By Joseph Lewis
Read more from Lewis at Joseph4GI
I've taken the pictures from the recent NY news report, and the blog commentary on the Turkish Circumcision Palace, to create a second visual comparison.
Read more from Lewis at Joseph4GI
I've taken the pictures from the recent NY news report, and the blog commentary on the Turkish Circumcision Palace, to create a second visual comparison.
Now, what kind of ignorance, denial and double-think does it take to insist that the following pictures are NOT the same thing?
Just what is it that makes them "different?"
Indeed, the sexes of these individuals may be "different."
But isn't the principle of taking a helpless individual and forcefully cutting his/her genitals the EXACT SAME PRINCIPLE?
And, do the ages of the individuals really matter?
Is the equality situation immediately self-evident?
Or do people continue to delude themselves with double-think?
Question circumcision.
The principle of forcefully cutting up a person's genitals is the same, no matter what age, no matter what sex.
For more information on the prepuce organ ('foreskin' or 'hood') and circumcision, see scholarly resources (books, sites, articles) at Are You Fully Informed?
For more information on the prepuce organ ('foreskin' or 'hood') and circumcision, see scholarly resources (books, sites, articles) at Are You Fully Informed?
Anonymous, I think you miss the point:
ReplyDeleteMale circumcision, especially infant male circumcision, is often justified because it is performed at an early age, when the child "can't remember."
It is also justified in older children because anaesthesia is used.
Meanwhile, female circumcision is often condemned as mutilation, and rightfully so, the main reasons being that girls feel and remember the pain.
But is "pain" and whether a person can "remember it" or not really the issue here?
Because if this were the case, then female circumcision might be justified if it were performed in newborn girls, or if it is performed in older girls, it might be justified if anaesthesia were used.
Is it?
A double-standard exists in my country; male circumcision is justified because it is "religious tradition," and because it "could," "might" have certain "medical benefits." The boy won't remember, and, in older boys, the pain is numbed with anaesthesia.
But the law bans female circumcision, and nothing, not even "religious freedom" can justify it. Under no circumstance can a doctor take a knife to a girl's genitals, not even if he were gentle, not even if he used anaesthesia.
So is the use of anaesthesia really the issue here?
I hope that you can see that the issue here is equal human rights.
If it is genital mutilation in one sex, it is genital mutilation in the other, regardless of age, regardless of sex, regardless of what method is used, and whether or not the pain is numbed with anaesthesia.
To close, would rape ever be justified if a perpetrator used pain numbing drugs, or used drugs to knock out his victim so that s/he doesn't "remember?" When something is a human rights violation, does it really matter if the pain is numbed and/or it can be remembered?
The answer is very clear to me:
ABSOLUTELY NOT.
Finally! Someone speaking up agains the violence to BOTH males and females.
ReplyDeleteIt should be a crime to perform ANY genital "surgery" to a minor (unless of course for some unusual circumstance they needed surgery because their health was in danger, needing to remove a tumor for example); in which case, it would be done under anesthesia and proper recovery care including anesthetics. If a male, for example, chooses to be circumcises once he is an adults he may choose, as an adults woman may choose to have a labia minora reduction. But there is no turning back once this violent crime has been done to a child. INFORMED CONSENT is a basic principal in medical law, yet it is ignored in the case of circumcisions. There is no justification for it besides religious and social pressures that many doctors have succumbed to.
Societal pressures are SICK! Some try to justify male circumcision as preventative to infections. Which proper hygiene techniques can prevent. The pleasure of more intense sensation a the head of the penis is worth the small effort of pulling back the foreskin while bathing to clean thoroughly. That is all it would take.
For those who use religion as their excuse to mutilate and perform violence towards children, I say: No loving God would want his beloved children to be violently mutilated. If he did not want the genitals to be as they are, he would not have created them as such. Parents and doctors who succumb to such social pressure show a lack of true faith! Even in the most "developed" countries, we have a far way to evolve.