To expect our parents to BUTT OUT??!!

[LavenderStar]

DP is Jewish but I am not. It has never been a problem, he was brought up in the faith but it isn't a big part of his life now, although he doesn't eat pork or shellfish. His parents are more religious, don't mix meat and milk, go to synagogue etc. but don't have any problem with the way he chooses to live his life now or with me.

Anyway I am 25 weeks and if we have a boy we decided to have him circumcised. It was never a big discussion between us, I actually prefer it (I think it looks nicer and somehow it seems more hygenic) and DP I think wants to do it more as a traditional thing than anything else and obviously every other man in his family has had it done. I think his parents might go so far as to get upset if we didn't although I don't know. But frankly it is nothing to do with his parents.

Anyway so my mother phones up today even though she knows we are going on holiday tomorrow and have a million and one things to do at home and at work, and I told my dad I would speak to her when I got back. Obviously though what she wanted to do was more important and she told me that she was phoning as something had been "bothering" her. She thinks circumcision is "an unecessary procedure" (to put a baby/child under anesthetic) and potentially dangerous (eg they could cut too much off). I actually don't know much about it but we would have it done in a hospital and I am sure it would be fine in this day and age. I am not sure what it has got to do with her anyway.

My parents don't have a religion and have always been very supportive of whatever I have wanted to do in life. I am not sure if she has started interfering now because I am pregnant or because it is actually something we need to consider more thoroughly. What does everyone think?

Also now I just think it will cause a problem between the families whatever we decide to do and everyone has always got on really well. I don't know why parents think they have the right to shove their opinions down our throat, it makes me really angry. DP's mother is already slightly neurotic and we already have to "manage" her, so I could really do without this, I feel like telling them BOTH to f* off!!

Or is it just my hormones?

What proportion of uncircumcised boys/men go on to need the procedure later though? I would be interested to know, if anyone can find the info.

I don't understand why you would consider a procedure that is not necessary, when it does have an effect them in future life, older boys and men who have had the procedure report that it hurts for some days/weeks afterwards, and you are making a big choice regarding sexual feeling for your (will someday be adult) child that they have no say in.

For once I disagree with you justa

BAJ

From BMA guidelines 2006

?normal anatomical and physiological characteristics of the infant foreskin have in the past been misinterpreted as being abnormal. The British Association of Paediatric Surgeons advises that there is rarely a clinical indication for circumcision. Doctors should be aware of this and reassure parents accordingly?.

justaboutback You are right, she does mention GA in the OP. I am v.

I think that circumcision is necessarily going to arouse ire in people and I can't believe anyone could be so naive as to think it wouldn't. It's an unnecessary medical procedure. It's fair enough to question why you would want to put a child through pain unless you had strong religious views about it. Even then, I think you should expect to be challenged if you put it forward for debate. But to do it without a strong religious view, for 'tradition's' sake strikes me as really quite odd and that the OP hasn't really thought it through. I'm sorry if people find that hard to accept but it's the truth.

? maybe new guidence

I can't see that the circumcision of a baby is any less awful than that Xhosa ritual, justa.

I do feel a little uncomfortable criticising circumcision, out of respect for people's Moslem or Jewish affiliation. But it is such a difficult practice to justify. An irreversible, at least slightly painful procedure, resulting in a likelihood of reduced sensitivity, and a possibility of serious complications; indicating a cultural or religious affiliation which the subject may or may not wish to choose for himself in later life.

The penis is a beautiful little piece of hydraulic engineering, which functions so neatly to cover and then reveal its business end. I hate the medical arrogance of the US's routine non-religious circumcision more than the religiously motivated act. Even the dear old appendix is recognised now to have a valuable function, whereas previously doctors intheir ignorance thought it was best whipped out on any old pretext.

I can see that it may have had benefits once. But just because it is a cultural norm now does not make it morally right. There are different standards of human rights or womens rights in different countries, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't challenge those standards.

Similarly, if one tribe do circumcision as you described Justa, it doesn't make it OK to put babies though unnecessary pain just because it is less pain that what another mad set of people do. Would you be blasé about domestic violence in this country because at least we treat it more seriously than another country?

It is not something I could or would choose for my boys without a medical need. Especially having read the accounts of men who had the choice made for them, desperately want their foreskin back and are going to great lengths to try to restore it.

Just as I was about to say with reference to that article
"We have to be careful not to take evidence from one part of the world and apply it uncritically to others.
"Male circumcision will have little impact on HIV risk for boys born in the UK, where the risk of acquiring HIV heterosexually is very low.
"Girls can be vaccinated against HPV and so protected from cervical cancer, and condoms protect against herpes."

megcleary Was just about to post same article!

I don't think we can say medical opinion is divided. There is clear guidance from the BMA that there is no medical reason to have a newborn circumcised for preventative purposes. We don't live in Africa or the USA, and in Britain only 1% newborns are circumcised. You cannot have a newborn circumcised for free on the NHS because the NHS does not recognise a medical benefit.

The divide in the UK is between doctors who refuse to circumise babies for cultural reasons and those that agree to do it for cultural reasons; it is not, in the UK, a debate in medical circles, about health.

The BMA recognises that is not unlawful in the UK, but that this may be challenged by the Human Rights Act because it is not necessary for health reasons.

justaboutback - why do you think the foreskin is there in the first place, then?

I have no problem offending superstitous people. ALl religion is bullshit. Every single set of myths are just that. Now you're all entitled to believe any of the buulshit you choose to believe. But you are not entitled to assault or mutilate other people in the name of your fuckwitted outdated superstitions.
Oh, and the 'medical' argument is bullshit too. ONly stupid people and farty old medics who won't take any notice of modern research now think that the procedure is medically valid in the case of a healthy penis (yes there are abnormalities that do justify circumcision but they are uncommon). People used to mutilate their children's genitals to stop them masturbating on the grounds that masturbating would send them insane. People used to think it was better to have all your teeth pulled out in your late teens to prevent suffering from dental decay in later life. There is a long history of unnecessary and horrible things being done to human bodies for alleged medical reasons that have later been shown to be bullshit.