(Submitted to the NY Times, 6/05/2011)
Dear Editor,
Your article “Efforts to ban circumcision gain traction in California” (June 5, 2011) inspired me to reflect on ancient religious practices and where such infringe on some basic human rights. “Religious freedom” does not, and must not, take precedence over constitutional law. Our secular Constitution is not subject to religious supremacy.
First of all, the Supreme Court has ruled in the past that many religious practices are illegal, such as the polygamy once practiced by Mormons, or the refusal by Christian Scientists to seek medical care for desperately ill children. It is also illegal to spank, mutilate, disfigure or starve children or have sex with them or sell them into prostitution, regardless how religiously disturbed the parents are.
Since circumcision is a lucrative business, those performing it can’t be assumed to be totally without monetary interests either!
The critical question is whether male circumcision is harmful, and we intactivists argue that cutting off part of an infant’s penis, while he screams in agony, is painful, barbaric, and at times deadly. It causes permanent anatomical, and often troublesome psychological, damage. This bizarre ritual is never performed in more enlightened, humane cultures, like the Scandinavian countries, where people are healthier with far lower rates of the illnesses circumcision promoters claim to fix.
Just as people should be free to choose what religion they follow, within certain legal and humanistic limits, men should be free to choose whether or not they have their foreskins surgically removed.
If others can permanently alter your own body without your consent, you really have no freedom at all. And the fact that it is all based on an ancient myth, makes it that much more primitive and ridiculous. Some proponents refer to the procedure as “time tested”! So was animal and virgin sacrifices to please imaginary gods. So was the notion that the earth was flat and that everything circulates around the Earth. Although “time tested” by primitive people, most don’t believe that anymore.
Since the Bible has been proved wrong by science or logic on every single point, why should such a sick obsession with a baby’s genitals be honored?
For the religiously inclined, why not follow a more recent myth? Whether he was an historic figure or not, at least Jesus made sense when he allegedly told his disciples that if circumcision were good, his father would have made boys that way! Or, has the Gospel of Thomas, especially saying # 53, conveniently been ignored because it casts serious doubt about the myth of the Abrahamic covenant, never mind the absence of supporting evidence for this alleged event? Yes, religious contradictions can be troublesome, so ignore the contradictions and let the baby boys suffer!
It is particularly bizarre that the religious find it necessary to alter their God’s creation! God made a mistake that must be corrected, against common sense, based on a myth thousands of years old?
Why not the more recent myth, also factually unsubstantiated, but at least sensible and humane. You prefer the illogical and harmful, not the logical and protective?
You advocate religious nonsense, not humanistic sense? How cruel!
And who can better decide what’s “best” for the child than the child himself, when grown and able to make the decision on his own? Among those lucky ones left intact, how common is it that they decide to have themselves circumcised later in life, except for rare cases of medical problems or insanity? What’s healthy about cutting off the shield that protects the most sensitive part of men’s genitals from rubbing against underwear? And to suggest that circumcision protects against HIV and STD is absolutely horrible!
Not only is it totally wrong, but it sends a very dangerous message of having unprotected sex because a removed foreskin does the job! I shudder at the thought of the backlash we are certain to be faced with in Africa, where males are fooled into believing that circumcision protects, with no regard for their partners.
Both boys and girls have the right to be left intact, like Mother Nature intended!
Jorg Aadahl
