Circumcision is an extreme form of child abuse
David Richards, writing for the Journal of Law and Medicine, reports that, religious reasons aside, "circumcision (in Western societies) was primarily grounded in the anti-masturbation hysteria of the late 1800s when it was feared that a boy with a foreskin which had to be pulled back while cleaning would learn to masturbate. Masturbation at this time was believed to lead to insanity and numerous other illnesses". This continues to provide the unspoken rationale for non-medical circumcision in Canada and the US, where over 90% of males are circumcised.
Indeed the risk associated with non-medical circumcision is unacceptable as, in the words of Davd Richards, the "complication rate may be as high as 55 percent for hospital-performed, routine male circumcision... ".
Ms Prone produces some questionable rationales in support of non-therapeutic circumcision.
If, as she argues, the partners of circumcised males are at lower risk of cervical cancer, how is it that over 50% of sexually active female college students in the US are infected with the human papilloma virus (HPV)? see February 12 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
HPV leads to genital warts and is a major cause of cervical cancer. With the vast majority of male students in the US circumcised, the hygiene argument fails, especially as the rates of other STDs have also gone through the roof.
Furthermore, to use the argument that the increased use of cosmetic surgery for non-medical reasons justifies the provision of male circumcision is beyond belief.
Very few people in this country, Ms Prone's well-heeled friends aside, can afford such procedures.
Following her line of argument, there would be a case for performing female circumcisions using the public purse, should a particular ethnic or religious group consider it an intrinsic part of their culture.
It, like the circumcision of male infants, is an extreme form of child abuse and is rightly outlawed in civilised societies. Infants have a right to bodily integrity they have no choice in regard to parents, culture or religion.
Hence, parents have no right to disfigure their offspring and put their health at risk for non-therapeutic reasons. Personal or religious freedoms do not
convey the right on parents to abuse children yet it is strange that otherwise civilised societies allow adults to take a scalpel to an infant penis, without anaesthetic, as part of a prehistoric ritual, causing untold pain and suffering.
Like so many other barbarous religious rituals (human and animal sacrifice, pogroms, burning of heretics and witches, personal flagellation, etc), such practices should be consigned to the scrap heap of history.
As Ms Prone suggests, it's time to take off the 'rose-coloured glasses' and see non-medical circumcision for what it really is.
Tom Butler,
Courtbrack,
Blarney,
Co Cork.
