This article was co-authored with Anne C. Epstein, MD, FACP.
Human rights start at home. We must defend them for children in our community as much as adults in others. Day eight in the life of Jewish boys should be no exception, even as we engage in the ritual excision of foreskin from their penises. Both the pain and unnecessary foreskin can be cut together.
We first read of circumcision in the Torah Portion Lech Lecha (Genesis 12:1 – 17:27). God makes a tremendous promise to Abraham. Sarah, who is 90 years old, will have a child. And through that child God will give Abraham numerous descendents, and those descendents will include kings. God will give them the land of Canaan, and God will be their God forever. But in exchange, Abraham and all his descendents have to do something: they have to circumcise all their male babies.
So of course, Abraham immediately goes out and has himself and all the male members of his household circumcised – and all males thereafter circumcised when they are eight days old. Shortly afterwards, Sarah becomes pregnant. Both kept their end of the bargain and provided a model for future Jews in their ongoing covenant with God.
Yet it is doubtful that Abraham and his household (presuming the historicity of the Torah portion) were even the first to be circumcised. Abraham came from Haran. In the area of Haran, archeologists have discovered statues of circumcised men that date from over a thousand years before Abraham in the early Bronze Age – about 2800 BCE. There is evidence (such as the use of a stone knife in the stories of Joshua and Zipporah) that the tradition may in fact be even older, perhaps even as early as 3200 BCE. That means 5,000 years of circumcised penises in the Middle East!
In spite of – and perhaps because of – its ancient origins, the practice of circumcision has come under heated attack in recent years. If you go to the Internet and search for “circumcision,” many of the sites are from groups that oppose the practice of circumcision, in part because it is so painful.
As Jews, we also know that this covenant is very precious and emblematic of the human link to tradition that we ascribe to our forefather Abraham. It is also important because of its ancient origins and the fact that our people faithfully adhered to it for millennia as a symbol of our covenant with God. But as modern people – in our case a physician and rabbinical student – we are committed to minimizing pain.
It seems imperative to link the modern innovation of anesthesia to the ancient tradition of circumcision to ensure the right of Jewish baby boys not to suffer unnecessary pain. Freedom from physical pain – especially unnecessary pain – is a moral imperative. The American Academy of Pediatrics agrees. (It also has foregone either endorsing or warning against the circumcision of male infants, noting both potential medical benefits and the challenging prospect of elective surgery.)
Yet there is also the problem of choosing the right anesthesia. Confusing and even disingenuous language abounds on circumcision websites. Some claim to provide “pain-free” circumcision but only supply an anesthetic cream. It is quite inadequate, as this article in Pediatrics shows; no other comparable surgery would be performed with anesthetic cream alone. The term “local anesthetic” is also ambiguous – sometimes intentionally so – and may simply be a fancier way of referring to the same inadequate topical cream.
What is needed for nearly painless circumcisions is “nerve block,” delivered by needle to the penis itself. While the idea of an injection to the penis sets teeth on end, it is as close to pain-free as we can get in this sort of minor surgery. (For more, see this article by the Journal of the American Medical Association.) It hardly hurts – in contrast to the circumcision blade. And it can only be given by someone licensed to do so, namely a physician or nurse.
Anne officiated at one circumcision operation performed by a doctor who used a nerve block anesthetic on a baby. The baby didn’t cry. He sucked on his pacifier calmly throughout the procedure. The surgeon was relaxed and took his time to do a careful job, and even cracked jokes – much as he would likely do with his team in an operating room. The parents were relaxed and happy, the onlookers were relaxed and happy, and in fact everyone was happy. It was a joyous occasion, not an agonizing one. The surgeon was so inspired that he went out and studied to become a certified mohel.
That is the future of Jewish circumcision. The overwhelming majority of modern rabbis have determined that there is no halachic (Jewish legal) objection to anesthesia – including the far more effective “nerve block” injection.
The Union for Reform Judaism has established a Berit Mila Program (circumcision program) for certified physicians (licensed to use anesthesia) who are also certified mohels. The Rabbinical Assembly has also created a course on Brit Milah (circumcision)for Conservative Jewish doctors. We urge other branches of Judaism to do the same. In addition, the traditionally trained mohel can perform humane circumcision as long as he or she works with a certified nurse or physician who gives the baby a nerve block first.
