San Francisco's Assault on Circumcision

When I initially heard about San Francisco wanting to put a circumcision ban on their ballot for November, I dismissed it as sheer ridiculousness.  A thousand-dollar fine and a year in jail seems a bit steep for one of the most common medical procedures in American hospitals.  Keep in mind that San Francisco leans far to the Left, and as such, is prone to such tomfoolery, like the time when San Francisco banned the Happy Meal late last year.  After thinking about this ballot initiative for a while, it made me wonder why certain individuals within that city would attack a medical procedure and call it a violation of human rights. 

It's not simply because politics has become so polarized in this country that any topic is now a "hot button" issue.  No!  Those who are anti-circumcision cry "mutilation" and "assault" because of the connotation of the practice.  The practice of circumcision (ברית מילה) is practiced by Jews, as well as Muslims.  Regardless of the actual origin of the practice, circumcision is very much associated with religion.  Religion also happens to be tied to the concept of tradition.  ברית מילה is well over three millennia old.  For Left-leaning San Franciscans, religious traditions such as circumcision are antiquated relics to which modern "progressives" should not cling.  To allow such a practice to continue to exist would hold society back.  Therefore, opponents to circumcision have an anti-religious axe to grind.

This would be the optimal time to go through each of their objections and see if they have any merit:

• "Circumcision does more harm than good."  Like any other medical procedure, circumcision comes with risks.  As such, you should consult your doctor, as well as the statistical probability of complications.  However, there are considerable health benefits to circumcision.  The NIH found that it can reduce the chance of contracting HIV by 64%.  The World Health Organization (WHO) also follows suit.  Mayo Clinic points out that it decreases the contraction of urinary tract infection (UTI), penile cancer, and STDs.  The American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) had similar findings.  
• "It's traumatic for the baby."  I can hardly believe this is an actual argument against circumcision.  It's not even the fact that there is no sound evidence to prove this statement.  It's simply common sense that the probability of remembering anything from infancy is next to nil.  Clearly, this is an argument with the explicit intention of distracting us with fear.  
• "A circumcised penis is an insensitive penis."  This argumentum ad metum is what gets a lot of people.  The anti-circumcision crowd will tell you that by "nipping the tip," you cut off any sexual sensitivity or stimulation.  One could argue that because this is a "religious practice," the goal here is to curtail sexual desire, thereby making life miserable for all.  However, no conclusive study has been able to prove this.  As a matter of fact, the AAP goes as far to say that the circumcised penis actually receives more pleasure.       
• "Male circumcision is just like female circumcision."  This is a fallacious analogy.  To equate female genital mutilation (FGM) to male circumcision is insulting to one's intelligence.  Let's start with the fact that female circumcision has no health benefits whatsoever, something that cannot be said for male circumcision.  Female genital mutilation actually causes harm to many women, according to the WHO.  FGM causes long-term complications in health, as well as complications in childbirth.  Furthermore, FGM occurs at an age during which a child can remember the trauma, unlike a procedure done in one's infancy.  Also, in FGM, sexual enjoyment decreases, where as with male circumcision, the results are ambiguous and anecdotal at best.
• "The procedure is being done on the child.  Shouldn't the child have a say?"  I'm not going to argue with that.  However, it's called parenting.  If you are to be a good parent, you will be doing a good amount of imposing on your child.  Parents make plenty of choices in which the children don't have a say: school choice, religion, diet, extra-curricular activities, the list goes on.  This argument is nothing more than a red herring.

Postscript:  We are dealing with a very controversial issue because it is one of sexuality and religion.  Here we have a medical procedure that is shown to have medical benefits.  Also, like any medical procedure, it also comes with its risks.  As the AAP states, "Because circumcision is not essential to a child's health, parents should choose what is best for their child by looking at the benefits and risks."  This is indeed a personal matter and should be treated as a private issue.  However, to go as far as making circumcision illegal is nothing short of an attack on religious freedom.  As Marc Stern of the American Jewish Committee so accurately pointed out, "This is the most direct assault on Jewish religious practice in the United States.  It's unprecedented in American Jewish life." 

One can see that health benefits are not the primary reason for this procedure.  Sure, health benefits can be cited, but they very well could be moderate once overall risk assessment [with complications considered] is done.  The main reason for this procedure is because it is a religious rite.  Although my interest is primarily from the standpoint of a Jew living in America, Muslims also use circumcision as a sign that they belong to their given religious community, hence why Muslims are the largest group of practitioners worldwide.  It's difficult to not use a slippery slope argument because I know that it's a logical fallacy.  If this initiative somehow manages to pass, it doesn't automatically mean that religious freedom will be eroded.  We are dealing with a potential ban in only one city that leans far to the Left.  However, knowing the history of the Jewish people, this hypothetical erosion is certainly within the realm of probability, which is why I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see other bans against religious practices, Jewish or not.

One could argue that raising your child as a Christian or an atheist is a form of traumatic child abuse.  We are allowed to have disagreements.  That is what makes the plurality of America so wonderful.  But to tell a parent that they cannot raise their children or to erode freedom of religion simply because you disagree is unacceptable.  For the sake of freedom and one's ability to make religious choices in this country, I hope this initiative falls flat on its face.


4-18-2016 Addendum: A Canadian study helps support the idea that a circumcised penis is just as sexually sensitive as an uncircumcised one. As this Vox article points out, while the sample size is smaller than normal research for this sort of thing, it still shows that if there were a significant difference, we would have seen some sort of difference in the study.