We are considering circumcision........

[fustilarian]

For our 3 month old son who is half jewish, but the wrong half. My partner is circumcised and would like his son to be too, but is not adamant if I don't want to do it.

I see that it is a very heated topic on mumsnet.

I think that the procedure without anaesthetic is clearly barbaric and horrifying. With anaesthetic it carries risks too, but would you anti-circumcision lobby say it is barbaric done in this way? If so, why?

Also I have to be completely honest and say that I do not, and never ever will, understand why people think that 'for religious reasons' could possibly change the status of anything which for human reasons ' might be morally or ethically questionable.

It's either okay, or it's not, and in many respects something being done to a child for religious reasons makes me more appalled, not less.

applauds obm's 1st post

Re the religious reasons - tbh it's something I really struggle with. I feel really uncomfortable challenging it because it feels like I'm attacking the belief system itself and that's difficult if you don't share the faith and can be an excuse for racism (I'm not for a moment suggesting that about you). Feel much more comfortable about believers challenging it, like [[this organisation www.jewsagainstcircumcision.org/0

www.jewsagainstcircumcision.org/

onebat, fantastically put.

abetadad, your stance makes no sense. circumcision where male or female removes part of the sexual organ. of COURSE it should be carried out if there is a medical need. it should NEVER be carried out otherwise. It is amazing that it is legal for reasons other than medical, I cannot think of any comparable act on a baby that would be.

AWESOME site spicemonster.

I'm not a journalist for the record! I'm a full time mum with 3 month old twins and a toddler. Glad I sound coherent enough to be one though shineoncrazydiamond- I'll take it as a compliment.

Great isn't it? I am not Jewish but I have lived in North London for most of my life and about 1/2 my close friends are and it's something we discuss a lot! The last para of OBM's 1st post is really enlightening I think and goes some way to explaining why it is usually my male friends who are pro, whereas my female friends are anti.

Yes, I like onebat's point about affected individuals needing to interpret what has happened to them in a manner that makes it 'ok' and not a violation of them. I think that quite a lot of victims of female genital mutilation will endorse what has been done to them -- for a lot of reasons, but among them the reason that it would be horrific to suffer and to acknowledge that the suffering was a wrong done to them.

thanks for all the links too, the jews against circumcision one is really good.

It's not totally impossible for fusty's son to become Orthodox Jewish if he wants to, there is a conversion procedure as I am sure you all know, but it involves 2 years living with an Orthodox family so it's a pretty huge commitment!

I'd be interested to hear what your dh says fustilarian.

mathanxiety. what about the rest of the list?

spicemonster-

I would be interested to know what the general thrust (no pun intended) of your conversations with circumcised and uncircumcised men is, if you don't mind elaborating a bit.

spicemonster - while I agree with what OBM says in a general sense that is how many people come to terms with trauma there is perhaps a more prosaic explanation.

Perhaps the male friends you have simply genuinely feel that being circumcised has not affected their lives and as it was done when they were babies they cannot remember the pain. Your female friends though are thinking from the point of view of a child they perhaps feel a close maternal bond to. Two different points of view. One based on real life and the other based on an abstracted sense of how it might affect another person they have a deep emotional connection to.

As I said in a much earlier post this thread is largely presenting a female view but in real life men who are circumcised (with I accept some exceptions) just do not feel they have suffered harm or disfigurement. It is not that they do not love or care for their son - just that they feel it will have little long term effect which reflects their own direct experience.

I don't think it needs more complicated explanation than that. Having worked for a firm that was almost exclusively male Jewish workforce that was the overwelming sense of how they felt about it. My few Jewish female friends though do express misgivings. One is a doctor and was extremely upset at the circumcision of her son. Despite being a doctor she expressed it in quite emotional terms as a traumatic process for her.

I want to emphasise I am not dismissing either point of view and not tryng to make this a male v female thing - just suggesting a reason why most circumcised men do not have a problem with male circumcision but many women without direct experience of it do take serious issue.

But even if it is true that most men don't have a problem with it that is irrelevant. It would only be relevant to their decisions regarding their own body.

ABetaDad, can't you see why that is the case?

it doesn't hurt anymore (but that doesn't mean it didn't hurt ALOT).

what would it be like to acknowledge that it wasn't a desirable thing, perhaps that it was an abuse (albeit carried out without that intention). most people let alone (perhaps less emotionally expressive???) men can't face that kind of thing.

now i'm going to really get myself in trouble...

[whispers] it's like boarding school.

I'm sure that many of my male c friends (apols but I'm really sick of typing circumcised over and over again - so that's going to be my abbreviation) don't feel there's any big issue about it. But I suspect obm's point is behind it. If you don't remember the trauma and everyone else in your family and wider social circle has also been done, it's going to be very hard to even get the thoughts together to articulate distress, even if you feel it.

fustilarian - as above really. My c'd friends are generally pro whereas their wives generally aren't. Very few of my Jewish friends are devout but on the whole, the men seem to think that being c'd is a prerequisite for a boy brought up in the Jewish faith. Only one family has had their boys 'done' though - the others haven't (and in most cases their mothers are also Jewish). So (not that this is a very reliable statistic) of my close Jewish friends, of 8 couples, half of them have married outside their faith and only one of them (where 7 of the 8 have male children), have had their boys circumcised.

I have a couple of friends who are c'd and who aren't Jewish and they are the ones who are really angry about it.

don't know if that's remotely helpful!

Surely parents make all sorts of decisions affecting their children's lives based on their own experience. The decision to circumise is just one.

If you want to know about the risks of the surgery and the pros and cons of having it done as a baby then you and your husband need to have a consultation with a surgeon who performs this. You will not be committing to anything and at least you will have all the facts.

I don't agree with it myself for all the reasons that have already been listed.

Yes they do ABD. But the decision to mutilate their child should be challenged IMO. Otherwise we don't deserve to call ourselves a civilised society

spicemonster,I agree with much of your posts, but i find it unconvincing to argue that if people aren't aware of trauma from circumcision, that this is part of the proof of it being a traumatic procedure??

To me this would tend to demonstrate the amazing recuperative powers of humans, and also how little we still know about the development of memory (although as every 1st year psych student knows, Taddio et al 1997 in the Lancet gives a few clues). It does not justify circumcision.

omfg.

IT HURTS. A LOT. whether or not under anaesthetic it hurts very much while it is healing.

that is undisputable (you try cutting off a bit of your genitalia without it hurting!).

why on earth is it ok to hurt babies with a medical procedure that is life threatening (on it's own with complications nevermind GA) in the name of ANYTHING other than medical necessity.

and of course you're right ABD, doesn't make it ok though does it.

sophable - I didn't quite understand your post [genuinely] can you explain a bit more?

Boarding school never did me any harm. Not being circumcised never did me any harm either .... well not yet anyway. My parents made both those decisions.

sorry choosyfloosy - am multitasking and I didn't articulate that very well. I meant that if there is no conscious trauma, it doesn't mean that there is no trauma, rather that it may not be remembered. Or of course, there may be no trauma at all but having watched my DS scream while having his jabs at 8 weeks, I can't imagine how chopping off a large piece of skin isn't going to hurt like hell!