Ritualized child abuse: circumcision

Want to spend an hour cringing and twitching? This is the abridged version of "Cut: Slicing Through the Myths of Circumcision", and you will suffer if you watch it. It is a wasteful, terrible thing to do to a child.

One rabbi interviewed is at least honest about circumcision: "It's painful, it's abusive, it's traumatic, and if anybody does it who isn't in a covenant ought to be put in prison…I do abusive things because I'm in covenant with god." What nonsense. What a wretched excuse for abusing children.

(Warning: lots of shots of babies getting chopped, as well as closeups of adult penises.)

The arguments for circumcision are pathetic and awful.

• "You either believe [in the covenant of circumcision] or else nothing is true". I've heard that before: it's the argument creationists use to defend the absolute literal truth of the book of Genesis, because if that's not true, the story of Jesus falls apart, and therefore the whole of Christianity is false. Yeah, so? Then it's false.

• "The mystery of circumcision is profound". Ignorance should not inspire the kind of awe that motivates one to mutilate another person's body.

• The health benefits. Total bullshit. As one of the speakers in the movie explains, there have been progressive excuses: from it prevents masturbation to it prevents cancer to it prevents AIDS. The benefits all vanish with further studies and are all promoted by pro-circumcision organizations. It doesn't even make sense: let's not pretend people have been hacking at penises for millennia because there was a clinical study. Hey, let's chop off our pinkie toes and then go looking for medical correlations!

• It's tradition. Grandpa and great-grandpa and great-great-grandpa did it, so I'll perpetuate the cycle of abuse to my children. I have to reject that: it reduces a decision to do irreparable damage to a child to repetitive, superstitious, mindless behavior.

There is no reason, other than certain rare and specific medical conditions, for maiming anyone's genitalia. Don't do it to your children.

(Also on FtB)