When asked about that, the physician will tell you, the infant has not developed enough to feel that pain. Of course I'm sure they asked each and every one of them if they could feel it.
I heard somewhere (I know, I don't feel like looking for sources) that babies might actually be hypersensitive to the pain thus making it even more traumatic.
In the same way that you accuse parents of "thinking that they know better than God", I question whether you recognize that you may very well be doing the same thing. You mention that God did not state such a flaw as extra digits, yet people are born with them every day all around the world. Are you truly savvy to what God does, or are you just presuming to be? I'm not trying to be insulting when I ask that, but I feel it is an important distinction to make whenever you invoke God's will into a discussion.
Do you still have your appendix, tonsils, and wisdom teeth? If not, why are you playing god?
Misinterpretetions of my argument based on a perceived flaw in it due to not fully understanding the argument, which I have repeated multiple times. Removal of the most sensitive part of the body, which was designed to be that way, is not the same. It's partially a matter of degree. It is worse to remove the most sensitive part of the body than to remove diseased tonsils or teeth that came in crooked. And I accept that God may well have used evolution as a tool to create us, and bring us toward the 'human template', which does include a foreskin and which cannot be argued to be a useless vestige of previous evolutionary design by any means, so it is not comparable, so the perceived flaw is just that -- perceived.
My position is one of non-violence, and non-violence is a religious position. Non-violence is the cornerstone of almost all of my positions.
So the same folks who would allow a mother to "choose" to kill an 8 month old fetus don't want the parents to be able to choose to cut off a piece of skin. Interesting.
I am strongly pro-life for religious reasons, and cutting off this 'piece of skin' for non-medical non-religious reasons is comparable as cutting off other body parts which are healthy. Neither are logical or reasonable, but removal of the most sensitive part is a lot more harmful because it deprives the individual of that experience. I don't see anyone arguing that parents have the decision to make their child a eugunch if they 'feel it's right for the health of the child', yet removal of the most sensitive part leaves only the less-feeling parts of it behind. These analogies must be made to show the ridiculousness and harm that routine infant circumcision is.
In one sense, this ballot issue may highlight (and counter) the pushing of circumcision by the medical-industrial complex. A friend of mine had a son born in SF a couple of years ago. He said he was put under immense pressure by the doctors and his family to circumcise. Is the doctor acting as an "authority" when they push for this? Is that authority acting as "the law", forcing you to take an action?
Yes, this is one of the greatest injustices to the individuals that have to live with this problem, done to them by means of non-consenting Force. Often the doctors pressure unwitting parents into it, and then the individual has no choice but to live with it. That is against freedom of choice of the individual.
Some men get circumcised later in life for sanitary reasons.
I am sorry that they are so much under the impression that it is especially difficult to wash themselves with soap and water for a few seconds while already in the shower that they are willing to remove a sizable amount their ability to feel.
1) as others have noted, smegma is anti-bacterial, and you would not be here if your ancestors didn't have it. 2) the old testament references to "circumcision" did not mean a full removal of the foreskin-only a small tab of it(and this is only a Jewish rite, never intended for gentiles). The modern notion of removal of the entire foreskin is simply a legacy of quackish people like Dr Kellogg who believed it would stop masturbation.
This quote was simply brilliant and needed to be repeated again due to its importance to the discussion. Every concept in the quote.