Even as our tradition calls upon us to affirm the human rights of others, we must not forget those who live in our houses, eat at our dinner tables, and rely on us for love, care, and protection. Human rights must begin in our homes. Day eight in the lives of Jewish boys should be no exception.
Anne C. Epstein, MD, FACP is a board-certified Internal Medicine specialist and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians who is engaged in full-time private practice of medicine in the West Texas city of Lubbock, TX. Anne has served as President of Congregation Shaareth Israel, and during a 6-year period when the congregation had no Rabbi, Anne frequently lead services, read and taught Torah, and officiated at life-cycle events. She still pinch-hits occasionally. This article was originally published on the Tikkun Daily and later adapted on the Huffington Post.
Forgive me, but there is something quite perverse about this article. The authors say:
“It seems imperative to link the modern innovation of anesthesia to the ancient tradition of circumcision to ensure the right of Jewish baby boys not to suffer unnecessary pain. Freedom from physical pain – especially unnecessary pain – is a moral imperative. ”
Is it not also a moral imperative to protect babies – babies! – from non-consensual mutilation? It seems quite wrong, deeply and palpably wrong, to wield moral language in order to argue for making an intensely immoral act less painful, instead of arguing for the act’s cessation.
This is rather like arguing that we should anesthetize prisoners of war before we amputate their limbs so as to provide a more humane form of torture.
Hi James,
Thanks for your comment. In this case, the American Academy of Pediatrics disagrees with you, given a number of health benefits that have been linked to circumcision.
Also, it is not mutilation — there are not likely to be any negative effects, in contrast, to say, losing a limb. It seems like a misapplication of the word. It’s not as though circumcision entails removal of the penis, so much as an unnecessary bit of foreskin.
The real question that could be asked is whether it is correct to perform elective surgery on infants. To that, the American Academy of Pediatrics remains ambivalent. While circumcision may provide health benefits, all surgery comes with risks.
That, in my mind, is the key ethical question about circumcision as a whole. I attribute much of the virile against male circumcision to a visceral dislike of the idea — and a conflation of male and female circumcision, which are not in any way related or similar. (Female circumcision entails the removal of necessary sexual organs, such as the clitoris — and is associated with a whole slew of health problems, not to mention the inability to enjoy sex itself.)
All the best,
Josh
The American Academy of Pediatrics, at least by its own policy statement on the subject, does not seem to disagree with me. It opens with:
“Existing scientific evidence demonstrates potential medical benefits of newborn male circumcision; however, these data are not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision.”
See http://goo.gl/Erb0Q
Even if the AAP did recommend the practice (which as you can see, it does not) the moral question remains, as you accept. It seems irresponsible to advocate for an irreversible practice to be performed on those unable to give consent when the moral question still stands. The presumption should be against performing the procedure.
There is significant evidence that removal of the foreskin (which is considered by many doctors as playing an important role in sexual health and pleasure, rather than an “unnecessary” piece of skin) leads to loss of sensitivity in the penis and decreased sexual pleasure. See http://goo.gl/UlPOY for plenty of evidence on this score.
All this points to my position being the most advisable one, but even if it circumcision be shown to be on balance to be helpful, I would still argue that consent is essential unless the benefits are large and the risks minimal. This is clearly not the case here.
I attribute much of the support for male circumcision to ancient religious practices which have no place in modern society, and to the commonness of the practice in the USA, in contrast to many other parts of the world.
Hi James,
Studies have also shown that male circumcision reduces the risk of transmission of AIDS and HPV (among other Sexually Transmitted Infections) and the incidence of cervical cancer in female partners of circumcised men.
I think that we’re likely to just plain disagree on the ethics of male circumcision.
That said, I think our discussion has brought up a rather interesting question: when can a person critique the practices of a religious community other than one’s own. I, for example, am unambiguously against female circumcision and would oppose it in any religious community that practices it. Yet I am for male circumcision (with nerve block) in my own religious community.
In my mind, the difference in those scenarios relates to the burden of accruing an abundance — which lies on the person doing the critiquing.
Male circumcision has been written on numerous times in medical journals and both benefits and potential detriments have been noted. Due to the evidence that falls on both sides, my sense is that it is overbearing to critique the practice; the evidence is ambiguous, as the APP clearly notes.
