Yes, but if you have a child who insists on playing Russian Roulette, would you prefer they do it with an 11 chamber gun or a 5 chamber one?  You will not prevent people from being unsafe.  You will also not magically make condoms available to them for free.  So you might as well go with something that provides a proven benefit.

There are a lot of procedures done on small children that hurt them.  Having kids forces you to make these choices.  My kid cried after the measles shot for a good 20 minutes.  He actually had a fever after the DTP shot.  It scared the heck out of me.  Possible side effects from the DPT shot are significantly more severe than from a circumcision.  He didn't cry during or after the circumcision.  And no, he was not in shock.  I held him in my arms.  So did I have a right to get him vaccinated?  Why?

If you want to talk about making choices for your kids, we all do it every day. Until that child is 6+ at a minimum, the parent will make ALL their choices, from what to wear, when to visit the doctor, to what to eat.  Each of those choices limit them in some way, and some of them can hurt the kid.  But that's parenting for you.  

Thalia

would you not vaccinate your daughter against HPV because you want her to "be more careful" in who she sleeps around with?

I think you have me confused with the Christian Right. My intent is not to put added pressure on my kid to use condoms or to not share needles -- what I'm saying is that, when wheighing whether or not to circumsize my child, a 50% lowered risk of getting HIV isn't going to be high on my list of reasons to do it. Why? Because there are more effective ways to lower his risk. Ways that I am reasonably sure won't harm him.

Now with caps!

You could also chop off their entire Johnson or, heck, shoot every African man dead. Either one would reduce AIDS infections by 100%. I would say that reducing AIDS infection rates is not, by itself, a sufficient rationale for such actions.

That's the worst kind of straw man argument. Infant circumcision has been done on a wide scale in a number of cultures for thousands of years. While it is not without consequences, those consequences must be weighed against the public health benefits of reducing AIDS infections.

It is unconscionable to advocate surgical alteration of infant sex organs for reasons of possible public health benefits.

It is common practice to do things that would be otherwise unconscionable in the name of public health. Quarantining communities to stop the spread of highly infectious diseases is a technique that is widely accepted by the medical establishment, even though it is also accepted that it will lead to more deaths in the quarantined town than would otherwise occur. Infant vaccination is done out of a similar logic - we don't wait until the child is an adult to give him/her the choice to be vaccinated, we just do it because we know the public health benefits far outweigh the consequences.

While infant circumcision isn't a clear-cut good thing, I think that this new evidence suggests that there are some major potential benefits to doing it and that we need to have a rational discussion about the positives and negatives. Just writing it off by calling it "genital mutilation" is a cheap tactic, and one that doesn't add much to the discourse.

The historical practice of infant circumcision is irrelevant.  A lot of people have done a lot of stupid things in the past.  And, in fact, circumcision was rare in America and Europe until it was revived by quacks and neo-Puritans in the latter part of the 19th century.

Vaccinations commonly performed on children (small pox, chicken pox, etc) provide extremely high levels of protection against those diseases and extremely low probability of serious side effects.  In addition, the effect on society as a whole of controlling these highly contagious infections is very beneficial.  We have no other practical means of preventing these diseases.

The argument for infant circumcision is not as strong as the argument for vaccination.  Vaccinations prevent diseases commonly contracted and spread in childhood.  There is no benefit to circumcision until adulthood.  Circumcision is not superior to other means of containing AIDS (namely, the use of condoms).  And, because AIDS is not the type of thing which can cause a public health emergency, society has no compelling interest in forcing preventative measures upon those unwilling or unable to consent.

Your argument can be reduced to this: we must cut this child's foreskin off because in the future he may neglect to use condoms, and this might increase his chances of contracting AIDS from 1-in-200 to 1-in-100.  I happen to think that argument is deficient.

The historical practice of infant circumcision is irrelevant. A lot of people have done a lot of stupid things in the past.

I put that in there merely to point out that it's a relatively safe procedure and we have a pretty good idea of what the consequences are. It's not something that's just come up out of the blue.

Vaccinations prevent diseases commonly contracted and spread in childhood. There is no benefit to circumcision until adulthood. Circumcision is not superior to other means of containing AIDS (namely, the use of condoms).

This is not true - as I noted above, the HPV vaccination is very similar to infant circumcision - do you feel the same way about the HPV vaccination (i.e. that it should only be given to consenting adults)?

And, because AIDS is not the type of thing which can cause a public health emergency, society has no compelling interest in forcing preventative measures upon those unwilling or unable to consent.

Go to South Africa and tell me AIDS isn't a public health emergency. Yes, in the developed world it's not so bad, but in much of Sub-Saharan Africa it is absolutely creating crisis conditions.

