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San Francisco is in the news again. Last week, it was the kids' meal toy ban and this week it is about banning circumcision.
The San Francisco Examiner states Lloyd Schofield is proposing a ballot measure to ban circumcision in the city of San Francisco. But to actually get the measure on the November 2011 ballot, Schofield will have to collect 7,168 signatures by April 26, 2011.
However, if the measure passes in November 2011, the measure would change San Francisco's police code to make it a misdemeanor to circumcise, cut or mutilate the foreskin, testicle or penis of another person who has not attained the age of 18. The punishment for those who choose to cut away anyway would be up to a $1,000 fine and up to one year in prison.
Schofield told KCBS-TV news, "It is genital mutilation. It's a man's body and his body doesn't belong to his culture, his government, his religion or even his parents. It's his decision." Also Schofield said, ʺa man should decide whether or not he wants to be circumcised and that the decision should not be made by anyone else.ʺ
According to the New York Times, the circumcision rate for newborn boys in the United States has dropped steadily over the last four years. Based on the largest review of U.S. rates ever completed, the CDC reported only 32 percent of boys underwent circumcision in 2009, down from 56 percent in 2006.
Some supporters of male circumcision say it leads to better hygiene and some say circumcised penises reduce the spread of H.I.V. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not come out for or against the practice. Scientists with the Centers for Disease Control are still studying whether circumcisions are a healthier choice and have promised recommendations to the public.
ʺMost medical groups have not come out with strong opinions regarding pro or con circumcisions, ʺ said CBS 5 medical reporter Dr. Kim Mulvihill. ʺMost are saying leave it up to the families, let them decide what’s right for their son.ʺ
ʺYou shouldn’t be performing cosmetic surgery for other people,ʺ said Schofield. Also, Schofield points out that female circumcision is currently banned but was once covered by Blue Cross insurance in the United States into the 1970s.
ʺTattooing a child is banned as a felony and circumcision is more harmful than a tattoo, ʺ said Schofield, who believes religious traditions should change. ʺPeople can practice whatever religion they want but your religious practice ends with someone else’s body.ʺ
How do you feel about circumcision? Is it genital mutilation? Also, how do you feel about the government telling you if you can or can’t circumcise your son?
Sources:
http://www.parenting.com/new/blogs/show-and-tell/lauren-parentingcom/circumcision-could-be-crime-san-francisco?cid=fb
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/12/health/main7048210.shtml
http://www.sfexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/under-the-dome/Ban-happy-SF-targets-male-circumcision--107073653.html
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2010/11/14/2010-11-14_san_francisco_may_propose_to_ban_circumcision_next_year_measure_would_outlaw_gen.html#ixzz15OiwuJ00
Add a Comment31 Comments
Upon exit of the vagina
November 18, 2010 - 9:52amThis Comment
I fully agree that a baby's individuality and human-ness (if human-ness derives from the ability to exercise a human consciousness) begins at birth. But so do his/her rights!
No one has any "right" to violate those rights and impose THEIR judgment of what his/her body should be (by altering natural, sensate, organic structures such as the foreskin of the penis, or the clitoris). Clearly, surgical interventions such as circumcision or clitoridectomy call for ADULT consent--obviously the responsible decision and consent of the individual (and only that individual) who will undergo such life-altering surgery. And such a momentus decision can only be made by him/her in adulthood.
November 19, 2010 - 8:08amThis Comment
For a child, no one but its parent are in the position to make this kind of decision, you and everybody else has no say in it.. or if you vote for a ban, you might as well let the government decide when to allow a doctor to make a surgery or any other procedure to a minor and when not to, and give up your parenting rights altogether... but you're probably to liberal and stoned to get it...
April 9, 2011 - 11:57pmThis Comment
Amazing what assumptions you have made to cover up your guilt from your beliefs. I'm not a liberal, nor am I a user of mind altering substances. I do, however, believe quite strongly in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the USA. The first recognizes the individual with certain rights given by God. The second grants equal protection under the law. Law criminalizes the cutting of female genitals. In proper application of the law, male circumcision is therefore illegal.
You seem to have confused legitimate surgery with cosmetic body alteration. Circumcision has absolutely nothing to do with health. It is simply a social custom which has gone too far.
In addition, the two documents grant freedom from ownership for every citizen. Therefore, children are not the property of parents.
