I don't believe that. I doubt you do, either.
Actually that is what I do believe.
I'm not here debating earrings, either. If someone thought that it was permanent scarring and wanted that to be illegal, then we can talk about it. But that's not what's on the table.
What is I simply state “it think that earrings cause permanent scarring and harms the child and ought be illegal” and offer zero scientific evidence to support my position. Cause if I did that I would be doing exactly what the anti-circumcise people have done.
Let's be frank, there's no health benefit. That's not why it's done, at least. It's done for one reason and one reason only: cultural. That's it.
Yes, let’s be frank. There is limited health benefit. Not much, but it tips the balance slightly in the favor that the child will be better off with it than without it. But not nearly enough benefit to mandate it or call someone a bad parent for choosing not to do it.
But you are right the overwhelming reason for doing it is cultural.
But here is the deal. We as a society do plenty of things for cultural reasons that have limited or zero or even negative health benefit.
Baptism provides no health benefits to a child.
There is significant evidence that lying to children regarding Santa, the Easter Bunny and the tooth fairy in fact results in the child not trusting his/her parents once he/she learns the truth. And learns that lying is acceptable behavior.
There is quite a bit of medical evidence to prove that feeding a baby formula instead of breast milk is not as good for the child.
Yet in general in society we don’t interfere with the cultural decisions of the parents unless what they are doing is an unquestionable and severe harm.
If you don’t think it is a good idea to let your kid get a sugar high each October 31st, then you as a parent can take stops to prevent that. If you feel that allowing that Halloween night is one of the cool traditions of childhood not withstanding negative impact it has on teeth and overall health then you can permit that cultural event as a parent.
But lets be honest, Halloween is a net negative for children’s health. We permit this cultural event.
In general as a society we don’t dictate to parents what they can and can not do culturally with their child unless it rises to a pretty significant level. You are allowed to smoke around your children (not a good idea but permitted). If you cross the line and teach your toddler to smoke…well then that is not permitted.
If I had children I would not lie to them about the tooth fairy, Santa or the Easter Bunny. Okay two of them are pretty irrelevant for me. But with the tooth fairy, I would tell my child the truth about what some parents do and why they do it, but that I prefer to be honest with my child. I would also give them the prevailing “tooth fairy rate for teeth” each time they lost a tooth so they would get the same benefit as their friends and not feel left out. But I would not lie to them. Because lying to your children as cultural aspect is a bad idea.
However, I am not going to try and make it illegal for other parents to engage in this stupid and harmful cultural practice. Because it doesn’t rise to the level of harm to warrant making it illegal.
If you are going make something illegal. It can’t just be that it offers no benefit. Or that It causes minor harm. You need to prove it causes significant harm.
But in the case of circumcision what you have is a cultural practice that goes back 5,000 years that has zero evidence of being harmful and has a small amount of evidence of being actually helpful.
That would be like banning people from bring Xmas trees into their house cause you are worried children might get confused about forest structure.
The only real reason to ban people from bringing trees into their living room is to interfere with the cultural of Christians. The only real reason to ban circumcision is to interfere with the cultural of Jews.
And teaching kids it is okay to eat candy out of their socks cause them as much harm as circumcision --- none.
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