My buddy, Frank, sent this along for consideration. It was found in the deep recesses of a pdf document on malecirumcision.org.
There have been several cost–benefit analyses of the impact of neonatal circumcision. Their conclusions depend on the assumed surgical complication rate of neonatal circumcision – for example, a decision-tree analysis found that circumcision would be preferred if the rate of surgical complications was below 0.6%. Male Circumcision Global Trends Determinants.pdf
I don't even know what this means. I mean somewhere along the line we're having an entirely different conversation than the folks over on that other site. They're talking cold and clinical by-the-numbers calculus. They are asking how we make this a no-brainer "whack 'em all" kind of decision, to quote the good doctor out of Indiana in this recent Newsweek item.
We, on the other hand, are having a discussion about why we would subject a child to such treatment without having any idea whether the child will be at high risk, whether he will desire this elevated level of intervention, what the acceptable level of complication is for a child who can't give consent, and well, quite simply whether he will decide he prefers his body whole, to reformulate and reiterate a prior point. In other words, we're asking whether we can force another human being to be circumcised without asking compassionate questions unanswerable by the cold calculus.
I am not now, nor have I ever been a fan of the Jewish conspiracy theory of circumcision promotion. I am firmly in the camp that says gentile Americans sign the permission forms and salivate over the denuded glans without any encouragement whatsoever from anybody. They are to blame for the deaths, complications, and years of human misery over the decision made on behalf of the unwitting neonates of the United States.
Therefore, I am reluctant to tread on the special case of the Holocaust and make this comparison. However, the cold calculus of malecircumcision.org is utterly Nazi in its tone. The Nazis maintained extensive records on their cold efficiency to eliminate a "problem" as they saw it. They saw Jews not as people, but as a public policy problem to be solved.
Likewise, malecircumcision.org sees neonates not as people, but rather as a public policy intervention point to take advantage of. It is again a shifting of decision-making from a powerless demographic who cannot immediately complain (after all, all babies cry) to a machine. And the child who becomes an adult, like a dead Jew who dies along with the witnesses to his murder, will likely suffer in silence rather than complain about what was done to him.
Except they didn't kill 'em all, and they haven't so far whacked 'em all, either. Someone is bearing witness.
In an age of ever widening freedoms for all people in the United States, can this be where we are headed? Is this where we will stay? Can people stand up and proclaim the freedom to marry, the freedom to be protected from discrimination, the freedom to be left alone in his choice of lifestyle and harmless association, but not the freedom to have and enjoy an intact body? I just can't believe that it is. I just can't.
