Justification for neonatal male circumcision

Assuming that sensitivity in the remaining erogenous regions is left unchanged, there is still the issue of removing erogenous tissue. To make an analogy, when a finger is removed from a hand, perhaps the remaining fingers keep the amount of sensitivity that they had before the amputation, while the sensation from the removed finger is no longer present. As with circumcision, the maximum nerve stimulation potential is reduced by the sheer number of nerve cells able to generate a nerve signal. The sensitivity issue, therefore, relies on the argument that the remaining cells are unaffected, and that the lowered nerve potential does not affect pleasure. This, in itself, is very hard to qualify. No two people feel amounts of pleasure quite the same, so to compare pleasure between a circumcised man and an uncircumcised man, the study has to be very well controlled and funded, something that the studies provided fail to be. No institution that has gone past the barrier of willingly performing sexually harmful procedures would initiate a self defeating study. In the sexual pleasure studies you cited, there are many uncontrolled variables to consider. In those studies, there is no mention of men who have restored their foreskin, either surgically or by gradual stretching, or men who have used glans covers or dekeratinization methods. This is a very noticeable gap in data, as it eliminates median data that could provide clues at so the resulting sexual sensitivity ratings or otherwise. If you understood the definition of the genetic fallacy, you would understand why my argument isn"t made fallaciously. The genetic fallacy occurs when a conclusion is made based solely on the lineage of the tradition or development in question. The portion of my argument where I point to the beginnings of circumcision in the United States is important to consider when analyzing the current reasoning behind the practice. However, it is not the exclusive reason that I oppose circumcision, nor is it the reason that I concluded that circumcision is not justified. Drawing attention to the lineage of the item in question can illuminate why the issue has evolved to its present form. While the history of circumcision isn"t valid to draw a conclusion from per se, in the context of being among other reasons, it stands as a perfectly acceptable piece of evidence to my complete argument. Coming to your next counter, the fact that female genital modification is illegal in the U.S., even with specific parental request for their own reasons, reveals that it is, absolutely, a matter of human rights. Stating that parents can do the things they can do, and can"t do the things they can"t, is not a way to validate the decisions that they can make on behalf of their consentless infant. In many African nations, parents have the rights to mutilate their female child"s genitals. It doesn"t make it right that they can, since we in the U.S. and most of the world view that as wrong, so saying that they"re right because they "can" is not an acceptable way to address that. To Address your counter to the profitability portion, Instead of examining it by saying that if it were exclusively a profit scheme, it would be mandatory, let"s look at this through a different perspective: if it weren"t for profit, it wouldn"t be performed. Countries that use more socialist healthcare systems are usually more concerned with the overall populous health, since it costs the government money to keep taking care of chronic conditions in its population. No country that uses a universal healthcare system covers circumcision under the available insurance, even considering the supposed benefits. It is interesting to see that circumcision for profit is uniquely American, a nation that prioritizes profit in the health sector. The only real exception is in the Philippines. Even there, circumcision is performed fairly regularly, many times for free at schools, and is performed for social reasons (1). This would indicate that the practice of for profit circumcision for medical reasons is a uniquely American phenomenon. Requiring circumcision to be legally mandatory is a very poor basis for the definition of a financial scheme. Seldom, if ever, has a non government instituted financial scheme made its way into united states law. "Snake oil" was never considered for legal obligation, even with the proofs for its benefits at the time, nor were any of the great ponzi schemes in U.S. history ever considered for legislation. Even vaccinations, one of the largest industries in our nation, have not been voted into legal obligation. Big pharmaceuticals make nearly twice the net profit margin of big oil at its peak, and nearly five times its lowest (2). Even these medical giants have yet to have their products voted into legal obligation. With circumcision being so widely accepted in our nation, there would be no reason for Hospitals to go the extra mile to make circumcision mandatory. The amount of time and money spent on lobbying to have circumcision passed into law, and somehow get it ruled as constitutional through the supreme court, would be too sizable to be considered worth it for the industry. Even passing it privately in hospitals as a condition to having a child in them would take away the human rights and the decision from both the parents and the child; this would be outlawed extremely quickly, and the hospitals would be targeted by the supreme court. Either route would be extremely costly and painstaking to undergo. Adding to that the extra notoriety from the media about how hospitals would be trying to pass a procedure as mandatory, either through legislation or privately, would draw attention to the legitimacy of the practice. Needless to say, if it were a scheme for profit, that would be the last thing the medical industry would want. The medical benefits of circumcision are significantly overstated. For penile/cervical cancer, the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) is the cause of these cancers, not the foreskin itself (3). It"s very odd that this particular proposed benefit is always filed separately than the STD rate. As with the sensitivity argument, no medical association that profits from circumcision is going to provide evidence to the contrary. Most of the sources that you cited for medical benefits came from data outside the U.S., and cannot be compared directly to STD or medical risk factors in America. I invite you to read a short abstract of some of the problems faced when using the data from circumcision studies (4).Factors such as living conditions, sexual partners, factors that led to voluntary or involuntary circumcision, abstinence period after circumcision, condom use, and many other important ones need to be accounted for. A study from the International Journal of STDs and AIDS stated that intact men were more likely to use condoms than circumcised ones (5). There has been no study published that proves circumcision does anything except delay STD transmission in men, since no study has come through with the full circumcised sample follow up after a reasonable follow up period. Hopefully this has been informative and thought provoking. Initiating this debate and sustaining it from the con side is difficult, particularly because of the bias in the medical field publishing data that may be contaminated by personal or funding bias, but nonetheless I hope I was able to provide a stimulating (no pun intended) experience. Thanks for a good debate! Sources: 1.http://www.dailymail.co.uk... 2. http://www.bbc.com... 3. https://www.cancer.gov... 4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov... 5. http://www.intactamerica.org...