Circumcision

Do you think it would be better if boys were born without a foreskin as opposed to circumcising it? If so, why?

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alan20 · M

Circumcision is a barbaric practice in my view, unless there's a strong medical reason for it.

MsLibrarian · 31-35, F

@alan20 Alan, please join the SW group below to show your support for leaving baby boys natural & intact the way Mother Nature meant for them to be.

https://similarworlds.com/505166-I-Wont-Circumcise-My-Sons

alan20 · M

@MsLibrarian Okay, will do. I can't understand the enthusiasm in some quarters for the practice. They're very different subjects but it reminds me of the "spanking is the way to bring up children" mentality.

MsLibrarian · 31-35, F

@alan20 Thank you. Unfortunately circumcision is big business in North America especially the USA.

MsLibrarian · 31-35, F

@alan20 Please click on the link below and check out the links there.

https://similarworlds.com/16-Parenting-Family/1554582-I-Wont-Circumcise-My-Sons-Should-I-ever-be

alan20 · M

@MsLibrarian Its not a subject we hear much about in the UK. I'm virtually certain female circumcision is a crime here, as it should be.

MsLibrarian · 31-35, F

@alan20 I understand but pre-NHS in 1949 males were circumcised in the UK. After the NHS came into being they refused to pay for non-medical circumcisions so the practice stopped except for Jews & Muslims and those who go private. That’s what I have read.

alan20 · M

@MsLibrarian Interesting. I know most doctors opposed the introduction of the NHS because they felt they'd make more money without it. It was only when too many of their colleagues followed their consciences first that the rest had to give in though they agreed to a compromise with hospital consultants, allowing them to practise privately as well. Some of these abuse the system by using NHS facilities for their private work and passing NHS patients over to deputies. Its one of my biggest problems with the Irish Republic. Despite prosperity during the Celtic Tiger years, they did little to introduce proper free health care.

MsLibrarian · 31-35, F

@alan20 I understand Alan. Unfortunately greed persists everywhere.

fazer1k · 56-60, M

@MsLibrarian

The reason the NHS refused to pay for circumcision was that the reasons for doing it were not sound (some of the original reasons for circumcision seem like quackery in modern times).

Circumcision became "routine" (i.e. done by adults to children showing no signs of disease or abnormality) and widespread among the rich at the end of the nineteenth century as a result of a combination of several factors, any one of which would not have been enough. It received an immense boost from the claim that it provided significant protection against syphilis, the AIDS of that era. The rate of infant circumcision in Australia doubled between 1910 and 1920, the decade which marked the height of the syphilis scare, and increased substantially in Britain. (There’s a parallel here with AIDS today). Circumcision was recommended as a preventive of masturbation, nervous diseases, syphilis, and cancer, not to mention bed-wetting, epilepsy, pimples and hip joint disease, all of which were equally important in securing its widespread acceptance; by itself, none of these factors could have tipped the balance.

Except from: http://www.historyofcircumcision.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=7&id=72&Itemid=51