Circumcision should be banned.

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2025/01/judge-and-parents-call-for-boys-to-be-protected-from-circumcision

Article describes an upsetting case of two doctors performing these ops without anesthesia, and with sometimes serious side effects. One boy nearly died.

The National Secular Society is running a concurrent campaign to ban all 'religious cutting' - that includes both FGM and male circumcision. I wholeheartedly agree that no baby or child should suffer in this way. More info:

https://www.secularism.org.uk/religious-surgery/

YABU - circumcision for religous reasons is fine
YANBU - circumcision should be banned (unless there is a medical reason)

The decisions to circumcise are not overly autonomous. Those practising religions who propose it are not free from controlling influences. They have true autonomy.

As your post demonstrates - men are behind this. Men should be influencing male rabbis, (under the guise of religion where god is male). The “doctors and the men who promote it”. In what world outside the middle class world of MN do women have 50% influence?

Eh? Your post makes no sense at all.

Babies are like fish, they don't feel pain. (Victorian belief)

I really can’t imagine what’s confusing? Men and women are responsible for keeping babies safe. That’s it. Don’t chop bits of their skin off and don’t do anything else painful and unnecessary to them…. Surely we can all get behind that? Can’t we?

& imams. But notice I didn't say male doctors. Female doctors & nurses are equally responsible when they participate, tho the numbers may be lower for doctors, I don't know.... In the US, where it's not religious mainly, I think women probs are likely to have a 50% say in it.
Admittedly, I was thinking of non religious. This is much more common in US, here it is most likely Jewish or Muslim couples where the woman may have less autonomy. But I don't want to say all these Jewish & Muslim women have no choice. Plenty will have autonomy, not all Orthodox Jewish women are helplessly oppressed. & some will be like pps, w a Jewish or Muslim husband but not following the religion themselves.
Imo, when you are a parent, you need to protect, & cutting should be something you think long & hard about if there is a valid medical reason. & if not..I know partners & religious leaders can be controlling & abusive, but you need to protect your child. & yourself, if they're pushing you so much.

@AliasGrace47 Men should campaign against FGM. I would argue tho that FGM is not as common here as circumcision- or is it?

Are you seriously entertaining the possibility that more than 1 in 5 women in the UK have undergone FGM?

I agree. But men are almost always the proponents of barbaric practices yet women are expected to challenge these despite having less of a voice in all societies.

There doesn’t seem to be any agreement with @Cunningfungus that we should leave worrying about circumcision to men, so perhaps there’s no point in saying this but - if we did take that approach, that would seem to me to be fundamentally problematic for a whole host of women’s issues and feminist issues.
The obvious response is if men have to deal with men’s issues, then women have to deal with women’s ones. But women are largely powerless to change many of the things affecting them without input and cooperation from men. So if we follow this ‘that’s a men’s problem’ thing, doesn’t it just harm women more because men will almost have been given a free pass to (continue to) prioritise men’s issues.

Sorry this is probably a distraction, and something more suitable for the feminist board, but I am just slightly baffled by the suggestion that we should just leave circumcision for men to deal with.

I predict we'll see a court case at some point, an adult male suing their parents and practitioners, for circumcising them.

FFS I can’t be arsed arguing the point anymore.

Will just reiterate the point about my sadness at the sheer amount of women who try to equate male suffering with female suffering.

All societies are generally patriarchal. Women women’s rights are secondary to males. Even practices which harm males are perpetrated and sustained by males. Yet women are supposed to stand up for males where males don’t.

I’m getting more depressed by the minute reading some of the responses on this thread so it’s night night Vienna from me.

I’m not holding any human to a higher standard than any other human; it’s very simple for me. NO ONE should be chopping off bits of a minor’s body unless it’s medically necessary. The fact that anyone thinks this is controversial is pretty wild

I kind of agree with you but then the other cultures would also feel confident in their moral standards. I have some non-british friends who would never let their children dress the way the average teenagers dress and think it's terrible parenting to dress that way. However, they of course don't say anything but are quite certain they're morally right. But the average British parent wouldn't see anything terribly wrong in the dressing, so who's right?