By contrast, female circumcision (also written about numerous times by physicians and researchers) has unambiguous negative health effects — notably death during pregnancy and labor, increased transmission of AIDS, fistulas etc. — not to mention rather ugly gender norms about sexual pleasure. As a result, I think there is clear evidence to condemn the practice, even when it falls in another religious community.
That said, this is only a working thesis. I would love your input on it, especially as a Secular Humanist. I think this is a crucial topic of discussion, and perhaps even worthy of a point/counter-point on SoF.
With thanks,
Josh
Thank Josh for this interesting discussion.
It doesn’t seem to me that your reply is cogent. This is not a matter of taste in which a “plain disagreement” is an acceptable response. It is a moral question, related very much to empirical data, which results in tangible effects on human beings. This is not an area in which it is legitimate to agree to disagree.
You say that “Due to the evidence that falls on both sides, my sense is that it is overbearing to critique the practice; the evidence is ambiguous, as the APP clearly notes.”
This is extremely strange. First, let’s note a fact which you conveniently skip over, which is that the AAP, which you initially cited as supporting your position, quite clearly states that it does NOT recommend routine neonatal circumcision. If you accept the AAP as an authority, as it seems you must as you drew on their opinion in the first place, then you surely must accept their conclusion or be seen to be cherry-picking. The AAPs conclusion is supported, not incidentally, by the Canadian Pediatric Society.
Second, you seem to have fallen foul of bad research: the studies which claim to link increased risk of HPV transmission and cervical cancer with circumcision, particularly the 2002 New England Journal of Medicine study, were methodologically flawed and their findings exaggerated (see here for a nice rundown: http://goo.gl/4cvZC). The linked article also points out the following:
“The Cancer Research UK website states that “researchers are fairly sure that as long as uncircumcised men are careful about keeping their genitals clean, the risk of cervical cancer in their partners should not be any greater than that for circumcised men.””
Third, you seem to be arguing that since an effectively irreversible procedure (I am aware some have the procedure reversed, although it is costly and difficult and inferior to not removing the foreskin removed at all) could be beneficial or could be harmful we should therefore do it on babies who are unable to give their consent. How can you reason yourself into this position, given that if there are unambiguous benefits one can always choose to be circumcised in adulthood?
On the broader point you raise – when a person can critique the practices of a religious community other than one’s own – I would say that the fact the community engaging in a certain practice is religious is entirely irrelevant. The practice should be viewed as either justified or not depending on the facts of the case and the quality of the arguments presented. If we were to take the religious nature of a practice into account when weighing its morality we would be guilty of privileging religious concerns over secular ones with no good reason, I should think.
I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this on SoF some more!
Best,
James.
Hi James,
Sounds like its time for us to chat at some point about an article on the subject!
Meanwhile, in terms of “disagree,” I think that was a euphemism for “I think you’re wrong and you think I’m wrong.”
As for your questions about studies that cite the benefit of circumcision, there are actually quite a few — and I trust MD’s and PhD’s in relevant specialties in terms of analyzing studies more thank “laypeople” (pardon the irony) like you andme. That’s why I co-authored the article with a physician.
An argument from authority, even a physician, is no argument at all. I would have thought you would know better, Josh!
Note how, throughout this discussion I’ve cited articles, webpages and research to support my position. There has been a conspicuous absence of any in your responses. I think I’ve made my case as best I can.
Hi James,
I actually do think physicians are authorities on medical issues. I presume you’re being ironic here.
All the best,
Josh
In terms of citing articles, I’m on Mefloquin (an anti-malarial drug) and am experiencing some intense side-effects. So, no I’m not citing articles; I’m just responding as articulately as I can given my current state. More on the articles (which I believe you can google effectively yourself, even as a layperson) when feasible.
Btw, James — sorry for my snappy reply. I meant “layperson” as in one who is not a doctor. I think I may take a nap — but my real apologies for being less than friendly in that reply.
Goodness – Malaria! I hope you recover soon and fully. My best wishes to you.