April 11, 2011 - 1:06pmThis Comment
Anonymous farted, "Maybe you insane California liberals ought to make bottle feeding an infant illegal, blah blah, your state is a shambles, blah, blah, in your pitiful state, blahhhhhh ad nauseum."..
Did you just have a California sized stroke? I don't know what mental gymnastics you'd have to go through to connect that cranial failure to this topic, but it sure sounds like something I'd consider buying tickets for! Oh, what colour crayon would you have chosen if you had to do that on paper?
November 18, 2010 - 12:50amThis Comment
Maybe you insane California liberals ought to make bottle feeding an infant illegal. After all the baby can't decide for itself whether it wants a bottle or a breast and we know breast milk is better. Your state is a shambles and your lawmakers are worried about Happy Meals and Circumcision. Perhaps you should let citizens live their own lives, make their own decisions and take responsibility for those decisions. There needs to be an end to the laws and legislation in your pitiful state where it seems nothing is unregulated.
November 17, 2010 - 10:09pmThis Comment
I'm not a liberal, and I believe MGM is mutilation and should be banned. I further believe babies have a much better chance at good health if they are breast fed. As a conservative, I would end all WIC programs to welfare mothers who have functioning breasts. Calif has already wisely cut off funds for MGM.
Male genital mutilation is not quite the same as Happy Meals. It is a disfigurement which alters the penis is a negative way, eventually leading to severe loss of sexual sensitivity for the victim as he ages.
April 11, 2011 - 12:16pmThis Comment
The insanity (and criminality) is anyone failing to consider a child's own voice in deciding whether or not to amputate a portion of his/her own genitalia. Who presumes to dictate to a defenseless, helpless baby? When did people stop considering the rights of minors?
November 18, 2010 - 7:46amThis Comment
Oh, god, here we go. Let the s***storm begin.. Humankind, all throughout its twisted and dark corridors of history, has contrived all sorts of imaginative yet lame excuses to justify puerile behavior, and mutilation is no exception. It makes me chuckle that this article is even asking the question of "how it makes you feel about government telling you what to". For centuries, governments of civilized cultures have codified laws defining proper and improper behavior to protect its citizenry from those who would cause harm. If the human species could be counted on making sane and logical choices based on reason and common sense most of the time, then a good chunk of the legislation on the books today would probably be nonexistant. Genital mutilation is insane, a perversion, a disgusting and vile act of degradation that is inflicted upon those whom are the least able to defend themselves, our children, and if it takes another piece of legislation to drive this sort of repugnant activity back into the depths of hell from which it came, then I am all for it.
It's a crime. There is no other word for it, and all the bleeding hearts out there (you know who you are) who are so eager to decry such propositions as an affront to their "rights" (religious, parental or otherwise) can piss and moan all you want about it, but in the end protecting a generation from an onslaught of psychosexual perversion and victimization is of far, far more importance than your pathetic ego. After all, we're not talking about a f****g haircut, we're talking about cosmetic surgery by force, an aggravated assault, on the most easily victimized people group in society. Not one medical association in this world recommends it, and there hasn't been one peer reviewed scientific study that has come out in its favor (backward and flawed studies on largely desperate, superstitious, and credulous people groups in third world countries do NOT count).
Thinking all this through, I have to call into question the mindset of someone who would actually rail against legislation that protects our young ones from genital mutilations. Forgive me, but somehow, in the context of circumcision, and after reading hundreds of silly albeit ignorant arguments propping up this abhorrent behavior, it becomes increasingly difficult at times to disconnect the phrases "parental choice" and "religious freedom" from the word "pedophile"... Ugh. We're a sick planet.. -Wes Martin.
November 17, 2010 - 8:48pmThis Comment
As a man, I find it appalling that any mother (any parent, really) would think it ok to remove a part of her son's genitals.
Questions of abortion rights, for instance, are fought for as being issues of personal choice. Circumcising your infant son removes the adult man's choice to have his genitals intact. The parents' decision to do it eliminates that boy's right to complete sexuality.
Just as tattoos are illegal (purely cosmetic) so should circumcision be illegal. Removal of the foreskin is not cosmetic surgery and is a has a permanent effect on the most delicate part of a man's body. Does anyone else think it is bizarre that no one complains about the tattoo law against children but would complain about the circumcision law as a issue of parental choice???
November 17, 2010 - 4:42pmThis Comment