Circumcision without absolute medical necesity is genital mutilation and should be banned:

RESPONSE:I. AFTER THE FACT RATIONALIZATIONS:You misunderstood my argument- you cannot do something for a reason that is unacceptable for over 140 years, then when people begin to question it, come up with an after the fact rationalization. If 100 years from now a study came out claiming that FGM was beneficial- this would not change the barbaric nature of cutting someone's genitals without their consent. II. COST:No- that is the average cost of a circumcision before insurance. But regardless, the total resources expended per circumcision amount to 850$. That only 50$ of this is paid by the parents is really irrelevant, because we are judging the total resources used in either method- of amputation or of treatment, enable to see which method is most efficient. This means that we must account for the whole cost of circumcision procedures, which show that the costs of circumcision do not justify the suppose health benefits. III. PLEASURE:You cannot claim that cutting off the most sensitive parts of a persons genitals doesn't reduce sensitivity. The foreskin is by no doubt sensitive, and so circumcision destroys sensitivity by definition. There is no way around this- and all the studies in the world couldn't prove this otherwise. It's like claiming that foot binding does not affect women's ability to walk, then releasing a study to 'confirm' this. No one would believe them and rightly so. IV. HEALTH BENEFITS:The claims of health benefits as some kind of a justification for circumcision are inherently absurd. Even assuming that these health benefits were real- I can find no logical way to say that preemptive amputation is an acceptable means of disease prevention. In no other circumstance would this be acceptable, and I'll give you an example. It could be claimed that teeth are nothing but a health hazard. Almost everyone with them are going to get cavities, and dentures are easier to clean- so by this same logic we should rip out all of our children's teeth and replace them with dentures. Apparently, however, this is illegal. Better yet- if you want the cure for every disease ever to threaten mankind- why don't we practise Routine Infant Euthanasia (RIE)? Studies have shown that death reduces a persons chances of contracting HIV by 100%- which certainly outdoes circumcision. Not only that, but death reduces your chances of catching an STD, of getting any form of cancer, or of contracting a UTI by 100% as well! Death is far more effective at disease prevention than circumcision, and it's cheaper too. I'm not sure how much a bullet costs, but I'm pretty sure it's below 850$, or even 50$. My opponent may see this analogy as absurd- but truth be told, if it is acceptable to infringe a persons right to bodily autonomy to 'spare them' all these horrible diseases- where does that logic stop? At what point in the application of this logic are the human rights violations no longer acceptable?FINAL ARGUMENT:Seeing as though this is my last round, I think it is best for me to wrap up my case and add more reasoning for my position. The resolution is that circumcision is genital mutilation, and should be banned. My opponent has not responded to the first part and has admitted that it is true. So she has attempted to show that circumcision, though genital mutilation, should not be banned. This debate, fundamentally, deals in morality and ethics, as opposed to pragmatism, or 'what may be best.' For this reason, I will attack my opponents stance at a very different angle. I. THE JUSTIFICATIONS:My opponent claims that circumcision should not be banned like with FGM because it has health benefits. However, she is yet to show how this has any effect upon the morality of circumcision. The Nazis, for example, sought to eliminate all genetic defects enable to create a healthier people. It is almost undeniable that genociding everyone with unfavorable genetics would improve public health by reducing substantially the chances of someone having such diseases. Yet this was no justification- because it violated human rights. It seems that all of my opponents arguments for the moral acceptability of circumcision are based on the idea that the ends justify the means. For this reason, I will be attacking her argument from a new angle- Libertarianism. II. PROPERTY RIGHTS:Circumcision violates property rights- the foreskin is after all the babies property, and so cutting it off and destroying it violates that babies right to property- but not even just his property- the most sacred form of property- his body. The 5th Amendment to the Constitution states:"No person shall be... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."'Due process' means that the individual concerned has to be tried with a valid crime, in a court of law, and given punishment accordingly. This requirement is not fulfilled in the case of circumcision- and property rights are the basis of all human rights. {1}III. CONSENT:The minimum age of consent requirement in the United States is 16, {2} this means that a baby is legally incapable of consenting to circumcision. Instead, parents are enabled to consent 'as a proxy' on the child's behalf. This is not consent, at best it is paternalism, something completely unacceptable in any free society, but abhorrent when it comes to the cutting off of healthy parts of a persons genitals. As a baby cannot consent to a circumcision, and non-therapeutic circumcision is at best preemptive amputation, something that doctors will normally refuse to do, let alone on an unconsenting minor- circumcision is a blatant violation of the laws regarding consent in this nation. CONCLUSION:After this debate, I still can see no justification whatsoever for cutting off the most sensitive parts of a persons genitals. This is a blatant violation of property rights, the Non-Aggression Principle, and the Hippocratic Oath. Furthermore I have already shown how circumcision violates US Law (The FGM Act of 1996 and the 14th Amendment, the 5th Amendment, and Age of Consent Laws), and have thereby fulfilled the second part of my burden of proof. {1}. https://mises.org...{2}. http://www.legalmatch.com...