Hi James,
Thankfully, I’m on a drug designed to prevent (rather than recover from) malaria — but it does have some rather unnerving side effects: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/meds/a603030.html
In the meantime, here’s an article about the reduced transmission rate of HIV in the New England Journal of Medicine: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe0900762?query=NC&
I probably will only be back intermittently this evening, but hope to be back more later. Thanks for this meaningful discussion!
All the best,
Josh
Anaesthesia or no, I’m for personal choice of the individual in question. When a baby is born that can articulate that he wants surgery on his penis, I’ll talk about anaesthesia as it relates to the practice.
The problem with that line of reasoning is that parents have to make decisions for their children all of the time — even before children can speak.
It is a different operation entirely to have an adult male circumcised than a child in terms of pain, length of recovery, and risk. So parents actually do in many respects have to make this choice — along with so many others — even before their children can respond verbally or can have a full cognitive understanding of the procedure, its risks, benefits, and rationales.
Here’s the problem I have. There are few medical benefits for the procedure within developed nations. If one practices safe sex, the issue of contraction of disease becomes moot. A large problem I have with the procedure as it is practiced commonly is that it leaves the child with an open wound which can become infected, and must be protected from fecal contamination. The incidence of UTI or phimosis is extremely small.
If you want to say that parents have the right to force their children to undergo a procedure in accordance with their faith, I really have to take issue. Childhood indoctrination is debatable as a practice, but forcing surgery on children for religious or cultural reasons is deplorable. If you are doing this for conformity or for cosmetic purposes, you lose even more ethical grounding.
I’m a Jewish father, raising his son as a Jew. If waiting until adulthood was good enough for Abraham (and for Moses, btw), it’s good enough for my little Moishele. I have no right imposing it upon him in childhood.
Steve, you are a credit to humanity 🙂
The problem is that if he ever seeks to get circumcised (for medical or religious reasons), it will be a far more dangerous procedure. So you may in fact have already decided for him.
Steve, that means (roughly) that if your son wants to go around having unprotected sex willy-nilly in sub-Saharan Africa, he might not be quite as safe as he would, had you taken this choice away from him.
The religious aspect, I have to outright dismiss as a practice, given that you would be asking him to accept and modify his body before the age of reason.
Apologies, but I can’t hide my disdain for the practice, both as a future MD and as a Philosophy major.
And that is your decision to make as a father — but it is a decision.
I’m sure you feel the same way about fathers who remove the clitoral hood of their daughters, which is an analogous structure.
I Eric, as I mentioned in my discussion with James, I think that’s an absurd comparison. They are not even close in nature.
Josh,
You sidestep the issue. I am not speaking of removing the clitoris proper, just the hood around it, which is indeed an analogous structure. Ask your MD co-author. Both have the same effect, lessened sexual stimulation. I didn’t mean this to be inflammatory, but you need to do your homework a little better.
Eric
Although they are “analagous” structures they are still anatomically different. A male circumcision is much more superficial whereas a clitoral hood is closer to the abdomen/pelvis. Glans penis and clitoris are analagous but not congruent!
Thank you for that clarification. Still, neither are medically necessary, and excision could be done with a minimally invasive procedure with or without anaesthetic. If there were religious grounds (which there are in some cultures) to do so here, we would be asking ourselves whether it would be permissible. I stand that neither should be permissible, and all I get in response is that they aren’t the same.
No two circumcisions are the same, either, as every penis is different, and many get irreparably damaged from this procedure which has dubious medical grounding.
Hi Eric,
My MD co-author didn’t agree with you at all. (We discussed the two highly disparate procedures in detail before publishing the article.) Meanwhile, good luck in your studies to become a physician.
All the best,
Josh
You gave away your lack of scope. Discussing “both” practices eliminates the spectrum within female mutilation which allows everything from a ritual nick to removal of the clitoris. I am talking about the removal of the clitoral hood only.
It is likely that Dr. Epstein did not understand the question.
The prepuce/foreskin of the male is indeed analogous to the clitoral prepuce (AKA Clitoral hood) of the female in that they are both sensitive and protective tissues around the glans proper. Both can become fused to the glans, causing inability to retract the hood or foreskin. I would like to see a more detailed response from Dr. Epstein in this regard, instead of an outright dismissal.
Thanks,
Eric
The mitzvot are routinely over- & under- interpreted. Independent thought is itself a Jewish tradition. The bris is merely one of 613.
