Why I will not condone your decision to cut your baby:

There is one issue Thak and I have a very hard time taking a "live and let live" approach to when it comes to parenting, and that issue is routine infant circumcision. OK, fine, don't even try to breastfeed, use nasty disposable diapers, vaccinate on schedule, and use non-organic foods, but at least acknowledge your child's genderless birthright to bodily integrity by leaving your son intact. If you tell me about having your son cut, I will absolutely tell you exactly what I think of that, and here is why:

1) It's wrong. No, this isn't just my opinion. Our children's bodies belong to them, not to us. This is not an issue of parental choice. This is an issue of human rights. Every human being has the right to keep every healthy body part they were born with, to do with as they please when they are old enough to decide. By revoking that decision from your son, you are violating his human rights, and have lowered yourself to the level of the people who cut little girls in mud huts in Africa.

2) It's unfair. Girls are protected by law from this, and no, all forms of female genital cutting are more drastic than male genital cutting we know here in the US. There is something called Sunat, which is practiced in Malaysia, which is IDENTICAL, but for females. If I had sunat Erin, I would be in jail right now. If I had circumcised Orren, people would call it parental choice. That is inequitable and unfair. Stop with the anti-boy bias. The law will not protect your son. Who will, if you don't?

3) Your religion does not require it. Yes, even you, Jews! Many Rabbis are now encouraging their followers to give their sons something called a Brit Shalom, which is a welcoming ceremony just as holy as the Bris Milla, but without the cutting. Even if you believe your religion does require this, do you really want to assume that your child will choose that religion for themselves when they are old enough? I do not know what faith my kids will grow up to be, and neither do you. Removing a body part in the name of a faith they did not choose is nonsense at best.

4) There are no benefits. Every single benefit it supposedly had, has been disproven, or called very questionable at best. Foreskin is not a birth defect, nor is it a vestigial structure. It serves a purpose, and it will not cause a lifetime of problems if left. True problems that could potentially someday arise from it are no more common than problems that could arise down the road which necessitate the removal of the fingers someday, yet we don't see any push to remove babies' fingers at birth.

5) It's cruel. Babies are given no anesthesia, strapped down to a board called a circumstraint, and mutilated against their will. Would YOU volunteer for something like that?

6) The long lasting side-effects are severe. It's recently been shown that the brain waves of circumcised boys are abnormal, showing signs of long term stress, even years into their lives, while their intact peers show no such interference. The trauma of this is worse than what your husband survived in Iraq, and now shows the remnants of. Do you want TWO men with latent trauma in your life if you can prevent it for one of them?

7) I'll reiterate it again. It isn't your choice. You are violating your child's human rights if you do this to them, and I refuse to call it anything other than exactly what it is.


Oh, and just to go over all the stupid reasons people usually do this for:

No, he won't be the odd man out if you don't cut him. Most boys are intact these days. He'll be the odd man out if you do cut him. Plus, over 80% of the world's population is intact. Odds are, wherever your son ends up living when he grows up, being intact will be the norm, so the locker room argument is not valid.

Women do not prefer it. You're going to have to trust me on this one. In fact, forget I even said that. Ask 100 European, South American, Asian, and younger Canadian and Australian women what they think. You're going to find that most people don't prefer "less" in their mate.

It's not a big deal if he looks like his father or not. My husband and son ARE alike in that way, and honestly, when I think of the ways they're alike, it doesn't even make the top 25. Right now, they're watching the Vikings play, and yelling for our team together. They love football, especially the Vikings. They have the same smile, the same temper, the same mannerisms. There are so many ways fathers and sons can be alike. Mutilation should not define one.

It isn't hard to take care of. Again, you're going to have to trust me and over 80% of the world on this one. If intact-care were rocket science, our species would have died out eons ago.