Neonatal male genital mutilation should be made illegal in developed nations

I am disappointed that Con completely dropped my point on MGM being a gender rights issue, as that is one of my main arguments. Con dismissed one of my other important points, that neonatal GM takes away the victim's ability to give consent, by saying "[soon after birth] is the best time to do the operation to avoid any unnecessary trauma." Mutilation at birth is just as painful and, arguably, even more traumatizing than mutilation on people over the age of 18, the only real difference being that the infant will not remember the procedure being done. However, if we are going to judge the morality of an action by whether or not the victim will remember the action itself, then we can logically infer that beating babies in a way that doesn't permanently damage them is fine, and that raping people while they're passed out drunk or on roofies is also acceptable, since they won't remember it anyway. If we are to reduce pain by providing anaesthesizing the infants, there is a significant risk of complications [1]. Additionally, the infant's right to consenting to have a part of his body permanently mutilated far outweighs the infant's right to undergo the procedure without remembering it. Con pointed out that the effects of MGM on sexual pleasure are "debated", and then proceeded to provide sources that do not back up that point at all. One of his sources actually helps my point, the source being a study which concluded with "There was a decrease in masturbatory pleasure and sexual enjoyment after circumcision, indicating that adult circumcision adversely affects sexual function in many men, possibly because of complications of the surgery and a loss of nerve endings" (Pang). This hurt's Con's point. The other source Con provided includes about half a sentence about MGM and sexual pleasure, and provides no study to back up this claim. My point, that MGM negatively affects masturbation and sex, is intact. Con provided a common argument for MGM, that being the argument that intact boys will recieve taunts in the locker room. I would like to first point out that this is not a debate regarding genital mutilation on an individual basis, but a debate over whether or not MGM should be made illegal in developed nations. In an area where MGM is illegal, virtually every boy in the locker room will be intact, and they will not be taunted about their foreskin. Furthermore, even on an individual basis, this argument does not hold water, as most boys aren't showing other people their penis until they get old enough to realize that having an intact penis is normal. Even if the boy happened to show off his intact penis, in the locker room for example, and was taunted for it, this argument STILL holds no water because there are much more prevalent things kids will be taunted for in elementary and middle school. For example, at the risk of providing a false resuctio ad absurdum argument, kids who get braces earlier than others might get made fun of for having braces, and the same principle goes for kids who get glasses early on. Should parents not put braces or glasses on their children because they might get taunted for it? Con provided another common argument for MGM, which are the African studies that show that intact men get HIV more easily. I would like to point out that these studies are irrelevant to this debate, since this debate is about the legality of genital mutilation in DEVELOPED countries. This is not an arbitrary ad hoc element to my argument; if there were a study with similar results conducted in the United States, the point would go to Con, and the suspected reasoning behind the 60% increase in HIV infections in intact men, provided by Con's own source, is "in uncircumcised men, [anaerobic] bacteria may provoke inflammation in the genitalia, thereby improving the chances that immune cells will be in the vicinity for HIV viruses to infect" (Scientific American). In developed countries, men almost always have access to regular bathing, which would decrease the amount of anaerobic bacteria under the foreskin, causing less inflammation and bringing the HIV infection rate down to a similar level to that of mutilated men. I cannot cite a source, as no such study has been conducted in the United States. Again, this is not special pleading, as I have provided a specific reason why developing countries and developed countries should be looked at differently on this issue. To augment my previous point, that neonatal MGM is traumatizing to the infant, I have provided a youtube video of an infant being mutilated. The victim is uncontrollably screaming. It is still very much a traumatizing experience as an infant. http://www.youtube.com... I conclude with my three main points, all of which are still intact, that neonatal male genital mutilation strips infants of their right to consent to getting mutilatied, that MGM decreases sexual pleasure, and that neonatal MGM is a gender equality issue. [1] http://bja.oxfordjournals.org...