As for the medical benefits, they constitite specious rationalization at best. For example, there are far more effective and rational ways to prevent STDs.
I have no right to impose such a procedure on my son and I wish more Rabbis would interpret the bris as flexibly as the avoidance of cooking calves in their mothers’ milk.
Hi Steve,
I find that a very interesting and compelling argument. Judaism is indeed polythetic; the question you present is whether circumcision or the fundamental premises of rabbinical thought are more central. Let me think more about that — and if there are other elements also in play.
All the best,
Josh
First and foremost, I am glad two stones of flint are not used anymore.
I am both for and against male circumcision. As a jewish ritual, I definitely respect it and am happy to know that mohels are working with healthcare professionals. I think it is a safer way to go but it can further propagate ideas of our genitalia being undesirable or not okay as is.
Plenty of gentiles are circumcised. And there are quite a few who find out at puberty that their foreskin does not function properly. Like it doesn’t retract all the way and they have to get a surgery anyway.
All about as little pain as possible.
I think this comment really makes the case for waiting until the adult can decide. If issues do arise, as they do in a minority of cases, the procedure can be done. As for it being a “safer way to go” that is an empirical matter and at the very least the jury’s out. As far as I read the evidence I see no reason to advocate the practice.
Hi Everyone,
Thank you for this truly enriching discussion. Please continue on with it — I continue to learn a great deal. I am currently feeling the side effects of Mefloquin (an anti-Malarial) and will be headed to bed. That said, I anticipate diving back into the discussion once I feel better. Truly thank you for this meaningful and engaging afternoon.
All the best,
Josh
Hi, Joshua,
I hope you feel better soon and I appreciate your thoughtful reply.
Pardon me for beating a dead horse, but it seems to me that doctrinaire focus on the one mitzvah, while freely interpreting much of the rest is anathema to Jewish traditions of emphasizing scholarship over mere dogma. After all, the objective of all our mitzvot is to recognize, as did Hillel, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the commentary; go and learn.”
Let’s talk about risk-benefit analysis regarding circumcision.
Here are the established medical benefits of circumcision:
• reduces the rate of HIV (by 50-60%), HPV (the cause of cervical cancer), and Herpes Simplex type 2, as well as genital ulcers in men and women, and bacterial vaginosis and tirchomonas infections in women (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe0900762)
• reduces the rate of urinary tract infections
• reduces the rate of cervical cancer in women (by reducing the incidence of HPV)
Here are the risks of infant circumcision:
• The complication rate of the surgical procedure is somewhere between 0.2 and 0.6%, and most of those complications are minor.
The claim that sexual satisfaction is impaired in circumcised men has been fairly well refuted by the following study http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/277/13/1052.full.pdf. Also, Masters and Johnson tested penile sensitivity in uncircumcised and circumcised men and found no significant differences.
The American Acadamy of Pediatrics does not “recommend routine circumcision.” In order for the AAP to recommend routine circumcision of all newborn boys, which would entail tremendous cost, circumcision would have to be proven to have great benefits and very low risk. Circumcision does not meet that standard. It is true that the risk is very low: circumcision does meet this arm of the standard. However, the benefits, although real, are small as well. That’s because the prevalence of the diseases that circumcision protects against (namely HIV and HPV-related diseases) are relatively low in the USA today. In Sub-Sahara Africa, however, it is a different story. There the benefits of the procedure are very high, and we need to consider recommending routine circumcision in that area of the world.
Even tho circumcision does not show enough benefits to be medially required, the risk-benefit ratio is still low enough that there is no medical objection
Any moral objection would have to be made on other grounds besides medical risks and benefits.
I concur, let’s talk about risks and benefits; refraining from unprotected sex is *far* more effective, by several orders of magnitude, than is circumcision. No child should be subject to inessential pain or *any* possibility of complications without their consent; it seems to me *that* is anathema to Rabbinic teaching. Let’s finally shed the remnants of priestly, ancient superstition and fully embrace Rabbinic Judaism in all it’s enlightenment.
