Feeling forced to chose a circumcision...is it my husband,is the religion,is it really necessary?

[efy]

I have read some messages related to this tread by some of you and I understand when you guys call people like us....crazy etc.
I come from a non-circumcised family, my three brothers have never done or need it.
After I have changed my religion I wanted to follow the requirements of being from this religion. I like to believe that I have personally done some changes which were related to my self.
Now that I have an almost 12 months son, it looks that I have to fill up another requirement, which is circumcision, because I am from the religion that requires circumcision but the difference is....the change I need to do does not envolve me directly...is actually my little baby boy.
How do I feel about this?? Well I feel is unnecessary, I already feel guilty for planning to handle my little precious boy in someone's else hands to just harm him...yeah that is exactly how I feel...me and his father taking him with his little smile to a place that God knows what may happen.
And you know what, it was actually planned for tomorrow but I feel relief for now because we have discovered the person who was suppose to do it has had an unfortunate case where the little boy had to be taken to hospital for more operations in order to be 'fixed'.
My husband was circumcised when he was 5 and he believes in it, I don't believe and I think is more cultural than religious, I just do not understand why God will leave this for us humans to do it? Why did he leave that thing there if it need to be removed and why on such as small baby? Why??
My husband speaks about it as being just a simple procedure because he is a doctor but this is not the point, what about the baby? how is he going to feel?
I am relief for now but I am not convinced that this is in anyway necessary if at all...
I rather feel pushed to do it along with my baby.

PigletJohn said: "if baggins insists on using his silly term "intactivist" to mean a person who disapproves of cutting off bits of the human body without medical need, does anyone mind calling him a "mutilationist?"

Intactivist isn't my term. It is the name the foreskin fetishists have given themselves.

I am not aware of anyone on this thread who considers themselves a fetishist.

TheDoctrineOfSnatch said: "The BMA consider male circumcision to be an invasive, radical procedure"

Are the BMA also intactivists?

*You mean in the same way you intactivists claim the US CDC and AAP are populated by circumcision fetishists because they have stated that the benefits of circumcision outweigh the risks??

No. I think it is far cheaper for the NHS to amputate the penis of one man in his sixties than to circumcise 600 boys. Therefore the "establishment" policy is not to recommend routine circumcision.

Despite all that, however, the NHS has updated its advice on its website recently and at least now recognises there are potential benefits to routine circumcision. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of routine circumcision but a step in the right direction none-the-less. The BMA hasn't updated its position for many years.

www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Circumcision/Pages/Advantages-and-disadvantages.aspx

PigletJohn said: "I am not aware of anyone on this thread who considers themselves a fetishist."

Fetishists rarely do. Then again, perhaps most here are simply overtaken by the emotional reaction, "I don't want my child cut for any reason." They will be cut eventually. A cut knee is more painful and takes longer to heal than a plastibell or circumplast circumcision.

You are a mutilationist, then, because you advocate cutting bits off infants when there is no medical need.

You are also a foreskin fetishist, although you may not consider yourself to be one.

" A cut knee is more painful and takes longer to heal than a plastibell or circumplast circumcision."

Yes, cos an accident and a deliberate choice to operate are the same.

Your calculation of a 1 in 600 risk is deeply flawed, baggins. It assumes that all males face the same risk of what is a vanishingly rare cancer. That my DS, aged 3months, is at the same risk as a male aged 70 with diabetes and who has smoked all his life.

Definition of fetish

I don't think there are any fetishists here with reference to the first meaning. Wrt to the second meaning, I think the irrational devotion (to circumcision) is yours

PigletJohn said "You are a mutilationist, then, because you advocate cutting bits off infants when there is no medical need.

You are also a foreskin fetishist, although you may not consider yourself to be one."

My, my! How typical of someone who has lost an argument on reason to resort to mindless personal attack.

ASmidgeofMidge said: "Your calculation of a 1 in 600 risk is deeply flawed, baggins. It assumes that all males face the same risk of what is a vanishingly rare cancer. That my DS, aged 3months, is at the same risk as a male aged 70 with diabetes and who has smoked all his life."

*No, ASmidgeofMidge, it is your mathematics that is deeply flawed, not my logic.

Think about it. if you can't figure out why the figure remains 1 in 600 regardless of the high risk age group then come back to me and I will explain it to you.*

I'm all ears...

ASmidgeofMidge said: "I don't think there are any fetishists here with reference to the first meaning. Wrt to the second meaning, I think the irrational devotion (to circumcision) is yours"

Then I suggest your comprehension skills are as poor as your mathematical skills. Regardless of whether you consider the benefits I have clearly demonstrated are sufficient to defend circumcision, my decision to circumcise my son was most certainly not irrational.

My argument was, and remains, that circumcision is a valid choice for a parent to make, not that all parents should be forced to circumcise their sons.

Baggins? I can't figure it out...

ASmidgeofMidge said: "I'm all ears..."

Fair enough.

It is a LIFETIME RISK. It doesn't matter WHEN in his life your son gets penile cancer (he clearly won't get it in childhood, or below the age of 40 in fact). If the ONLY age you could get the disease was 43 the lifetime risk would remain exactly the same. That one in every 600 boys born will develop penile cancer in their lifetime if they are not circumcised and that none of them will develop the disease in childhood are not contradictory facts.

What's your position on the HPV vaccine for boys?

TheDoctrineOfSnatch: Do you understand why the current age of your son doesn't affect his lifetime risk? And do you understand why the 550 annual cases is divided by the entire male population to get the lifetime risk figure?

Perhaps you feel that since the 550 are all over 40, only those over 40 should be included? Of course this would give you the "over 40" risk of developing penile cancer rather than the lifetime risk, and since the 550 cases would be divided by a much smaller population, the risk of an over 40 getting the disease would be significantly higher. 1 in 300 if half the male population are over 40, for example.

The at-risk period is only in later life ... and that's assuming that everyone has the same risk, which isn't the case.

The incidence of penile cancer in the US according to this was predicted to be roughly 1 in 100,000 in 2012.

TheDoctrineOfSnatch... sorry for addressing the last post to you, it was intended for ASmidgeof Midge!

Why would you think I would oppose HPV vaccine for boys if it worked? Does it?

I don't know. I thought you might as you have clearly read a lot about penile cancer. HPV is a factor in penile cancer, as it is in cervical.

There is a difference between incidence and incidence rate

(Lifetime risk of cervical cancer in the UK - 1 in 134)

www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-info/cancerstats/types/cervix/incidence/uk-cervical-cancer-incidence-statistics

550 cases dx'd per year per 31 000 000 men

Total incidence rate = 1.8 per 100 000

TheDoctrineofSnatch said: "I don't know. I thought you might as you have clearly read a lot about penile cancer. HPV is a factor in penile cancer, as it is in cervical."

I did research it when deciding about our son, yes. My understanding is that about 40% of penile cancers are attributed to HPV. Is that correct?

Which is why I would question the rationale of circumcision for such a rare illness.

ASmidgeofMidge said:

"550 cases dx'd per year per 31 000 000 men

Total incidence rate = 1.8 per 100 000"

Yes. So what are you disputing? The 550 cases per year claimed by Cancer Research and all other cancer bodies that I can find? Or the male population? Or the "about 1 in 100,000 figure which turns out to be 1.8?

I am not sure what your point is.