mellowtigger (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mellowtigger) wrote2009-12-13 09:19 pm
mellowtigger) wrote2009-12-13 09:19 pm
help stop genital mutilation
Yes, there are more urgent matters facing the nation, but this is still a very intimate subject and worthy of discussion (and hopefully action).
There is apparently a movement underway to get the American Academy of Pediatrics to recommend circumcising all male children at birth. I have heard before that there is very little medical literature to support such wide-reaching policy. Even at the websites I've read which support the idea, they admit that the medical benefits are very minor.
In contrast, however, is the obvious ethical problem of mutilating an infant's genitals. Surgery without consent of the subject or immediate threat to their life should be against the Hippocratic Oath! Please (whether you are male or female, gay or straight) consider signing both the petition and the letter to stop the AAP proposal. If there are truly any health benefits to be had, please let the child grow up to make his own choice about the condition of his body. I don't know why America is so backwards on this issue, but please consider helping to change the status quo.
I'm amused that this site even has political maternity clothes for expectant (and supportive) mothers to wear:
And those of you tempted to invoke religious beliefs, I ask why your Creator of the human form screwed up male bodies so badly that He requires you to significantly modify them immediately upon their introduction to the world? That's a really serious blow to the whole "infallible" theory, isn't it? Please leave the bodily form of your child as you found it. He can make his own choices later.
My ex (from France) got circumcised in his 30s as he converted to Judaism. It was his choice, and that's consistent with my call to action here. Leave the infant alone; let the adult man decide.
There is apparently a movement underway to get the American Academy of Pediatrics to recommend circumcising all male children at birth. I have heard before that there is very little medical literature to support such wide-reaching policy. Even at the websites I've read which support the idea, they admit that the medical benefits are very minor.
In contrast, however, is the obvious ethical problem of mutilating an infant's genitals. Surgery without consent of the subject or immediate threat to their life should be against the Hippocratic Oath! Please (whether you are male or female, gay or straight) consider signing both the petition and the letter to stop the AAP proposal. If there are truly any health benefits to be had, please let the child grow up to make his own choice about the condition of his body. I don't know why America is so backwards on this issue, but please consider helping to change the status quo.
I'm amused that this site even has political maternity clothes for expectant (and supportive) mothers to wear:
And those of you tempted to invoke religious beliefs, I ask why your Creator of the human form screwed up male bodies so badly that He requires you to significantly modify them immediately upon their introduction to the world? That's a really serious blow to the whole "infallible" theory, isn't it? Please leave the bodily form of your child as you found it. He can make his own choices later.
My ex (from France) got circumcised in his 30s as he converted to Judaism. It was his choice, and that's consistent with my call to action here. Leave the infant alone; let the adult man decide.
Probably TMI
It does have its drawbacks. Most practical of which is that guys often have no idea what to do with it and think that if they just skin it back, they can just treat me like any cut guy, completely unaware of the heightened sensitivity that tends to make oral sex in particular unpleasant.
Medically speaking, my doctor at one point just told me to be sure to keep my foreskin clean, since she'd done a rotation in a urology ward and saw something she called a 'fungal mass'. Essentially, athlete's foot fungus in your foreskin.
She said there's also a greater risk of penile cancer, but essentially that's just because snipping it off means you won't get cancer in it (not that they'd recommend removing a kidney at birth to reduce the risk of kidney cancer).