[dropcap]H[/dropcap]ere is an infant. This newly formed human being is full of promise, and is a locus of joy and pride to parents, siblings, and an extended community. This tiny, miraculous bundle is the object of all of our adoration, even the flintiest of stoics are mesmerized by the ancient wired-in response to love and protect this infant.
Here is a sharpened steel instrument. A doctor will use this tool to partially flay this tiny baby – mutilating a sensory organ. This pseudo-medical procedure has, according to almost every major medical association in the world; no therapeutic value. In fact, it is a procure popularized by a breakfast cereal salesman and medical crackpot. John Kellog described it as a method of preventing sexual pleasure in boys in his 1877 book, “Plain facts for old and young”.
A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision, especially when there is any degree of phimosis. The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anaesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment.
We’re living in a culture which sees this as normal, so I’ll provide a little comparison by telling you what Dr. Kellog said about girls 2 pages later in the same book he extolled the virtues of boy-mutilation.
“In females, the author has found the application of pure carbolic acid to the clitoris an excellent means of allaying the abnormal excitement.”
In the modern context – promoters arguing for the continuation of infant mutilation claim it reduces the transmission incidence of aids.
The studies from which this claim are drawn are widely disputed, based on questionable methodology, but for the moment, lets assume transmission rates of communicable disease can are actually reduced by some percent in circumcised populations. Condoms are more effective, and don’t require cutting off part of a human’s body.
This argument is the equivalent of cutting out your eyeballs to prevent eye injury rather than wearing safety glasses. The claim of prevention of infection is asinine, but it continues to distract from a much more realistic reason for continuing the practice.
Women’s cosmetic make-up products, and some medical products utilize foreskin tissue harvested from circumcised infants. This provides a profit motive for advocacy research from “medical” companies profiting by the ongoing mutilation of baby boys.
One example of this is the company called Advanced Tissue Science (A.T.S.)[1]. This corporation is based in La Jolla, CA. They are the makers of a product sold under the brand name Dermagraft-TC, which is an artificial skin created from harvested foreskins from infant circumcision.
A.T.S. is also the makers of NouriCel, another product made from harvested foreskins, and one of the main ingredients of SkinMedica’s ( a cosmetics company ) TNS Recovery Complex product.
Infant mutilation is driven by women who want a better wrinkle-cream[2]. SkinMedica isn’t the only company selling beauty products made from mutilated children. Its merely a famous example, publicly endorsed by celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters who bragged about the use of mutilated infant’s body parts before this turned out to be a bad public-relations move for each of them. Oprah’s web-site has subsequently removed the bragging claims of skin rejuvenation through harvested foreskin products. She has not yet aired a show or written a word about the ethicacy of the use of infant tissue in women’s beauty products.
The unnecessary mutilation of infant boys has another cost besides the the fact that circumcised men are denied a major sensory organ. The procedure is fatal to about 117 infants in the US every year[3]. Although the practice of sexually mutilating male infants is increasingly criticized, the procedure continues to be trivialized as a minor, harmless procedure in mainstream media. It would be impolite to tell women, the demographic controlling 65% of disposable income that their beauty products come at the cost of the sexual mutilation, and in some cases – the killing of infants.
Not yet, at least. In light of the recent public celebration by woman in the mommy-blogging community of adult male sexual mutilation such as the Catherine Becker case – a women’s make-up product openly flaunting damage to male infants might even outsell competing products which don’t publicize the source of harvested human flesh.
Then there’s the religious apologists.
In July of 2011, while California debated a ban on infant circumcision, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, leith Anderson said[4]:
“While evangelical denominations traditionally neither require nor forbid circumcision, we join Jews and Muslims in opposing this ban and standing together for religious freedom […] Jews, Muslims, and Christians all trace our spiritual heritage back to Abraham. Biblical circumcision begins with Abraham. No American government should restrict this historic tradition. Essential religious liberties are at stake”.
Sexual mutilating an infant is, according to the the National Association of Evangelicals, an essential religious liberty. The right of a child to freedom from harm is apparently not.
Between the profits of corporations, the frivolous self interest of female consumers, and the fairy tails of stone age desert dwelling goat-herders, male children will likely continue to be mutilated and killed.
These reasons are all worthless.
An ethical human being does not abide the dismemberment of children.
Meanwhile, enjoy looking years younger, and don’t trouble your pretty head about the price payed.
[1] http://www.foreskin-restoration.net/forum/showthread.php?t=8415
[2] http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/01/30/Foreskin/
[3] http://www.circumstitions.com/death.html
[4] http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4080741,00.html