But we can legitimately argue about clothes, can’t we? Few people would consider clothes a moral absolute. Surely not chopping bits of your newborn baby off is non-controversial?

But who's expecting women to challenge this? Certainly not the many men who have been circumcised themselves and see no problem with it. It seems weird to insist to them that they are victims of abuse when they don't recognise themselves as such.

Men generally have quite a lot of agency. If circumcised men don't see circumcision as a problem then maybe it's not. Or at least not such a big one that we need to spend our time and energy fighting it. Not vaccinating your sons is potentially far more harmful than circumsing them but we allow parents to make that choice for their children .

I'm sorry you feel upset. I agree w a lot of what you've said, but I do feel that in the US for instance, & many families here, the woman does have a say. This isn't Saudi Arabia, where circumcision is v common.
Women here do suffer definitely here, there's no need to exaggerated when there are indeed serious problems for us.
This article is v interesting on circumcision, apparently fathers are a major driver, wanting their son to look the same...& a mother describes her son's circumcision as 'beautiful & spiritual'. I hope he agreed. Some Jewish men later have said their glad the covenant was enacted to connect them to tradition, but what do they feel at the time?

I also 💯 understand this view. But again...we know social media is harmful to kids, but more parents allow their young children access to it. Are they not "loving mothers" for allowing them access to what has been proven to cause harm? Even more harm than circumcision if it leads to long term mental health issues and even suicide? I can only imagine that parents who allow their children be circumsized are not any less loving than the average parent and for them, the reason they let it happen outweighs any pain the child feels? I suspect it's far more complex than saying parents that allow it are "not loving*

My ex was circumcised as a baby. He remembers every part of the procedure. He has PTSD, and believes it is linked. He is in no way happy about the procedure that he had no say in it, he would see himself as the victim of abuse. Awful, barbaric practice.

Not vaccinating your sons is potentially far more harmful than circumsing them but we allow parents to make that choice for their children .

This is actually an interesting point, philosophically. I’m not sure the point hold though; punching my baby in the face is unlikely to cause them lifelong harm but I’d still be arrested for doing it because it hurts the baby and is in no way beneficial to them.

Many people who've had potentially bad things done to them support it. I think the rusk of death, injury, reduced pleasure & the principle of consent outweigh those who don't mind. How would they remember what it was like at the time anyway?

And they voted in Trump as their president twice.

So you are basically saying the majority of Muslims, Jews and Americans are child abusers?

@72hoursinaande Yes, I am. If they mutilate their children in the name of religion or 'just because'.

Then your ex has every right to describe himself as a victim and campaign against circumcision. My husband- also circumcised as a baby - has no memory of it and no problem with having had it done so isn't bothered. We chose not to circumcise our sons but I can't say it's something either of us felt strongly about either way.

@Porcuporpoise can I ask why you chose not to circumcise?

I do think it's best to be scientific about topics like this, factual and unemotional as that's more likely to actually influence people. When I've had conversations on this topic with acquaintances who belong to religions that practice circumcision, factual conversations have been really positive. They have mentioned that they get lots of people looking down on their decisions and saying they hurt their children for no reason but pointed out that the "social and moral decay" and family unit breakdown in our UK culture causes far more hurt to children than circumcision ever will and I wasn't sure how to respond to that. It's better to present facts as that gets you further, in my opinion

It is interesting. In a way, it’s also about bodily autonomy - we don’t force people to have vaccines even though it will benefit them AND benefit the rest of society, because we generally respect people’s ability to make decisions for themselves.

With regard to children, we entrust their consent to their parents, so their bodily autonomy is effectively delegated - but the parent is still free to choose not to vaccinate despite the benefits.

But with circumcision, the benefits are limited (if they exist at all) but there are risks, and the effects are permanent. Unless medically necessary, it’s essentially a cosmetic procedure. I don’t believe parents should have the child’s bodily autonomy delegated to them in the case of cosmetic procedures.