Should I Circumcise My Baby?

[Third Hour]

"Will he be circumcised?" the nurse asked. One question a parent of newborn boy needs to answer is should I circumcise my baby? What, if anything, does The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have to say on the issue? Is there a stance on Mormon circumcision? Why is Circumcision Religious? The reason circumcision has a religious nature is because God told Abraham to be circumcised. "This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised." -Genesis 17:10 Circumcision has then been kept as a religious ritual among the Jewish people ever since. The Lord revealed to Joseph Smith that the Abrahamic Covenant was applicable to Latter-day Saints. Though the only portion of the covenant specifically mentioned is the promise of eternal increase. Do Christians Circumcise? Some Christians are almost certainly circumcised. While there isn't good data on a religious basis, there are simply too many circumcisions performed in the United States for none of them to be performed on Christians. The more interesting question is...

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[Vort]

It's easy, really. Don't cut off pieces of your son's penis. Leave his genitals alone. When he's an adult, if he wants to get circumcised, then he can make that decision.

[Guest]

43 minutes ago, Vort said:

It's easy, really. Don't cut off pieces of your son's penis. Leave his genitals alone. When he's an adult, if he wants to get circumcised, then he can make that decision.

I agree it's easy.

Let the parents decide.

[Vort]

5 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

I agree it's easy.

Let the parents decide.

Absolutely. Just like the parents should decide if they circumcise their daughter, or scarify their son's face, or cut off their baby's nipples. It's the parents' decision.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Vort said:

Absolutely. Just like the parents should decide if they circumcise their daughter, or scarify their son's face, or cut off their baby's nipples. It's the parents' decision.

Slippery slope?  Or a variant of it?

Two major differences between male circumcision and those others you mentioned:

1) It is a practice that was initially prescribed by the Lord.  The others weren't.  I don't see any practice that He prescribes as harmful.
2) The foreskin really has no important purpose, the others do.

It's easy to say you can do it as an adult. But the practicality of getting it done as an adult is much more onerous than you might imagine.  

If anyone reading this is too sensitive, stop reading.  I'm an intact man and wish I had been circumcised.  But the scheduling, the cost, the other sacrifices are too much for me to move forward on it.

While I don't see it as a health issue per se, I can declare very strongly that it is a nuisance. As in NUISANCE!!!  That's really all the detail I want to get into now.  I know of several others who have no problem with it.  But some who are close to me admit the same problems, but they never realized that had anything to do with the foreskin.

Edited August 29, 2016 by Guest

[anatess2]

6 minutes ago, Vort said:

Absolutely. Just like the parents should decide if they circumcise their daughter, or scarify their son's face, or cut off their baby's nipples. It's the parents' decision.

Or cut short their fingernails or their hair or give them vaccinations.

[Vort]

5 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

The foreskin really has no important purpose

Depends on how you define "important", I suppose. Your thumbs don't really have any important purpose, either, so I suppose you can cut them off.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Vort said:

Depends on how you define "important", I suppose. Your thumbs don't really have any important purpose, either, so I suppose you can cut them off.

If you're comparing the importance of thumbs to the importance of the foreskin then, yes, we define "important" very differently.

[anatess2]

4 minutes ago, Vort said:

Depends on how you define "important", I suppose. Your thumbs don't really have any important purpose, either, so I suppose you can cut them off.

Okay... who are you and what have you done with Vort?

[omegaseamaster75]

7 minutes ago, Vort said:

Depends on how you define "important", I suppose. Your thumbs don't really have any important purpose, either, so I suppose you can cut them off.

Try doing anything with out useing your opposable thumb. This is what separates us from the animals.

[omegaseamaster75]

A quick look through HB1 shows no policy regarding this practice. 

 

 

[zil]

18 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

While I don't see it as a health issue per se, I can declare very strongly that it is a nuisance. As in NUISANCE!!!  That's really all the detail I want to get into now.  I know of several others who have no problem with it.  But some who are close to me admit the same problems, but they never realized that had anything to do with the foreskin.

In Moscow, the Russian and American males were discussing this, and many of the Russian males agreed with you.  (I have no further valid input on this topic.)

[unixknight]

I made the decision to have all 3 of my sons circumcised at birth.  I'll do it again if I have another son.  Any meaningless prattle comparing it to female circumcision or scarification isn't even remotely a reasonable comparison nor is it a rational argument.  I think @Carborendum has done a good job illustrating why.

