MGM bill
I recently came across a group advocating passage of a Male Genital Mutilation Bill (”MGM bill”). The bill, if adopted, would ban the practice of circumcising baby boys. As a practical matter it has virtually no chance of passage (it doesn’t even have a sponsor yet). But as an academic matter it’s interesting to explore.
More than half of the baby boys born in the United States undergo circumcision. For most of these infants, a doctor performs the procedure. For many, though, circumcision is a religious ceremony and sometimes, particularly with Hebrews, a religious leader performs the procedure. I won’t describe the act, both because it’s explicit and you likely know what it is anyway.
The supposed harmful effects and health benefits is considered by many to be an unsettled matter, and is not something I’m qualified to address. But I do want to raise the issue of health effects because it’s vitally important to the topic and I invite others to address it in the comments.
Instead I’d like to note the legal implications. When it comes to matters of religion, legislators are, due mainly to the Constitution, reluctant to ban a procedure required by one’s religion. But the Supreme Court has ruled (Employment Division v. Smith) that Congress does not need to accommodate religious conduct as long as the prohibition is part of a neutral, generally applicable law. Unless you could prove discriminatory intent, a prohibition would pass Constitutional muster.
Even more specifically, when a religious practice subjects minor children to health risks, the Free Exercise of Religion doctorine doesn’t apply. In Prince v. Massachusetts, for example, the Court held that a mother could be prosecuted under child labor laws for having her children distribute Jehovah’s Witnesses literature in the streets, in spite of her religious motivations.
Therefore a law banning male circumcision is Constitutionally permissible, but that doesn’t necessarily make it a good law. Discuss.
19 Responses to “MGM bill”
If it actually is as bad for your health as its opponents say it is, then I’m for the ban. I’d feel awfully hypocritical opposing female genital mutilation otherwise.
I’m no doctor, but it seems the harm from female circumcision is vastly greater and the health benefits drastically smaller as well. I have a lot of trouble comparing the two.
I agree with Josh.
I am circumcised, and I feel fine.
The health benefits to male circumcision are much smaller than are usually alleged, and it is a little-known fact that circumcision was first popularized as a remedy for masturbation. Readers might also be interested to know that the United States, Israel, and Islamic countries are nearly the only ones that routinely circumcize infant males; virtually no one else does–whether outside the developed world or within.
Making the practice illegal still seems like a very bad law, though, and I would err on the side of parents’ discretion here. They should know the reasons for their choice, then choose what they believe is best.
As to female “circumcision,” the more precise male analogue would be to cut off nearly the entire penis, making sexual pleasure not merely more difficult, but usually impossible. It’s a different procedure entirely.
it is a little-known fact that circumcision was first popularized as a remedy for masturbation
While I would believe that may have been a motivating factor for some, it would seem to me that the Biblical scripture on the subject was the primary reason it was popularized.
Relatedly, it should be no surprise that mainly Israel, the US and Islamic countries engage in the practice since they are most likely to follow religious traditions of that sort. But your list does not include many Christian African countries that do it, as well as South Korea.
Here’s the deal. Women find circumcised penis more attractive. I think Elaine Benes from Seinfeld put it best. Circumcised penises “have no personality!”
The male genitalia are pretty strange looking even when circumcised, they look even worse with a foreskin.
Jason is right. The health ‘risks’ of not being circumcised can be largely overcome with proper education about WASHING oneself. I realize young boys are often not the cleanest of creatures, but if parents would help boys form early habits of proper cleaning of themselves, some of the problems uncircumcised males encounter could be avoided.
As a labor and delivery nurse who has witnessed countless circs, I wish parents would be required to be present when their infants were circ’d. It just might force them to analyze the pros and cons of the procedure more carefully.
And don’t even get me started on the qualifications of some of the doctors performing the procedure. In many teaching hospitals, OB residents and even MEDICAL STUDENTS – not pediatricians – perform circs; no way would a med student be cutting off pieces of my son’s penis (if I had a son).
First – I’ve got to say that the empirical evidence to which I happen to be privy suggests that circumcision as a way to inhibit masturbation has been wildly unsuccessful.
Anyway, I was a bit on the fence about the procedure. A buddy of mine who is a family practice doctor put it to me this way:
1. Health benefits of circumcision probably exist but are probably negligible.
2. Remember how much your circumcision hurt? Me neither.
3. Studies have shown that circumcised men are more likely to be the recipients of oral sex from their sex partners.
Those being the pros and cons, I felt I owed it to the boy.
Josh,
Of course the biblical injunction is the main reason for many people to get circumcized. But it’s not the reason for the millions of American Christians who are. Acts very clearly states that a man need not be circumcized, but only that he be pure of heart, and for centuries, Christian men were never circumcized.
Anglo-American culture picked up on the practice in the Victorian era, and while some philo-Judaic origins might be found, the mainstream medical opinion then was that masturbation was harmful, and that circumcision could help prevent it. Since then, the practice has continued because of the beliefs that a circumcized penis is cleaner or more attractive.
As to which one is more attractive–It’s largely a matter of personal preference and not worth arguing about. But it does strike me as needlessly cruel to call anyone’s genitals
“ugly.”
And as to cleanliness, may I suggest the virtues of soap and water?
Of course, the post fails to mention that the magical effect of circumcision only happens if an unblemished young goat is sacrificed before the ceremony, so as to ward off infection.
