And now the First Amendment . . .

[KaosDad]

On the ballot in the Great Nanny State of Kalifornication; a bill to make circumcision illegal. Citing it as "tantamount to mutilation" performing such would be a felony and there would be NO religious exemptions made.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ."

[jim100]

On the ballot in the Great Nanny State of Kalifornication; a bill to make circumcision illegal. Citing it as "tantamount to mutilation" performing such would be a felony and there would be NO religious exemptions made.

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . ."

Morons.

[OakRidgeStars]

This is specific to San Francisco (big surprise there).

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/05/18/ci ... co-ballot/

[VBshooter]

Do we really need 50 states? I mean we could always annex Canada or something and kick CA out on its ass to let the wolves eat it,,,,Critters probably wouldn;t want it either,,,,

[OakRidgeStars]

My guess is that Bawney Fwank is more than willing to be appointed...

Chief Weinie Inspector for the State of California

[totes6]

So I am going to be the dissenting voice here. Is the child not a citizen under the United States of America? Does the child not qualify for protection from the Government? Whose right does the First Amendment protect? The individual. Is the child not considered an individual in their own right? The parents are yelling it is their right to practice their freedom of religion without interference of the Government. That is all fine and dandy until they try to force their opinion on their child. The child is too young to say no. The child is too young to fight off the doctors. What is wrong with giving the child a chance to decide for themselves? If they truly believe that circumcision is part of their religious beliefs then they can make that choice for themselves.

Several of us on the board are against abortion. You all yell that the child has no voice and it is the Governments responsibility to be that voice. The only difference between the unborn child in the womb and the child in the parent's arms is its physical location. It still does not have a voice to say I do not want this. It cannot say "My parents are infringing on my freedom of religion." Much like abortion, there is no reversal of circumcision. You call the Muslims barbaric for participating in religious killing. But that is based on their faith.

You are entitled to your Freedom of Religion up to the point that it interferes with another citizen's rights. When it crosses that boundary the Government is sworn to step in and stop the abuse of the citizen's right.

[mamabearCali]

The child is under the custody of the parents. If the parents are practicing Jews the parents have every right to train their children in the religion of their choice and to prepare that child to be an active member of that community.

You ask "What is wrong with giving the child a chance to decide for themselves? If they truly believe that circumcision is part of their religious beliefs then they can make that choice for themselves." Because to strict Jews the child must be circumcised on the 8th day. By the time the child can decide for themselves it is a day late and a dollar short.

You compare this to abortion--that is a quite a stretch sir. At the end of an abortion procedure the child is dead, and can never ever make a decision for itself. At the end of a circumcision the child has undergone a minor medical procedure that has both benefits and risks. Are we going to ban piercing babies ears next? After all the kid doesn't get a vote there either and that has nothing to do with religion.

[totes6]

I compare circumcision to abortion, because there is no going back in either case. In all surgeries there are risks. For an infant surgeries are even riskier if they go under anesthesia, because they are so young. Most parents are not fully informed of the risks of circumcision either. For those who want I have included the common ones below.

One study looking at 354,297 births in Washington State from 1987-1996 found that immediate post-birth complications occurred at a rate of 0.2% in the circumcised babies and at a rate of 0.01% in the uncircumcised babies. The authors judged that this was a conservative estimate because it did not capture the very rare but serious delayed complications associated with circumcisions (e.g., necrotizing fasciitis, cellulitis) and the less serious but more common complications such as the circumcision scar or a less than ideal cosmetic result. They also stated that the risks of circumcision "do not seem to be mitigated by the hands of more experienced physicians".[143]

Meatal stenosis (a narrowing of the urethral opening) may be a longer-term complication of circumcision. It is thought that because the foreskin no longer protects the meatus, ammonia formed from urine in wet diapers irritates and inflames the exposed urethral opening. Meatal stenosis can lead to discomfort with urination, incontinence, bleeding after urination and urinary tract infections.[144][145][146]

Circumcisions may remove too much or too little skin.[61][147] If insufficient skin is removed, the child may still develop phimosis in later life.[61] Van Howe states that "when operating on the infantile penis, the surgeon cannot adequately judge the appropriate amount of tissue to remove because the penis will change considerably as the child ages, such that a small difference at the time of surgery may translate into a large difference in the adult circumcised penis. To date (1997), there have been no published studies showing the ability of a circumciser to predict the later appearance of the penis."[148]

Cathcart et al. report that 0.5% of boys required a procedure to revise the circumcision.[149]

