Circumcision is a crime now in Germany

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Syzygys, Jun 26, 2012.

  1. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    *Shrugs* Stoniphi, you're welcome to keep whatever opinion you will, irregardless of how incorrect it may be. I'm not about to record our sexual exploits just to prove a point (after all, it is technically illegal to record someone without their knowledge in Pennsylvania, especially in sexual acts... and sorry, but I highly DOUBT my wife would willingly agree to being recorded just to satisfy the doubts of a few online forum dwellers) and the advice was hardly "just man up" - the advice was much more logical than that.

    IF you were going to have a procedure done that required time to heal and left you in a fair bit of pain, incapable of going to work or having "fun" for a few days afterwards... would you rather have it done while an infant, when you wouldn't remember any of it, have no responsibilities, and would heal MUCH faster... or as an adult when it would become a massive PITA as it interrupts every facet of your life, not to mention takes longer to heal...

    Seems like a pretty simple decision to me... but like I said, I personally see no reason to keep the damned thing so :shrug:
     
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  3. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    It is in many countries. The American Kennel Club stands almost alone for not only allowing it, but requiring it in the show standards for many breeds.

    We can't even find a veterinarian who will perform de-barking surgery anymore. We'd have to track down an AKC-affiliated vet who also does tail and ear docking, and he would probably charge a fortune.

    Sure, there's a risk in debarking. Out of fifteen dogs we've had debarked, one coughs a little bit after drinking water. On the other hand, thousands of dogs are taken to the pound every year to face certain death, because their owners' neighbors complain to the municipal authorities about their barking, and the authorities order them to either leave town or get rid of the dog.

    Typical brainless American-style risk management. The same idiocy that has us spending trillions of dollars on pointless wars and sacrificing our civil rights to the Homeland Gestapo, because in the last decade terrorists have killed exactly the same number of us as peanut allergies.

    Anyway... back to the original topic. Here's a passage from an article on the issue in Friday's Washington Post:
     
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  5. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    FR why would you get a dog and then remove the one single responsibility OF that dog? If someone is breaking into your house a barking dog is the last thing they want, it doesn't have to be aggressive, it just has to put the perp at risk of attention and most will flee. A lasa upso is as good as a German shepherd for that.

    As for your article read back through the thread, it starts off on a mistaken tangent an follows on. The resurch has ONLY shown a benifit in africa where the strain is less virulent and transmits female to male (and back). No benifit at ALL for IV drug users and no benifit shown in US trials for the strain that is present in the majority of the world

    Further more bells showed before that the risk of death from the mutilation itself is HIGHER in the US than the risk of SIDS (and that was in raw figures, concidering that we are only talking about boys and then only those who are mulitilated it needs to be roughly doubled if not more)

    Further more as she pointed out there were problems in the very studies that the WHO rely on for this

    Then there is the efficacy of condoms and the fact that the alleged protective effect may well be related to HPV and therefore the same effect can be reached through Gardecell.

    However all that is irrelevant because in the end its not a matter of saftey or religion its a matter of choice. You and you alone have the right to make choices about what happens to your body ESPECIALLY where it ha the potential to effect your identity and sexuality. The only time this should be overruled is when a court (or the guardianship board) decides its medically nessary.

    If you want a prince Albert then go right ahead, if your parents want to inflict that on you as a newborn then there is something seriously wrong with that. This is no different, we can keep throwing studies around showing the damage it causes but it all comes back to your right to chose what happens to your own body. Your parents can't cut off your arms, they can't cut out a girls breasts to prevent breast cancer, they can't remove the hood of the clit and boys should recive the same protections that girls do. Anything else is sexist or religious nonsense
     
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  7. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Not really. The study she quoted was badly flawed (to the point of deception, in my opinion. Everyone knows that SIDS does not kill much in the first month after birth) and supported no such conclusion - something that in other circumstances she is alert to, btw.
    That's irrelevant. The opponents of HPV vaccination of children make exactly the same argument - that abstinence and monogamy and hygiene provide better protection, so the vaccine is unnecessary and its rare damages are unjustifiably harmful. The child can make these decisions about their body when they are older, they observe. Do you agree?
    This sensationalist bullshit is essentially the only argument for the German law on this thread. If this is all the proponents have, the case is made against it.
     
  8. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    The difference between circumcision and everything else you just mentioned is that circumcision has been shown to have at least some health benefits. I still also find it hard to believe it's "torture" to the newborn...
     
  9. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    Sorry but cutting the breast tissue out of all women would significantly reduce the number of cases of breast cancer garentied. It's not 100% but it's ALOT higher than 0% too. Actually there is a fair number of women in high risk groups who will chose to have a double radical mastectomy either after being diognosed with cancer in one breast or after having a sibling diognosed to protect themselves from the disease.

    1 in 10 (from memory) cases of breast cancer is actually in men and that number is increasing
     
  10. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Uhm... thing is, much of the time, breast cancer, when caught early, is reasonably easy to treat WITHOUT removal...
     
  11. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    IF caught early AND it's not an aggressive cancer AND you don't live in the US so can access the treatments needed.

    Bit more of an "IF" than IF you can go to the supermarket and but condoms or IF we let boys be vaccinated against HPV rather than only girls isn't it?
     
  12. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    Irrelevant.

    Is anyone able to argue in favor of that law, without resorting to histrionics and comparisons with mastectomy and the like?
     
