http://www.newser.com/story/255600/i...n-of-boys.html

Do upsides outweigh downsides?

The mohel lobby would never let that happen here.

If you are planning a bris but are on a budget, I have a great mohel I can refer you to.

I'm on the side of not allowing people to cut babies genitals off with a knife. Seems relatively clear cut (pun intended) tbh.

What are the downsides?

Some studies suggest a small but real decrease in STD's, urinary tract infections and penile cancer. But I would guess that good hygiene in the area would be about as effective, as most of the benefits seem to accrue from that sort of stuff.....

MM MD

This is a decent article dealing with cost/benefit of those issues:

https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article...-any-healthier

I always figured it was purely an aesthetic decision with a lot of nonsense health and/or religious reasons providing cover.

The move to ban circumcision is surely partly an anti-Muslim thing.

There is some evidence that circumcised men are less likely to contract certain STDs. I'm not sure how well such studies control for the accompanying cultural changes (it might be that in Uganda (the sort of country where such studies are made) Muslims have better hygiene than Christians).

i don't think this is true, although i'm sure alt-right types use it as another excuse to bash muslims and jews.

but from a european perspective where the vast majority are uncut (prevalence of circumcision in most western european countries is like 2-5%, vs 58% in the US), most people think it's just a fundamentally weird thing to do, and that even if its not as heinous as FGM, there is no need to cut off bits of baby genital, whether its for aesthetic reasons (wtf), religious reasons, or highly dubious medical reasons.

This is pretty bad. From a medical standpoint, it is mainly a wash. Possibly a small small net benefit of circumcision, particularly in very poor countries (I think WHO recommended it somewhere in Africa to help reduce spread). But for a minority of people, it is a really big deal and an imposition on their religion freedoms. When there is a big obvious harm, then I'm ok restricting religious freedoms. Because it involves knives and cutting I think it is sometimes placed into this category of "bodily mutilation" or something like this, but is nowhere close to a representative case. Our society allows parents to make consequential choices imposed on their children (such as allowing parents to raise obese, inactive children) which cause substantial harm. So to worry about this is ridiculous.

Only reason it's legal to do it is because a baby isn't old enough to tell the person doing it to **** off.

Circumcision results in a non-reversible change to the person's body, i think it's fair to wait until they are old enough to give their consent. If the law changes, religions will adjust accordingly over time.

You would not be allowed to something similar to a baby for purely aesthetic reasons. The idea that religious groups should be allowed to do things that would otherwise be forbidden seems really out of place in a modern secular society, imo.

Cutting off bits of your kids because of some stupid ****ing religion doesn't seem like it should be legal.

I'm about as anti-religion as they come but you should at least throw religious people a bone when it doesn't matter.

Female genital mutilation is absolutely horrible but I really can't imagine anyone weeping over lost foreskin. If people want it back so badly they can get a skin graft.

While I agree with the main thrust of this, I think the percentages are higher in much of Western Europe, more like 10-15 %, simply because there are that many Muslims (e.g. in France or England).

And it's makes it easier to ban circumcision that most of those doing it are Muslims. Europeans love to think they aren't bigoted, but of course they are.

My kids aren't circumcised, although I was. I see no reason to do it, and don't adhere to the superstitious reasons of my forebears.

Do you feel the same about other routine surgeries for babies, like fixing cleft pallets or whatever?

Cleft pallet surgery isn’t purely cosmetic. Is there a regular cosmetic surgery performed on infants other than tearing off a piece of their penis?

Not circumcising your kid is cruel and unusual punishment. Think of all the BJs he'd miss out in his life time.

Fixing something that will leave someone disfigured and in all probability result in the individual being bullied relentlessly throughout school isn't comparable to circumcising someone.

Uh, I've talked to men and women about it (and am circumcised, myself) and obviously fgm is worse, but circumcised men have less sensitive dicks than intact men, period. That might sound cool if you're a teenager thinking about not having to worry to come too early but as a grown man I feel that my personal experiencing of sex is worse because I was mutilated as a kid.

It's not like I hate my parents for it but yeah, I'm against forcing people who can not consent into a worse life.

No, not period. Have you tried googling? There are lots of studies showing it doesn't matter. As was already pointed out the same goes for the health benefits, its far from settled.

Anyway I'm in my mid 30s and am thrilled that I'm cut in regards to sex life and don't see that changing any time soon.

I was mostly replying to uke_master. I don't have a strong opinion about allowing circumcisions, but allowing them only for religious reasons seems wrong to me.

I don't think this is comparable to cleft pallets & co b/c delaying circumcision until the kid is 12 or 14 years or whatever will have approximately zero impact on the kid's life up to that point. What's the rush?

I remember things that happened to me at 12 or 14 years old, I do not remember the shots I got as a new born baby.

Reminder, "what’s the rush" is the same garbage argument made by the anti-vaxxers

No idea where you are going with this. Vaccination is not an aesthetic procedure and delaying it clearly has significant consequences.