Vehement disagreement over my views on MGM has become a perennial feature of the Dish (I addressed the latest batch just last month). Another reader writes:
I was taken aback when you wrote:
I support a religious exemption for Muslims and Jews. But routine mutilation for no reason at all? Let a man decide when he's old enough to make the decision about his own body, and what others may do to it without his consent.
Two problems with this: (1) there are compelling individual and public health reasons to encourage male circumcision; and (2) infant circumcision is significantly safer than adult circumcision. (Both points are well documented in this fact sheet by the CDC.) The risk-benefit calculus here is not unlike that in deciding whether to vaccinate a child. In both cases, the need for "consent" is overridden by the parent's legitimate right to care for and protect his or her child.
Since children have no reason to fear any consequences from not being mutilated, this notion of protecting the child is bullshit. The analogy with vaccination is deranged. But if an adult man decides it would be in the interests of his health to cut off his foreskin, he should have every right to do so. Another:
I hate to keep harping on the same subject every time you mention it (she says as if you could possibly remember one of 2 million readers) but you keep not making sense.
I'd love for you to explain why "because my holy book tells me so" is a more valid reason for permanently mutilating your newborn that "because I want my son to look like his dad" (which is the most commonly given reason). Even if we accept that religious reasons are automatically superior to plain old preference (which I don't) we would still have to explain why mutilating a boys penis is perfectly acceptable but mutilating a girls vagina is not, not even when the clitoris is left intact. What if someone's religion mandates they clip their babies ears? Should this too be protected? The familiarity of circumcision (which you accept as a mutilation) should not make it more acceptable than other forms of mutilation.
Or maybe we should accept that submitting a newborn to medically unwarranted surgical procedures cannot be protected because this expression of religious liberty of parents inescapably interferes with the much more important bodily integrity of their child.
Another:
Again, your deference to religion is perplexing. "Let a man decide when he's old enough to make the decision about his own body" – unless his parents happen to be Jewish, or Muslim? What about Christians – like my parents – who have their sons circumcised on account of Christ's declaration that "not one iota" of Old Testament law should be ignored?
Another:
I think your argument is related to your deep devotion to religious freedom – which, in theory, is fine. However, why can't we, as a society, demand that Jews and Muslims modernize with the rest of creation?
We've done it before. I mean, Leviticus is pretty damned unambiguous about the consequence of sleeping with someone's spouse: "the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death" (Lev 20:10). There's no mention in this verse that the government shall do it. The way I read it, anyone who finds out someone's been committing adultery has the obligation to kill both the adulterer and the adulteress. So why don't we allow Jews and Christians to do so? Because it's fucking wrong! While there are murderous crackpots who read that verse and come to the same conclusion I just did, no sane, modern American would (I hope) believe it's okay to put adulterers to death strictly for their adultery.
Of course, genital mutilation is not like putting someone to death. However, the core of my argument is that you simply cannot defend bending the rules of a proposed law just because of one's religion. If San Francisco goes through with the circumcision ban, all genital mutilation of underage boys should be banned; otherwise, we're wading into awfully murky territory as to what should and should not be allowed with respect to religion.
Additionally, I think it odd that you think most adult males can make up their minds about circumcision except for Jews and Muslims. It's very simple: when a young Jew or Muslim male reaches 18, he may decide for himself if he thinks his religion is worth cutting off a piece of his penis for. Don't Jewish and Muslim boys deserve the same choice afforded to everyone else?
Either genital mutilation is defensible, or it is not – end of statement.
It is indefensible, but it is not so harmful as to preclude the religious interest in infant mutilation in a country where religious freedom is, and should be, absolute.
(Photo: from the Library of Congress. Central Asians perform the barbaric practice on an infant boy in the late 1900s.)
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