The most weird or stupid news story you heard today.

[Drolefille]

Originally Posted by Alumiyum

Yep. Parents make all kinds of serious and sometimes life altering medical choices on behalf of their children. And it might be elective (aside from those who want it removed for religious reasons), but where is the line drawn? Parents can choose whether or not to vaccinate their children, so surely they have a choice here.

And yes, some people find it icky. I do, I can't help it. Possibly because I have dated an uncircumcised guy that was sometimes pretty nonchalant about his hygiene.

Vaccination - saves lives, prevents illness. People who don't vaccinate their children without physician approval and oversight - for legit medical complications - are irresponsible and putting many people at risk.

Circumcision for the vast majority of American families is an elective procedure that is entirely too concerned about what their son's penis looks like when he's a grown up. Anecdotal evidence aside, there's nothing less clean about a guy with foreskin, there's only guys who can't be bothered to wash thoroughly.

Originally Posted by PiKA2001

It should be up to the parents, not the government. AFAIK parents are asked if they want their son circumcised, the hospital won't do it if the parents don't want it done. Not everyone practices good hygiene and I've heard of uncircumcised guys getting urinary tract infections from not keeping their junk clean.

The only reason people are ok with voluntary circumcision in the US is because it is done so commonly here. Everyone does it so many people don't think twice about it. I don't believe Europe has higher incidences of UTIs than America so maybe it's more that American families don't teach their uncircumcised sons how to wash. We're kind of an aberration in this particular elective surgical field and not acknowledging that serves no one well.

We would think poorly of parents who did pretty much any other type of elective surgery on every single fe/male child, right? So why is circumcision the exception to that? No reasons other than culture.