Child Circumcision - page four

Child circumcision in the US was first promoted under Lie Number One in the late 1800's, and continues today under the combined pressure of Lies Number Two and Three.

• Lie Number One:
  Child circumcision will reduce the sex drive and prevent masturbation.
  Truth: While circumcision certainly reduces sexual satisfaction, there is no indication that it reduces masturbation or the drive to attain sexual satisfaction. This myth was the base on which circumcision was originally sold. Continental Europe's Puritans had emigrated (some to Britain and Australia, but most to America) so neonatal circumcision never became routine in Europe.
• Lie Number Two:
  Ten percent of the intact (not circumcised) boys will need circumcision later on in their lives.
  Truth: Fewer than one percent of intact European men ever get this treatment for any medical condition whatsoever, yet they have a lower penile cancer rate than American men. European men also have lower rates of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.
  • Israel and the US are the only industrialized countries where a male has a high risk of being circumcised. In Finland -- a non-circumcising country -- the operative rate is only a tiny fraction of this percentage. A male's risk of being circumcised for any reason during his entire lifespan is less than one in 16,000. In the US, the differences reflect an American attitude that the foreskin is expendable and the tendency to remove it at the first sign of trouble. Circ Info Network 950814

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• Lie Number Three:
  Circumcision is a horribly painful experience for older males, but it doesn't really hurt children, so it should be done early.
  Truth: There is an abundance of evidence from scientific journals, medical personnel, and parents, that circumcision is a horribly painful experience for babies. In keeping with the sadistic origins of this barbaric custom, no anesthetic was even used during child circumcision in America. (Even if an anesthetic were used, the wound would stay very painful for several days.)

Hidden shame:
The degree to which child circumcision contributes to the shamefully high infant mortality rate in the US is hidden, because fatal circumcision complications are recorded under whatever was the immediate cause of death, e.g., hemophilia, or gastric rupture, or a disease which resulted from infection, etc.

Here are a few more of the arguments and counter-arguments concerning child circumcision, and finally, we look at what happens when a child circumcision goes wrong by considering a case taken from actual court records.