Other complications include concealed penis,[150][151] urinary fistulas, chordee, cysts, lymphedema, ulceration of the glans, necrosis of all or part of the penis, hypospadias, epispadias and impotence.[141] Kaplan stated "Virtually all of these complications are preventable with only a modicum of care" and "most such complications occur at the hands of inexperienced operators who are neither urologists nor surgeons."[141]

Another complication of infant circumcision is skin bridge formation, whereby a remaining part of the foreskin fuses to other parts of the penis (often the glans) upon healing. This can result in pain during erections and minor bleeding can occur if the shaft skin is forcibly retracted.[152] Van Howe advises that to prevent adhesions forming after circumcision, parents should be instructed to retract and clean any skin covering the glans.[148]

Although deaths have been reported,[141][153] the American Academy of Family Physicians states that death is rare, and cites an estimated death rate of 1 infant in 500,000 from circumcision.[118] In 2010, Bollinger estimated a death rate of 9.01 per 100,000, or 117 per year in the United States.[154] Gairdner's 1949 study[155] reported that an average of 16 children per year out of about 90,000 died following circumcision in the UK. He found that most deaths had occurred suddenly under anaesthesia and could not be explained further, but hemorrhage and infection had also proven fatal. Deaths attributed to phimosis and circumcision were grouped together, but Gairdner argued that such deaths were probably due to the circumcision operation. Wiswell and Geschke reported no deaths in the first month of life after 100,157 circumcisions (in contrast with two deaths among 35,929 uncircumcised boys); they also reported finding no deaths in separate series of 300,000 US Army circumcisions, and 650,000 boys circumcised in Texas.[156] King reported no deaths among 500,000 circumcisions.[157] The penis is thought to be lost in 1 in 1,000,000 circumcisions.[158]


You are right Christie, that the children are under the custody of the parents. And as such should follow the rules of the house which in many cases means being brought up in one faith or another. However no parent has the right to change a child's body in such a way that it is forever changed. As you can see above, circumcision can have some very serious health risks both in the short term and long. You say that I am stretching things by comparing abortion and circumcision. So let me compare this. A man claims he has seen revelation that all females that believe, should be right handed and to ensure that the dirty left hand is never used it should be cut off. Now if the females are the age of majority and choose this course, then by all means let them do it. But if they started this for youn girls or even babies, I am sure that most people would call this mutilation and would push for it to be stopped. Would you still claim it is the parent's right because it is their view that the girl's hand is dirty and should be chopped off that they should be allowed to do it? To answer your claim of the ear rings, those small holes will heal given time, the foreskin does not grow back. Piercing the ear is not a permanent life decision.

[mamabearCali]

You list the risks at great length--however there are benefits for the child as well. They are well documented. Many parents not Jewish (including us) chose to have their child circumcised because of those benefits. That is what a parent is for to make risk vs reward decisions for the child when they cannot. There are risks to vaccinations too! Many of them even more horrible than what you list for circumcision, but most parents still get their children vaccinated. Most the risks for circumcision are easily mitigated by using local anesthetic as opposed to general anesthetic and doing basic care of the wound. I have dealt with a few of the problems listed (adhesions) and really they are not as serious as you are suggesting.


Before we had our two precious boys circumcised we talked with urologists, pediatricians, and nurses all of whom said that the reward outweighed the risk and that it was a very minor procedure. I doubt they would have said that about removing a child's hand. You are comparing a tiny tiny flap of skin that does precious little for a man to a vital part of a person's body. I have to assume you are using hyperbole and are not serious in this comparison.

Sure you can't go back on either abortion or circumcisions, but neither can a Jewish family go back to the 8th day of the child's life and circumcise them when they are 13 and decide, yes I want to be a Jew. You may think it is stupid, but that is Jewish law, and as it does not remove anything but the tiniest bit of skin, it is hardly mutilation.

Those little holes in the ears can get infected too! You say that they will heal back--not always the case. My sister's never did.

[totes6]

Before we had our two precious boys circumcised we talked with urologists, pediatricians, and nurses all of whom said that the reward outweighed the risk and that it was a very minor procedure. I doubt they would have said that about removing a child's hand. You are comparing a tiny tiny flap of skin that does precious little for a man to a vital part of a person's body. I have to assume you are using hyperbole and are not serious in this comparison.

