Parents should not be allowed to circumcise their male infants

Jumping right in… "…I have never heard of one single person who has ever regretted being circumcised. I have not even heard of people from anywhere else around the world having regret the fact that they've been circumcised…" Unfortunately for my opponent, the fact that it seems incredible to him that people regret having been circumcised as children is no argument for the mutilation of infants. I provided several links showing that some individuals grow up with negative feelings regarding the fact that they are circumcised. On a related note, the CIRP website he claimed was biased, indeed is- its made and run by people who regret having been circumcised, and who want to give other people the freedom to choose what is done to their bodies. That's why I used it as support for the claim that some who are circumcised as infants become unhappy about it later in life. My opponent also seems to have misunderstood my argument about decreased sexual pleasure. "(1) It might be that adults who get circumcised lose their sexual pleasure, but we cannot know whether or not that is the case for infants." The foreskin contains many nerve endings, including specialized ones that may not occur elsewhere. [1] By removing it, the doctor is removing those nerve endings; thus the total amount of sensation in the area is decreased for a lifetime, regardless of the age at removal. Perhaps many men would not mind this, but that doesn't give anyone the right to make that decision for them before they have the chance. "(2) When a child gets circumcised, he cannot possibly know of a better sexual pleasure when he grows up, even though he is circumcised, because he never had anything better." First of all, even if he's never experienced anything better because he's been circumcised all his life, he will clearly be aware that he is missing something; the information on circumcision is readily available on the internet and elsewhere. Second, the fact that one has never known anything better is no justification for depriving them of something, regardless of what my opponent would think. If he were born under a severely restrictive dictatorship, I doubt he would call it justified simply because he's never lived under a regime allowing more freedoms. Next, Mirza claims that my pinky finger analogy fails because removing a finger has no health benefits and because someone missing a foreskin is just as functional as someone who is not. However, the fact of the matter is, the major health benefits of circumcision are NOT reaped by infants or children- they are reaped by adults. Infants don't need to worry about catching STDs. And while uncircumcised males are more likely to catch a urinary tract infection in their first year of life, there is still only a 1% chance of this occurring even in uncircumcised infants. [2] Performing an unnecessary surgery in order to reduce the risk of something with a minimal chance of occurring anyway is a severe overreaction. The "health benefits" to an infant that has been circumcised as compared to an uncircumcised infant are negligible. In any case, the pinky finger is also mainly non-functional; grasping, holding, and even typing can be performed easily without it. And depending on what country the child lives in, he is just as likely to be teased for being circumcised as he is for missing a pinky finger. In fact, as an informal observation, I have noticed that men's self esteem tends to be more tied up in the state of their sexual organs than it is in the state of their pinky fingers. :P "My opponent claims that removing a body art goes against the child's will. This is, of course, a horrible argument. What kind of an act is accepted by an infant, or other children? Do parents ask their baby whether it wants milk or coke? Not at all." It's as if my opponent didn't even read my argument last round. There are some things it is ok for a parent to decide for a child- I never denied that. Issues of nutrition, and of immediate safety, obviously fall under the purview of parental rights because the child is not capable of making the decisions themselves and if they are not made by the parents this will likely lead to irreparable harm done later on. But circumcision is no such case. If the decision of whether or not to be circumcised is postponed until the child is old enough to make it himself, no harm will be done. On the other hand, if the child is allowed to have coke every night for dinner instead of milk he could likely end up with diabetes or worse. Circumcision is clearly not the same sort of case. "Should a parent have right to call for surgery on his child who might suffer from this deformity?" In the first place, having a foreskin is natural, not a deformity. If anything, not having a foreskin is a sort of deformity since it is the result of surgical alteration to the body. Secondly, "trouble breathing" is not a harmless symptom, is a potential medical emergency. Thirdly, doctors strongly recommend that those under the age of 18 do not have surgery to correct the condition (assuming no health complications), especially if it is mild. [3] Finally, I would say that unless the child's health is at risk, the decision to have their condition surgically corrected, or not, should be left to them. Again, assuming they are not at risk of serious health complications, there is no harm done in waiting. If the child is ashamed of the condition and capable of understanding the risks of surgery his request for it should be honored. But if he does not want the surgery, there's no reason for his parents to force him. My opponent also dedicated a large portion of his case to proving that circumcision reduces the transmission of STDs, again apparently having not read my case. By the time a child is old enough to engage in sexual intercourse he is presumably old enough to decide whether or not he wants his foreskin removed to "protect" him against STDs. Obviously a much more effective and less invasive strategy for doing so would be to use a condom, which also, again, prevents pregnancy with a 99% effectiveness, as well as protecting the woman against catching STDs from the man. But that is entirely irrelevant. That doesn't justify circumcising an infant who won't be engaging in sexual intercourse anytime soon. My opponent has also entirely ignored my comments on the religious issues involving circumcision. I can only assume this means he concedes the argument. While Mirza has made a somewhat convincing case for why males should want to be circumcised, he has yet to introduce any overwhelming (or even underwhelming) evidence to support the claim that circumcising infants or children is preferable to leaving the decision up to the individual once they are old enough to choose. 1. http://www.cirp.org... 2. http://www.parents.com... 3. http://en.wikipedia.org...