Why Circumcision is Archaic — (it’s not just about hygiene)

Why is circumcision archaic? What about the health benefits?

Medicalized circumcision has been around for about 150 years in North America. It was considered “cleaner” and many argued that it could reduce the incidence of diseases. Many still make these claims today. But if circumcision were introduced today, it would be soundly rejected by the medical community as a needless, invasive surgery with extremely dubious health benefits. The practice of circumcision continues these days simply because it’s been around for so long–but are the health benefits enough to keep it going? Is there more than just hygiene that we should consider?

Even if circumcision had health benefits, there are significant downsides:
– You lose a normal part of your anatomy, which is known to be a sensitive erogenous zone. It also facilitates sexual intercourse and manual stimulation, essentially providing lubrication through its mechanical function.
– You expose the child to considerable pain during after after the operation
– You expose the child to risk of infection, injury or even death from the procedure or complications therefrom.
– You interfere with breastfeeding and bonding with the mother by taking him away to do an unnecessary procedure which will result in pain to a sensitive area.

Existing medical ethics state that in the absence of a very strong justification, you should never perform operations on patients who cannot consent. Parental choice on its own is not sufficient, and doctors must consider only the best interest of the patient. If a procedure can be “harmlessly deferred” without significant risk to the patient, then it must wait until the patient (the child) can decide on their own.
More generally, in the absence of valid reason to perform medical interventions, nothing should be done. Hence the oft-quoted adage, “First, do no Harm”. Circumcision is definitely harm, and in order to justify causing physical damage and over-riding the need for patient consent, the expected benefit must be correspondingly very large. At present, medical societies say that the suspected benefits of circumcision do not outweigh the inherent risk of infection or injury from the procedure itself. So, it is needless and unjustifiable harm to a child. It is currently acknowledged to be done purely on parent’s request for cultural reasons, i.e. conformity and cosmetics. The claims of “health benefits” are just smoke and mirrors to try to (minimally) justify a surgery which is very unethical, but nonetheless socially accepted; part of why it’s accepted is the perception of medical endorsement. It is actually just medical complicity.
The hygiene is just a non-issue. If hygiene were a problem, then non-circumcising Europe would be overrun by genital infections in boys. Statistics show that’s not the case. We simply perceive foreskin as “gross”. If you teach a boy to rinse under his foreskin in the shower, he will be golden.

The reason circumcision exists is twofold. Firstly, it was a religious tradition that was never challenged (in the past, governments didn’t interfere much in order to protect children). Secondly, in the mid-1800s, circumcision became “medicalized” and doctors proposed it as a cure for everything. They made the same claims for women, too. The main justification was to prevent boys from masturbating, which was considered a source of disease. The practice continued until today, with the reasons evolving slowly over time. In the last 50 years or so, there have been two new developments that threaten circumcision: the practice of evidence-based medicine, and the modernization of medical ethics. (For example, in the past, sometimes doctors wouldn’t tell you had cancer, if they believed the news would be too traumatic. Nowadays we have replaced paternalism with well enshrined patient rights. Now we have consent forms, the need for proper informed patient consent, etc.) Circumcision is reduced to insignificance in the face of evidence-based medicine. Taking into account modern ethics, this old surgery now is clearly archaic and an inappropriate violation of the rights of the patient (the baby).

Common myths about circumcision

“Circumcision is done for health reasons”

Nowadays it’s known that there’s no real medical benefit to circumcision. This may seem confusing because we read about circumcision’s hygienic benefits in the media and medical literature constantly. But what they never tell you is that the benefits do not outweigh the inherent risks of the procedure. These risks include infection, excess bleeding, penile injury and in extreme cases even complete amputation, necrosis or death. That’s why no medical association in the world recommends it. There’s simply no net benefit to circumcising. This is accepted mainstream belief. Beyond that, intactivists will tell you that even the claims of benefits are cooked up studies by lifelong circumcision advocates; and they’re right. But the debate doesn’t really matter since there’s no statistical benefit either way.

Circumcision continues today because of cultural reasons alone. We’ve been doing it so long that most adults are circumcised now. We have assumed that circumcised is better, so we just keep doing it, and doctors are happy to provide that service for a few hundred dollars–a service that is still covered by medicaid in 38 states and many private insurers. We do it for cultural conformity, because we’re afraid of what might happen if junior has a different penis from many of his friends. The practice survives mostly on fear.

Circumcision has not been believed to have significant health benefits since even the 1940s. It was recognized early on that the benefits that were believed to exist were very small and didn’t really justify the procedure. But since the foreskin was considered a useless appendage, and babies were believed to not feel pain (yes, doctors actually believed this), cutting it off didn’t seem like a big problem in exchange for that minor benefit. Until the 1960s, some hospitals didn’t even present consent forms, they simply whisked away the baby for their circumcision which was considered standard procedure.

 

“Once upon a time, our desert-roaming ancestors circumcised for hygiene reasons, but it is no longer necessary that we have running water.”

This sounds like a compelling anti-circumcision argument, but the problem is that it isn’t even true.

Only a matter of time: when will your descendants stop circumcising?

The practice of circumcision won’t  last forever. In fact, its expected lifetime in the West is looking increasingly shorter as the public learns more and more about it. Circumcision is recognized as non-beneficial to children and is medically unethical, despite being culturally accepted and de facto legal. West has been steadily increasing human rights protection of its citizens over time. This trend will undoubtedly continue. Given the better information parents are getting about circumcision, and the increasing recognition of its inappropriateness, it will one day end as a medicalized, non-religious practice. A conservative orthodox rabbi actually happens to agree with me:

Without a clear medical rationale, non-Jews will stop circumcising their children, and unaffiliated Jews are sure to follow. The Jewish community can no longer rely on doctors to do the mohel’s job, and regardless of the outcome in San Francisco, it will be a lot harder to convince apathetic Jewish parents to perform circumcisions. Why would any parent want to endure the blood, pain and tears of their baby’s circumcision?

–Rabbi Steinmetz

 (This conservative rabbi still supports circumcision, incidentally.) So why, indeed? Circumcision has no medical benefit, people are finally realizing.