[Guest]

There really seem to be 2 types of people in these discussions: the live-and-let-live set, and the louder, somewhat histrionic set. I found that frustrating when I was expecting a son and trying to make the decision.

[unixknight]

4 minutes ago, Eowyn said:

There really seem to be 2 types of people in these discussions: the live-and-let-live set, and the louder, somewhat histrionic set. I found that frustrating when I was expecting a son and trying to make the decision.

Understandable.

Ultimately the decision comes down to the parents and the parents alone.  The Church has no policy on it one way or the other so from a doctrinal standpoint there are no arguments to be made for or against. 

People decide to circumcise all the time for reasons of tradition as well as health, and that's good enough for me.  It's highly inappropriate to attack parents for this decision either way, especially without even knowing the reasons.  I'm in the live and let live camp, and I expect the same in return.

(Yah, I know that's naive.)

[Vort]

42 minutes ago, Eowyn said:

There really seem to be 2 types of people in these discussions: the live-and-let-live set, and the louder, somewhat histrionic set.

I'll agree about the fact of two types, but I think you misjudge what those types are.

The first type questions the wisdom of cutting of a baby's healthy body part for what amount to purely cultural reasons, pointing out that if infant circumcision had not been carried on for the last two thousand years by Jewish custom (and, later, by Muslim custom), we would doubtless view the practice as mindless barbarism. No one would even consider cutting a piece out of their son's healthy penis, any more than they would think of cutting off their infant daughter's breasts (because, hey, you know, they might get cancer, and besides no civilized mother today actually lets her child suck on her breast --eww, gross! -- so it's just a useless body part).

The second type bristles at any suggestion that they should rethink their centuries-long tradition, and trots out specious arguments in an attempt to justify the practice -- such as citing some supposed "health benefits", noting that intact men who refuse to practice the most basic hygiene get skin cancer of the penis at a statistically higher (though still miniscule) rate than circumcised men, or that among men who choose to live a promiscuous (especially homosexual) lifestyle and do not use a barrier or clean themselves post-coitally, the intact contract sexually transmitted diseases at a higher rate than the circumcised. Publicly, they will say something like "let the parents decide" -- an argument that many of them would never accept if applied to cutting the baby to pieces before birth, but apparently think is sound when cutting off only a piece of the baby after birth. But make no mistake: Within their family, they -- not all, perhaps, but many -- will bring great pressure to bear on other family members who exhibit type one traits, regressing to the most inane, ridiculous arguments (e.g. "He should look like his daddy").

If the first type sometimes sound a bit shrill or judgmental, that is regrettable. That hardly justifies the second type in either their close-mindedness or their specious justifications.

Leave your son's penis alone. If he wants to be circumcised as an adult, he can make that decision himself. (Yes, even if it's a major inconvenience.)

[unixknight]

I think people tend to bristle less at having their traditions questioned and more at being compared to the sort of people who mutilate children or cut them into pieces, or having their motives questioned and ridiculed.

Who'd have thought, eh?

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Vort said:

I'll agree about the fact of two types, but I think you misjudge what those types are.

Consider the imagery and language you used just to be able to make your point vs the imagery and language others used and consider which one you are.  And your point was that... God's commandment to Abraham was a savage one?

Edited August 29, 2016 by Guest

[pam]

Okay everyone go eat some ice cream and chill out.

[Guest]

40 minutes ago, pam said:

Okay everyone go eat some ice cream and chill out.

I had peach crisp, too.

[anatess2]

37 minutes ago, Vort said:

I'll agree about the fact of two types, but I think you misjudge what those types are.

The first type questions the wisdom of cutting of a baby's healthy body part for what amount to purely cultural reasons, pointing out that if infant circumcision had not been carried on for the last two thousand years by Jewish custom (and, later, by Muslim custom), we would doubtless view the practice as mindless barbarism. No one would even consider cutting a piece out of their son's healthy penis, any more than they would think of cutting off their infant daughter's breasts (because, hey, you know, they might get cancer, and besides no civilized mother today actually lets her child suck on her breast --eww, gross! -- so it's just a useless body part).