Actually, given the Jewish tradition of only accepting someone to be Jewish if their mother is Jewish, which is the best way to keep the unclean goyim out of the inheritance chain, circumcision seems to be more of a method for Jewish women to ensure that they were getting the real goods, and not some goy knockoff.
Say what you like, but the Jews have been practicing ethnic cleansing longer than anyone else, though today the rules are generally ignored by all but orthodox Jews.
Improbulus, that comment was completely uncalled for. There is no moral equivalence between choosing to marry a co-religionist–and slaughtering those of a different ethnicity. Only the latter is ethnic cleansing; the former is none of our business.
But doesn’t a compelling interest on the part of those defending the law still need to be demonstrated? I don’t agree that a law banning circumcision would be Consitutionally permissable based on any circumstances put forth by this goup, particularly as the evidence is very contradictory as to whether cicumcision is a benefit or a detriment.
A law requiring everyone (generally applicable) to say the pledge of allegiance could be said to lack a discriminatory intent.
Although I understand the theological underpinnings of circumcision in relation to covenant, I nevertheless struggle with God creating a piece of flesh only to order it destroyed.
A law requiring everyone (generally applicable) to say the pledge of allegiance could be said to lack a discriminatory intent.
This is true, but it violates the First Amendment, which also protects the right of individuals to refrain from speaking.
As to God creating a piece of flesh only to see it destroyed–what about our entire mortal body? As I understand it, we are all to die, while some of us will be reborn to eternal life later on. Some sects claim that this rebirth will be in a physical body; others do not. I’m not aware, though, of any that sect that opines on whether or not we will have foreskins at the resurrection of the dead.
The benefits of circumcision are minimal as are the costs. The risks are microscopic.
What is the big deal? That’s not a rhetorical question.
What is it with these people that makes them obsessed with other people’s foreskins or perhaps obsessed with the injustice done to their own foreskins?
Jason,
What if someone tried to ban grape juice for its high sugar content? Would a lack of discriminatory intent alone make such a ban constitutional? (I assume that the Church was effectively granted an exemption to the prohibition amendment to the Constitution for the use of wine during communion.)
The JW who can not use her child for illegal labor can make medical decisions such as refusing transfusions, etc. The only tricky area to me is public health issues like innoculations. adults should not have their parental rights over their minor children stripped away.
All persons have an inalienable right to uninterrupted sexual development. Routine infant circumcision has numerous associated harms. many of which don’t manifest themselves until adulthood.
1. Peno-scrotal webbing. Usually so much of the penile skin is removed that pubic and scrotal skin is stretched forward to close the defect. This causes a so-called “Turkey neck” deformity, leading to irritation during intercourse. Most men think it is normal. It isn’t.
2. The ridged band stimulates the female’s G-spot during intercourse. Removing it prevents that from happening.
3. The circumcised penis acts as a pump to withdraw lubrication from the female. The uncircumcised penis acts to help retain the female’s fluids.
4. Thousands of specialized stretch receptors are removed. The sensory feedback mechanisms that help a male delay orgasm are gone. The man is left only with the ejaculatory trigger.
5. Many men have seen their partners experience “whole body” orgasms and wondered what that was about. What it’s about is that the female has intact organs. Restoring the foreskin can return some of this sensation.
6. The lack of foreskin means that the organ is harder to manipulate. The circumcised penis must be stimulated more vigorously than the unciercumcised penis, on account of the lost nerve endings and the callousing.
7. The glans of the uncircumcised penis rubs uncomfortably against clothing.
8 Hundred of thousands of men are unhappy with their circumcision status, in which they had no say. Many of them will attempt to restore their foreskins.
9. These are the medical indications for circumcision: HPLV, genital warts, diabetic balanitis (possibly frenulum breve), and in children hypospadiasis and malformed preputial meatus and urinary meatus (not including injury to the foreskin). Parents choose this for cosmetic reasons. It is unethical to impose elective cosmetic surgery on another person without their consent.
10. The circumcised penis is thinner and shorter than the uncircumcised penis. The glans is significantly smaller during erection, thanks to the callousing of the glans, and the severing of the frenar artery, which supplies nutrients to penis during development.
For those who disagree that all persons should be impartially protected by the right to uninterrupted sexual development, I suggest the following weaker argument. Since signifiant numbers of impartial rational persons are opposed to the procedure, that routine infant circumcision cannot be considered ethically justified in the sense that amputating a leg to save a life is morally justified. That is, the controversial status of routine infant circumcision implies that it could never be more than weakly justified (since significant numbers of fully informed impartial rational persons oppose it). Persons who choose routine infant circumcision, in the absense of any medical indication, are therefore subject to moral judgment.
If it is such a good healthy thing to cut off the foreskin of a baby boy then why don’t we cut off the breast tissue of women? It would prevent breast cancer. But you wont go and do that will you, because it is the destruction of healthy sexual tissue. Think about it. Why remove a healthy functional part of the male genitalia? The foreskin protects the glans from keratinization which reduces its sensitivity and also the main sexual pleasure for a male comes from the feeling of the foreskin moving over the glans during sex. Why take this away from a boy who doesn’t even have the ability to scream NO. No doubt all he will do is cry as a doctor takes an important part of his body away from him. He wont even have the ability to know what he has lost as it will never become a topic later in his life because society turns a blind eye to this issue.