Debating circumcision
With a lawsuit pitting a mother and father against each other over whether to circumcise their son, the Oregonian takes a look at the ritual – and the forces fighting against it.
In addition, the paper interviews a Jewish woman about her decision not to circumcise her son:
Was [the father's] argument persuasive?Well, I couldn't get my mind around it. If I were having a daughter, why wouldn't she want a visceral, spiritual experience?
Then I asked myself, would I really accept this practice without question? It's not something I do, especially in regards to another person's body. I had been doing so much to protect my son – eating well, walking, doing prenatal yoga. And no matter what people told me, I could not imagine a way in which circumcision would not hurt him.
What about medical arguments?
Research suggests no medical reason to do it. Why cut off a piece of a child's body if I don't have to? I didn't believe this is what would make my son Jewish.
What will?
Celebrating Shabbat, keeping Tikkun Olam (Hebrew for "repairing the world"). Being Jewish is internal, a way of connecting to the rest of the world, to tradition and to history. It is a way of questioning as well.
What about the argument that circumcision connects generations of Jewish men to each other and to God?
I did think about the Holocaust, how people had not been able to practice circumcision – or risked their lives to do so. That was impressive to me.
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Covenant?
Creation came with the creator & all violations of creation come from his adversary. Why is it that people think they can adjust any & every part of creation & not actually be transgressors?
There is no creation based NORM in this world. Do you think that it’s
possible to have an endless number of different violations of creation built into a norm, any norm, and still be right. If so normal is how you define right?
What happens to creation if the world is full of socio-NORM-O-paths?
Maybe the predictions of extinction unavoidably correct after all?
Let’s call circumcision what it really is: genital mutilation. Except for urgent medical reasons, it should be illegal until the owner of the foreskin is legally adult.
It should never be done for for religious reasons on children. Babies are not born Jews (or any other religion for that matter) as they can have no concept of belief in a god. They may be born to parents who have religious beliefs, but this does not necessarily mean that they will wish to follow the same religion.
I am not anti-religion, but I strongly believe that no person should have the right to force their own religious practices on any other person.
ellen said: “his penis is a font of attention and handling by his mother”. Only if the mother is a paedophile. Phimosis is most commonly caused by attempts to retract the foreskin before it is ready; this may not occur until puberty. The first person to retract a boy’s foreskin should be the boy himself.
JewsAgainstCircumcision.org Also, the Mothering.com: The Case Against Circumcision that has several members who are Jewish and left their sons intact. It’s *not* required (circumcision))! You’re Jewish in your HEART!
I was circed as an adult with some plastic contraption, which allowed me to avoid surgery for a satisfactory result. I have 3 adopted sons. First was circ’d as a baby, 3rd asked to be in 7th grade and was, 2nd asked not to be, but now as a young adult is considering it. I seems equally cruel to force one, or deny a 13 year old boy a circumcision, if that is what he truly wants. There are good reasons for a circ outside religion too. Dad should rely on the boy’s desire to be a Jew and give his son loving advice and let the boy choose. Mom ought to allow her son to make this reasonable choice about his own body, and give him some privacy as well. What kind of parents would love their son any less because he did/did not want to be circumcised? It can’t be an 8th day bris anyways, so can it be an alternative nonsurgical circ like I had? Can the parents tell their son it is his choice, and they love him no matter what it is? Come on…
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Nelson Anido
07/18/08 10:49 PM
I’m an anti-circumcision advocate and am not jewish. Here are a few questions.
Can somebody tell me why God creates the foreskin in the first place and then places a rule in a holy book that requires you to cut off the foreskin?
If God didn’t like the foreskin, why did he create it? Couldn’t he just not create it in the womb and spare us the work?
Is it really a part of Jewish identity if Muslims and tribes in Africa also ritually circumcise their sons?
Babies feel pain, but is it really worth the risk of amputation, death, the loss of the entire penis, the loss of sexual receptors and nerves to inflict unnecessary pain? I am not anti-jewish and not filled with hate for you religion. These are the concerns and the strains of logic that we who question this procedure feel that need to be addressed.