The second type bristles at any suggestion that they should rethink their centuries-long tradition, and trots out specious arguments in an attempt to justify the practice -- such as citing some supposed "health benefits", noting that intact men who refuse to practice the most basic hygiene get skin cancer of the penis at a statistically higher (though still miniscule) rate than circumcised men, or that among men who choose to live a promiscuous (especially homosexual) lifestyle and do not use a barrier or clean themselves post-coitally, the intact contract sexually transmitted diseases at a higher rate than the circumcised. Publicly, they will say something like "let the parents decide" -- an argument that many of them would never accept if applied to cutting the baby to pieces before birth, but apparently think is sound when cutting off only a piece of the baby after birth. But make no mistake: Within their family, they -- not all, perhaps, but many -- will bring great pressure to bear on other family members who exhibit type one traits, regressing to the most inane, ridiculous arguments (e.g. "He should look like his daddy").

If the first type sometimes sound a bit shrill or judgmental, that is regrettable. That hardly justifies the second type in either their close-mindedness or their specious justifications.

Leave your son's penis alone. If he wants to be circumcised as an adult, he can make that decision himself. (Yes, even if it's a major inconvenience.)

Hmm... I have 2 circumcized boys.  They were not "cut off"... they were "opened".

This same argument is the same argument that we Filipinos had over female ear piercings right after birth.  Some parents did it, other parents didn't.

[mordorbund]

9 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

Hmm... I have 2 circumcized boys.  They were not "cut off"... they were "opened".

This same argument is the same argument that we Filipinos had over female ear piercings right after birth.  Some parents did it, other parents didn't.

And some parents in the "don't" camp think that if their child is to have an elective mutilation, it should be left as the child's choice.

[unixknight]

8 minutes ago, mordorbund said:

And some parents in the "don't" camp think that if their child is to have an elective mutilation, it should be left as the child's choice.

Are you prepared to carry that "elective mutilation" phrase to its logical conclusion, that God commanded it of the Israelites?  Because the use of that particular phrase is obviously meant to be evocative of something awful, and yet it's something that was roughly the equivalent of Baptism for an awful lot of people for an awful long time. 

Can't have it both ways.

[mordorbund]

4 minutes ago, unixknight said:

Are you prepared to carry that "elective mutilation" phrase to its logical conclusion, that God commanded it of the Israelites?  Because the use of that particular phrase is obviously meant to be evocative of something awful, and yet it's something that was roughly the equivalent of Baptism for an awful lot of people for an awful long time. 

Can't have it both ways.

And I'm fine with circumcision for those who feel they have a religious obligation. Mayans including bloodletting in their rites where they would pierce a tongue and spool a rope through it. As a religious person who sees God as a being that requires sacrifice (sometimes even with discomfort and pain), I can understand a religious-driven motivation to surgically excise functional, but non-essential body parts as a token of commitment and obedience. So let the Jews and Muslims circumcise their children.

But when this topic come up, and particularly on an LDS board, it is not centered around a doctrinal discussion. I've never seen anyone argue that they circumcised their sons because they are descendants of Abraham, or that it will one day be required as part of the restitution of all things (like animal sacrifice) so better now than later. From what I can tell it's largely a cultural practice.

Just to round this out, the health argument is also understandable to me. I don't buy it personally, but I can see that people who prefer to minimize risk may be willing to "do without" a part of their own body. For that matter, the debate (in my head) revolves around a cost/benefit analysis. And when the health arguments come up, that's exactly the discussion I see.

Which of these is a controversial statement?

• Don't pierce your baby's tongue.
• Don't clip off your baby's earlobe.
• Don't give your infant a tattoo.
• Don't brand your newborn on the thigh.
• Don't circumcise your son.

Give me a religious or health reason for these and I can see where you're coming from. If you do it because it's just the way it's always been done, then I think it's fair game to criticize the practice.

So yes, let's carry "elective mutilation" to its logical conclusion. So long as we keep "elective" in the phrase.

[unixknight]

@mordorbund I get where you're coming from and I don't disagree with your perspective.  The issue I raise is that if you're using a term like "mutilation" to describe it when you know you're among people who will take exception to it, then it's needlessly inflaming the argument past a reasonable discussion.

Do you really think parents who choose to circumcise their sons are going to feel comfortable being accused of mutilating them, in so many words?  You can argue that you're  justified in the term but please don't pretend to be blind to the emotional reaction that people will naturally feel when it's used.