Your argument can be reduced to this: we must cut this child's foreskin off because in the future he may neglect to use condoms, and this might increase his chances of contracting AIDS from 1-in-200 to 1-in-100.

It could also be framed like this - we must cut off this child's foreskin because in the future he may sleep with your daughter, and he has AIDS he may infect her with AIDS - and the chance of this happening is much lower if he's been circumcised.* That's why this is a public health issue - infectious diseases aren't just a problem for people that have the disease, they're also a problem for those of us who might get it.

*Sure sure, your daughter won't be so dumb to sleep with a guy without using protection. Everyone thinks that, but when she's drunk and he's hot and damn it just feels better without them, all the common sense in the world usually isn't enough.

This is not true - as I noted above, the HPV vaccination is very similar to infant circumcision - do you feel the same way about the HPV vaccination (i.e. that it should only be given to consenting adults)?

The HPV vaccine is not at all similar to infant circumcision.  For one thing, it can be applied at any time before the woman becomes sexually active.  The HPV vaccine has 100% efficacy against the targeted strains of the virus, and has no known side effects.  To my knowledge, the HPV vaccine is not thought to cause the woman's preputium clitoridis to be removed.

Go to South Africa and tell me AIDS isn't a public health emergency.

Are the cities quarantined?  People dropping dead in the streets?  Piles of rotting corpses?  AIDS is a crisis but not an emergency.

It could also be framed like this - we must cut off this child's foreskin because in the future he may sleep with your daughter, and he has AIDS he may infect her with AIDS - and the chance of this happening is much lower if he's been circumcised.

The issue could be framed like that, but only by a person who misinterprets the results of the study.  The circumcised men were not less likely to infect their partners, they were less likely to be infected by their partners.  Circumcision provides no benefit to the partner.

Inflammatory scaremongering -- "your daughter" -- is not improving your fallacious logic.

The HPV vaccine is not at all similar to infant circumcision. For one thing, it can be applied at any time before the woman becomes sexually active. The HPV vaccine has 100% efficacy against the targeted strains of the virus, and has no known side effects. To my knowledge, the HPV vaccine is not thought to cause the woman's preputium clitoridis to be removed.

You're arguing whether the application is similar, I'm arguing about results. Clearly they are different procedures, but they are done for essentially the same purpose (to prevent a sexually transmitted disease). Circumcision is less effective and has more consequences, but it AIDS is also more serious than HPV.

Are the cities quarantined? People dropping dead in the streets? Piles of rotting corpses? AIDS is a crisis but not an emergency.

You're nitpicking over definitions - crisis versus emergency? Meh

The issue could be framed like that, but only by a person who misinterprets the results of the study. The circumcised men were not less likely to infect their partners, they were less likely to be infected by their partners. Circumcision provides no benefit to the partner. .

If your partner has AIDS by definition you are more likely to get it. Circumcision reduces infection rates, and by logic if you reduce infection rates your partner is less likely to have AIDS and therefore you are less likely to get it. That is the logic I was working from. I realize that there are no direct benefits to women from this, but there are certainly very substantial indirect benefits.

I think your basic argument(no unessential, irreversible medical procedures on non-consenting infants) is valid, but you don't need to stretch the truth quite so much to make your point.

There is no benefit to circumcision until adulthood

No benefit unless you think there's a chance that the kid is going to screw around without a condom before adulthood.  I'd argue that the foolhardy teenage years are when a male might most benefit from some extra HIV resistance.  And good luck trying to convince a 15 year old to undergo any kind of medical procedure in exchange for disease resistance; at that age almost everyone thinks themself semi-immortal.

We must cut this child's foreskin off because in the future he may neglect to use condoms, and this might increase his chances of contracting AIDS from 1-in-200 to 1-in-100

As has already been pointed out, there are plenty of communities in the third world where the child is almost certain to be unable to consistently access condoms and where his chances of contracting AIDS are more like 1-in-10 than 1-in-200.

I suppose that's true in some strange hyperbolic parallel universe, but the control group in this experiment experienced 1-in-80 infection rates (in Kenya) or 1-in-200 (Uganda) per year.

The whole circumcision study is a red herring distracting from the real problem of condom unavailability throughout Africa.  20 billion condoms per year distributed in Africa would halt the AIDS crisis there.  Circumcising every man in Africa would somewhat retard the spread of AIDS, but then again only among heterosexuals.

Do you know what percentage of American adults practice unsafe sex?  Here, where condoms are available, and clinics can be found around the corner?  Statistics say it's less than half of teenage girls.  Your blithe assumption that if free condoms were distributed it would halt the AIDS crisis appears to have no relationship to reality.

Thalia