Dr. Epstein,
I concur, let’s talk about risks and benefits; refraining from unprotected sex is *far* more effective, by several orders of magnitude, than is circumcision. No child should be subject to inessential pain or *any* possibility of complications without their consent; it seems to me *that* is anathema to Rabbinic teaching. Let’s finally shed the remnants of priestly, ancient superstition and fully embrace Rabbinic Judaism in all it’s enlightenment.
Thank you, Anne, for the information. Let’s take a look at your supporting material.
First let’s tackle the NEJM article, and the underlying assumptions you have gleaned from it. It sounds impressive that in three “randomised, controlled studies” a “50-60% reduction” in incidence was observed in the population. However, if we take a closer look at the studies, we find a few glaring issues.
Firstly, randomisation was only in assignment to intervention or non-intervention groups, not in selection from the population at large. The participants were chosen from a volunteering applicant pool in each case, which introduces the possibility of selection bias in that the applicants were those who were concerned about HIV. As such, they were not necessarily representative of the general population, and any extrapolated risk reduction is called into question.
Secondly, there is no possibility of double-blinding this type of study, allowing observer interaction to be introduced as a confounding factor. In fact, the intervention group was provided with medical instruction–reinforced by the likely post-op pain they were experiencing–to abstain from sexual intercourse for a period of weeks, and to use condoms afterward.
Thirdly, the relative risk ratios you cite sound impressive, but the actual impact is much more marginal (especially when compared to the use of condoms). Your 50-60% risk reduction is actually as follows:
In South Africa, 1546 men were circumcised from a total of 3274, and 20 of the intervention group were HIV+ at the end, vs 45 of the non-intervention.
In Kenya, 1391 men were circumcised out of a total of 2784 with 22 of the intervention group becoming HIV+ along with 47 of the non-intervention group.
In Uganda, 2474 men were circumcised out of a total of 4996 with 22 of the intervention group later becoming HIV+ along with 45 of the non-intervention group.
These numbers seem much smaller than those you (and the authors) cite, and are actually much smaller than the number of participants who abandoned the studies (251 in S.A., 179 in Kenya, and 273 in Uganda). The abandonment rate was an order of magnitude larger than those whom your studies claim to have treated, leaving the possibility of data being skewed.
Also, since all three studies were stopped short, you have an artificially narrowed timeline, allowing for aberrations or sampling error on the part of the populations.
I would like to see your sources with regard to both UTI and HPV. I think I read the studies in question in passing, but I don’t recall them readily.
I will take a look at the methodologies in your JAMA article, as well as the Masters and Johnson testing.
Thank you for joining the discussion Dr. Epstein. I very much value your reply and you contribution to the discussion.
Eric, this is a fantastic reply – I was typing a similar one but since Eric has conclusively (and, if I may say so, elegantly) demonstrated the problems with the NEJM study I will move onto another. First, however, I want to note that the fact that the intervention group was asked to refrain from sex after the operation, while the non-intervention study was not so, is the precise problem that occurred in earlier studies of this sort and it is quite disturbing that it seems not to have been rectified.
Dr. Epstein, you state the following:
“The claim that sexual satisfaction is impaired in circumcised men has been fairly well refuted by the following study http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/277/13/1052.full.pdf.
Also, Masters and Johnson tested penile sensitivity in uncircumcised and circumcised men and found no significant differences.”
Forgive me but I find NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER to support the idea that sexual satisfaction is not impaired in circumcised me in the study you linked. Primarily this is because the survey, being a self-report survey, is incapable of providing such evidence. People are not being asked about the relative quality of their sexual encounters both before and after circumcision, for example, and so no comparison can meaningfully be made. The discovery that circumcised men engaged in a wider range of sexual practices (by their own report) was, according to the authors, probably more due to social factors (including stigma of non-circumcised men) rather than medical ones.
So the evidence you cite does not support your position.
As for Masters and Johnson’s 1966 study of penile sensitivity (I assume this is the study you are referencing) was fatally flawed because it attempted to measure only the sensitivity of the glans, while ignoring any role the foreskin itself might play in generating sensation. Therefore I consider the study almost entirely valueless when addressing the question of whether sensitivity may be lost in the circumcised penis.