That flap of skin does quite a bit for men. It does provide protection to sensitive areas. And yet you choose to ignore my question of what would you say if a religion chose to amputate a child's hand and instead responded with what the Doctors told you. You talked about Jewish law and custom and I responded with another potential religious practice. I am curious what your view on that would be if that would still be covered under Freedom of Religion. Don't think that can happen, there have been multiple so called religious cults that have gone further than mutilation. They have gone so far as group suicide. Take a look at Heaven's Gate that happened on March 26, 1997. If that isn't real enough for you, how about the countries over in Africa that practice female circumcision? Several human rights organizations have classified that has cruel and inhumane and call it genital mutilation. Yet the skin flap that the female has circumcised provides much the same protection of sensitive areas as the males. And by the way the medical community is still severely divided on the benefits versus the risks of circumcision. Included in the information in my above post had results from studies on both sides of the issue.

Sure you can't go back on either abortion or circumcisions, but neither can a Jewish family go back to the 8th day of the child's life and circumcise them when they are 13 and decide, yes I want to be a Jew. You may think it is stupid, but that is Jewish law, and as it does not remove anything but the tiniest bit of skin, it is hardly mutilation.

You are still ignoring the fact that the parents are potentially violating the child's right to Freedom of Religion. There is a process for men to convert to Judaism. Not all men are circumcised at birth. And no I do not believe their belief system is stupid. But I do believe that the child should have a voice in the matter of what happens to their bodies.

Those little holes in the ears can get infected too! You say that they will heal back--not always the case. My sister's never did.

I was misinformed then. In that case put an age limit for consent on piercings too. It is the child's body, they should have the right to do with it as they wish. And not be faced with a lifetime of complications from their parent's decisions.

[mamabearCali]

How in the world does a circumcision violate a child's freedom of religion? My husband is circumcised and he is a Christian. Just because you are circumcised does not dictate what religion you are. But it is required for Jews to circumcise their boys and has been for 3500 years.

If you are comparing female circumcision to male circumcision, you are just simply uninformed as to what each entails and what purpose each serves. Female circumcision removes genital organs--not flaps of skin, but organs, and the purpose of it is to keep women subjugated and to make intimacy painful for a woman. It would be analogous to removing the head of a man's penis. Circumcision does not do that. As for fringe groups (like heavens gates)--Judaism is hardly a fringe religion so there is really no comparison there. There is no comparison for suicide versus a tiny bit of skin--most reasonable people can see the difference.

As for me quoting doctors in an answer to your question on hands vs foreskins--who would you like me to reference?

"It is the child's body, they should have the right to do with it as they wish. And not be faced with a lifetime of complications from their parent's decisions."

Like I said before vaccinations have far far more complications than circumcision. The complications happen more frequently and are harder to mitigate. Some children do face lifetime complications from their parents decision to vaccinate them--I am related to three of them. But most parents still vaccinate and I am not hearing that they were mutilated from you. We make hard decisions as parents in conjunction with professionals and pray our decisions were the right ones.

There is a reason children have parents and one of those reasons is to make decisions for them that a parent believes is in the best interest of a child, spiritually, heath wise, educationally. Most reasonable people would see that removing a hand or executing the child (abortion) is not in the best interest of a child.

Finally--think about who you are siding with. The city of San Francisco is so crazy, that they would likely try to prosecute you if someone had a gun to your child's head and you shot them instead of trying to talk them down. Concealed carry is non-existent there. This is not a good place to emulate.

[zephyp]

So I am going to be the dissenting voice here. Is the child not a citizen under the United States of America? Does the child not qualify for protection from the Government? Whose right does the First Amendment protect? The individual. Is the child not considered an individual in their own right? The parents are yelling it is their right to practice their freedom of religion without interference of the Government. That is all fine and dandy until they try to force their opinion on their child. The child is too young to say no. The child is too young to fight off the doctors. What is wrong with giving the child a chance to decide for themselves? If they truly believe that circumcision is part of their religious beliefs then they can make that choice for themselves.

Several of us on the board are against abortion. You all yell that the child has no voice and it is the Governments responsibility to be that voice. The only difference between the unborn child in the womb and the child in the parent's arms is its physical location. It still does not have a voice to say I do not want this. It cannot say "My parents are infringing on my freedom of religion." Much like abortion, there is no reversal of circumcision. You call the Muslims barbaric for participating in religious killing. But that is based on their faith.

You are entitled to your Freedom of Religion up to the point that it interferes with another citizen's rights. When it crosses that boundary the Government is sworn to step in and stop the abuse of the citizen's right.

Yes circumcision was decreed by God however so were many other things and many have practical health applications. Regarding the health application of circumcision does smegma ring any bells?