gettin' circumcised?

Running with the bulls in Pamplona.

In all fairness, most people follow traditions and don't even question them because they'd be shamed and isolated by relatives or the community. Imagine a boy growing up in a country where everybody is circumcised....I don't think we can talk about "choice" in all cases. People want to belong, doing something that is so important differently might come at great costs. Not everyone can or wants to be a free-thinker.

They have a choice in CH though. Apart from small religious communities and immigrant groups, this is not a must-have or not even an ordinary procedure here. Better to ask the child's doctor is all I can say. If people still want to have it done either way, despite the pain, the risks and the questionable potential benefits, they better have it done in a hospital or clinic.

Circumcision-a ritual to make a man out of you

Trouble is, that's an argument for FGM as well. It doesn't stand by itself.


Less of a man, surely? If only a little bit.

I know. It wasn't supposed to be a pro-male circumcision argument, I was trying to make a point about how little choice some people/parents have in reality or how relative this notion is.

I agree with MC on this one, there should be other ways to stop these practices. Lobbying, education programmes, etc. But the govs must show some willingness to stop these practices and to invest in this sort of things and that might cost them votes in some situations.

We're generally talking about Switzerland here (which is why the thread became active again) so it's a different situation.

Has anyone tried to start a initiative on getting the practice banned for non-medical reasons (or at least until the child is eighteen and can make their own choice)?

If not, why not? Do people not care or not care enough?

I suppose they'd have to start an initiative in the whole EU (as CH is surrounded by EU countries) as people would run to France for instance to have it done. Who wants to be labeled as anti-semitic/islam etc

You can outlaw that as well. Like diddling with kids and the female form of Genital Mutilation. See Art. 5 Swiss Criminal Code and Art. 124 Swiss Criminal Code.

The change would be simple, just remove the word female from Art. 124. (And if we are cleaning up, do the same in Art. 190)

There are lots of dangerous sports out there that kill dozens of people every year.

The boss of a friend was recently killed in a paragliding incident. He was an experienced paraglider who had been flying for years and never been in the slightest accident.

What is different to circumcision is that informed adults are putting themselves at risk.

The problem is that if you had a vote, it would be unavoidable that anti-islamic and anti-semitic voices come out of the woodwork and it would end up being like the minaret vote all over again.

I don't think there are many politicians who want to take that risk, except of course those who actually want to stoke those particular fires.

Anyway, it seems to that the SVP has toned down its anti-immgrant stance of late and that now it's the EU they are going after. So I guess that not even they would want this debate at this moment in time.

This vote would not be about religion (Christian boys have it done to them too, Nigeria for example) but about child protection. The campaign would have to be accordingly.

To me the title of the thread is wrong. If an adult has a circumcision done, who am I to bother him with my opinion? Having it done to a child is simply physical injury and that is a crime.

Iceland proposed such a ban but it never materialized. The cultural and religious beliefs as well as possible medical advantages are too daunting to justify creating a law to ban circumcision.

Here’s a good article exploring the proposed ban and its implications.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6390792/

The problem is that you would also ban circumcision for medical reasons. I guess we have to wait until humanity prefers real friends over imaginary ones to solve this.

Ah, there's the catch, thanks. You can't grow up fast enough to hold your old folks responsible.

Bullshit. Even with Art. 122 Swiss Criminal Code amputations for medical reason are still possible.

Not necessarily. Only if we think there will be plenty of doctors willing to lie and perform unnecessary medical procedures. I doubt.

Or maybe religions will have to adapt to our times a little...

But well, we had these discussions plenty of times and nobody will change their opinions here.

Of course there would be exceptions for medical reasons (actual, happening, and not those that may happen in the future).

In the same way that a woman may choose to have a mastectomy without actually having breast cancer if her family has the BRCA gene. In this case the risk of this cancer is reduced by 95%.

But, not all women have a mastectomy just in case.

It doesn't change the fact that the religions who consider it a requirement would kick up a stink and claim that it's religious persecution.

As you say, it's not just Jews and Muslims who have it done - there are lots of areas, like much of the US, where it's simply a cultural thing, nothing to do with religion, and in those cases it might, in the very long term, be possible to re-educate against it, with legislation if required, if there were a will to do so, but I can't see it happening any time soon.

Wow. I'm really trying to get my head around all these conflicting views