look at the whole picture before jumping to any conclusions regarding circumcision in Africa or the United States.

tal86:

No, actually being RESPONSIBLE and using PROTECTION greatly reduces the risk of HIV.

http://today.reuters.com/misc/PrinterFriendlyPopup.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2006-12-13T205927Z_01_N13463413_RTRUKOC_0_US-AIDS-CIRCUMCISION.xml

Hilary,

That familydoctor.org article is somewhat out of date.

We now know that Cervical Cancer is caused by HPV. There is a vaccine available to prevent HPV called Gardasil.

The article also makes no mention of serious and potentially life threatening MRSA infections of the circumcision site.

It also makes no mention of the question of future sexual sensitivity after circumcision. There is controversy over whether circumcised men have as much feeling as their intact peers.

Study: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1464-410X.2006.06646.x

Finally, it makes no mention of the human rights issue. Do parents have the right to chose elective, cosmetic surgery that corrects no medical problem for their child?

I found this website that seemed fairly unbiased. Although there will always be arguments that doctor’s only do it for the money?!
http://familydoctor.org/042.xml

No child born to this Christian family will be circumcised. Jesus was circumcised, as someone pointed out, because he was Jewish; he was also crucified when he was 33 years old, as a sacrifice for all humankind. His blood is sufficient for all; no one is required to be circumcised, no one is required to be crucified just because Jesus was. There can be no “Christian” circumcision. Those who doubt this should read Romans 2:17-29. Or more to the point, Galatians 5:2-6: Those who seek to justify themselves with circumcision will be cut off from Christ.

Yes, thanks for the male perspective.

In terms of the recent studies coming from Africa, ALMOST ALL (as I have read many of them in the past two months) reported low condom use. They are saying that circumcision can potenitally lower the risk of contracting HIV if no condom is used. In many African cultures, condoms are a no-no, as it means one partner doesn’t trust the other, they think their partner is infected, etc. And condoms are available to the public, both in stores and in clinics. But there is a stigma attached to condoms, so many young people do not use them. And it is very difficult to take results from tests in Africa and apply them to North America. This was one point I made in my final paper in my Sexuality and Health course, of which my topic was male circumcision.

In Western society, the use of condoms is higher, and it’s not seen as a social stigma. And a condom is the best way, besides keeping it in your pants, to prevent STI transmission, including HIV. Getting your son circumcised because it MAY lower his risk of contracting HIV…teach him to use a condom properly – don’t make him believe he won’t contract HIV because he doesn’t have a foreskin, because it can happen.

And female circumcision…it all depends on what type you’re talking about. Simply removed the clitoral hood is the same as removing the foreskin. Infibulation, which is removal of the clitoris, labia minora and the clitoral nerves, and sewing the labia majoria together except for a small hole for urine and menstural blood to pass. It’s meant for the woman to be completely smooth from naval to anus. That is type 3 female circumcision, according to the World Health Organization. And this type is usually done without any type of anaesthetic.