  13. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    I already have, you have a right to self determination, to make your own decisions about your own body, not a religion and not your parents. Case closed, you lose
     
  14. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Hardly anyone's loss there... especially as, in the United States, your parents are your legal guardians and thus responsible for every single action that affects your health and well being until you either turn 18 or emancipate yourself... so, legally speaking, they have EVERY right to have you circumcised... so, technically speaking, by law, your argument is the one that loses...
     
  15. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    No, actually that wasn't just my opinion THAT was the judges ruling. Not that it's illegal but that it's illegal to perform on an unconsenting child. The ruling was that children have a right to self determination as a human right. This falls under the guidelines of principle based ethics

    And BTW why would an Australian commenting on a ruling of a german court give two hoots about the "ethics" of US law? You are one of the ONLY countries to refuse to ratify the international treaties on the rights of the child AND your one of the few countries left to sanction torture, your ethics are hardly unquestionable
     
  16. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    What rights does a child, incapable of even KNOWING right from wrong, truly have, hmm?

    Okay, I'll consent on one condition -

    If we give children all the RIGHTS of adults, they must also accept all the RESPONSIBILITIES of an adult. Thus, any crimes a child commits, regardless of age, is punished the same as an adult. They will be held to the same standards in law, business, and ethics. If they sign a contractual agreement and break contract, they, not their parents, will be held liable. Kids will be held liable for their own debts, instead of their parents. They are responsible for going to school, and their parents will not be punished if they don't.

    After all, it's a double standard to expect them to know right from wrong in respect to their own body and not know right from wrong with respect to their actions.

    Also, I don't question torture at all... if it comes down to violating the "rights" of a criminal who's already lost his/her rights by violating the rights of others in order to get information that might save the lives of others, or granting them their "rights" and risking the lives of those who are innocent... you can bet your ass I'd use EVERY method I know to break that bastard.
     
  17. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    That makes no sense - no child, including the minors you recommend be vaccinated against HPV as well as a host of other diseases, is capable of making that determination or exercising that right. That's what parents are for.
     
  18. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    Wow.. That's what you're going with?

    Does this mean you don't think children have any rights because they cannot understand right from wrong?

    If we were to use your argument, FGM would be acceptable if done on girls too young to know right from wrong.


    The study actually wasn't flawed. It is one of the first that looked directly at this subject matter.

    Now compare this to the African studies which were not only incomplete, but also failed to mention that they gave the adult male participants in the circumcision study, condoms and then highly recommended that they used said condoms, gave them medical care that they would normally not have had access to and then reported that surprise surprise, HIV transmission rates went down for the participants in said study.

    The same can be said for any vaccination. However, the leading health bodies around the world recommend vaccination. With circumcision however, pretty much all say it is not necessary. In fact, they do not recommend it at all.

    Just as the case is easily made against circumcision, with medical organisations saying they do not recommend it for baby boys. The law in this one region of Germany stated that circumcisions for religious reasons are still available and should still be available. But the caveat on that is that the boy gets to grow up and decide for themselves when they are at the age of understanding.. I think that's a fair call, don't you?
     
  19. scifes In withdrawal. Valued Senior Member

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    1- some penis foreskin have no use whatsoever when compared to a women's breast asguard.

    2-and parents have more rights with their kids than the government has, a child isn irresponsible, parents know better in most debatable issues. the government IS made up of parents mostly afterall.
     
  20. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    10,342
    Bullshit. The foreskin protects the glans. Boobs only have actual utility while nursing, and there is this stuff called baby formula, which means women have no need to breast feed.

    Bullshit. The state enforces human rights, even on parents. Cutting parts off a child at whim is not a right of a parent. Being left physically intact is a right of the child.
     
  21. superstring01 Moderator

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    12,110
    Is that your lofty educated assertion? Care to back that up with anything approaching empirical evidence? Facts? Studies? Something? Really. I'm waiting. I mean, it's not bad enough that you're engaging in some kind of despicable rhetoric that has the net affect of comparing a gutted-and-sewn-closed vulva with the removal of prepuce, but now you're just creating "facts" and throwing them out like you have any reasonable qualifications for doing so (i.e. "Stockholm Syndrome")

    Um. There's the whole "oppression of women" going back to the dawn of time thing that sort of is at play here. Men have rarely ever been oppressed on any level that compares. So, in fact, the two don't.

    They report good sex lives? All of them? Every one? Wow. You're a remarkably intelligent individual. I misjudged you completely. Maybe your grandfather was killed by American nukes. Turns out your family has a long tradition of being EVERYWHERE at once. Kudos!

    The two don't compare, for starters, I'm gay, beyond that I'm not a compulsive lying, misogynist.

    Other than that, quite well, since I've sucked a few Australian (and Mexican . . . Cuban, Spanish . . . Argentinian . . . okay, okay, I have a thing for Hispanics) dicks in my day, none of which were cut and none of which demonstrated any increased sexual arousal or potency.

    I bet you will quickly make up some sort of quasi-scientific nonsense to justify your remarks though.

    Where are these "important" studies?

    Are they important because you've decided they are?

    ~String
     
  22. superstring01 Moderator

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    12,110
    Really? Who decided that?

    ~String
     
  23. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

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    And that state of affairs is somewhat surprising, given the context. That is, you'd think that the Germans, of all people, would be pretty careful to insure that they had a slam-dunk, unequivocable case - and make such in the public mind - before enacting a law whose only practical effect is, essentially, to say "hey, Jews and Muslims: your evil cocks are illegal here in our enlightened country!"
     

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