Here is a more recent study from Sorrell’s et al (2007), published in the British Journal of Urology. It measured the fine-touch pressure thresholds in the adult penis in circumcised and non-circumcised men. Here’s their conclusion:
“The glans of the circumcised penis is less sensitive to fine touch than the glans of the uncircumcised penis. The transitional region from the external to the internal prepuce is the most sensitive region of the uncircumcised penis and more sensitive than the most sensitive region of the circumcised penis. Circumcision ablates the most sensitive parts of the penis.”
The whole article can be found here:
http://www.nocirc.org/touch-test/bju_6685.pdf
So, in conclusion, every piece of evidence you have given thus far has entirely disintegrated under analysis by non-specialists. I must ask, why are you so willing to accept such spurious evidence? If you were my doctor, would you rely on evidence such as this to treat a condition I might have?
P.S. *First* do *no* harm.
Thank you to Joshua for what has clearly been a thought-provoking piece. However, I find myself a bit surprised by some of the ensuing dialogue. Within Jewish circles, I have never heard the argument that circumcision ought to be followed because of potential health benefits, nor did I see this being suggested in the original post. It is worth mentioning that Judaism usually allows for the abrogation of a commandment in order to save a life, and that when circumcision began to be practiced in the Jewish community, it would have posed far more health risks to the infant than it does today. So I am not familiar (at least historically) with a strong religious argument for banning the practice based on potential harm to the infant.
I ask for a strong religious argument because, as Joshua pointed out in his post, circumcising Jewish male children is a divine command, a symbol of the covenant between the God of Israel and the people of Israel. As such, the decision to have a brit (the Jewish ritual of circumcision) is inherently a religious one. As Steve has pointed out, Jewish tradition is not univocal on this question (or on many such questions). Whatever their ultimate decision regarding the practice, however, I would expect that many Jewish parents seek a religious and ethical rationale for their choice to circumcise (or not circumcise) their sons.
Certainly, I would not expect someone from outside of the Jewish community to necessarily accept the ethical and religious reasoning behind a brit for themselves, just as I would not expect them to follow other Jewish practices. However, I understood Joshua’s argument to be directed towards those who do practice the brit milah, encouraging them to honor this tradition and religious obligation in the most humane way possible – to honor this tradition in a way that is in keeping with other Jewish values, such as striving to reduce suffering. In part, I think Joshua’s piece and the comments of many people here have brought to light a fundamental question for Jewish practice: how are we to negotiate the commandments that either do not make sense to us, or that seem to go against another value we hold dear (such as not wanting to cause pain to our children)? I’d be curious to hear thoughts on this question, either as it directly relates to the issue of circumcision or more broadly.
I have been away for a bit–thus this late comment–but there’s nothing like a suggestively peeled banana to pique ones interest!
Like DG’s above comment, I am struck more than anything by how, after a characterization of Jewish paedocircumcision as “irreversible nonconsensual mutilation” whose support in “ancient religious practices” means it can “have no place in modern society”, the article’s others with barely a nod to arguments based in sacred texts, community, and their traditions opt instead to go medical study v. medical study with their naysayers.
In a forum putatively committed to inter-religious dialogue, it is somewhat surprising to see the right to stipulate what counts as an argument or evidence in a debate ceded so quickly and quietly to the secular humanist position. “Ancient religious practices” can “have no place in modern society”–really! Just let that slide? It is troubling—especially when dealing with something as sacred to Judaism as ritual circumcision—that without a whimper of dissent the article’s authors allow their interlocutors to dictate the terms of the debate so that it would be carried out denuded of religion in terms that effectually deny any argumentative force to scripture and sacred tradition. Religious people arguing like that will argue themselves into societal insignificance–presupposing as the above argument seems to that religiously based convictions can have no place in the public square (let alone on SoF!).
In all fairness (not my strong suit… mea culpa), perhaps I should take note that in making AN argument for a thesis, one need not make EVERY argument for it and in this case the articles authors simply opted to go medical here. But at least something to let us know the fate of Jewish circumcision doesn’t hang on the next medical study and that a dip in the supply of nerve block won’t put an end to the banana peeling?
And… albeit without a blade, along with my best friend I am daily in the process of irreversibly marking 3 people without their consent in profound ways. That is, I am raising my children in the Christian faith, marking their souls (please God!) for all eternity, washing their brains along with the rest of their persons in baptismal floods. Those who disagree with the way my wife and I go about it might even consider it “mutilation.” We call it love.