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What parts do they cut off of women and older girls in your hospital when they get genital infections?

In other countries doctors treat infections with medication, not surgery.

Many African men think an uncircumcised vulva is ugly. In my opinion there is no ethical difference between an American woman who thinks an uncircumcised penis is ugly and an African man who thinks an uncircumcised vulva is ugly.

Cutting the genitals of children to satisfy the sexual preferences of adults is wrong, whether it is an American boy or an African girl.

Abstinence, monogamy with a faithful partner, and always using a condom outside of a faithful monogamous relationship are the only effective ways to prevent HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases.

It takes more time to keep an elderly uncircumcised woman clean than it does to keep an elderly uncircumcised man clean.

I wonder what parts of a woman's genitals your friend would recommend cutting off so that it is easier to keep elderly women clean?

How much can a person cut a girl's genitals before it should be called genital mutilation? Does genital scarification of a girl qualify as mutilation? Genital scarification is a form of genital cutting that is less damaging than male circumcision.

Parents in Africa who cut their daughter's genitals are also offended by the term "mutilation". For that reason I prefer to use the term genital cutting instead of genital mutilation.

That means a tonsillectomy is "throat mutilation"

Should parents be allowed to remove their child's tonsils for cultural or religious reasons like they are able to remove their son's foreskin for cultural or religious reasons?

In your opinion is there any other normal, healthy part of a child's body, besides a boy's foreskin, that is ethical for a medical doctor to cut off for cultural or religious reasons?

Removing a fingertip decreases the risk of acquiring an ingrown fingernail. Removing toes eliminates the risk of athletes foot or ingrown toenails. The medical benefits of cutting off fingers, toes, or foreskins do not significantly outweigh the risks and harms.

Thomas Wiswell claimed that circumcision reduced the risk of urinary tract infection by a factor of 12. No other researcher has been able to reproduce his results. Good science is reproducible, bad science is not reproducible. Wiswell's claim regarding UTI and circumcision is bad science.

ensure that you will never have penile cancer

Cutting off a girl's labia would ensure that she will never have labial cancer.

or eliminate balamitis and phimosis

There are effective non-invasive methods of treatment for balanitis and phimosis. The British Medical Association says, "to circumcise for therapeutic reasons where medical research has shown other techniques to be at least as effective and less invasive would be unethical and inappropriate."

all of this with essentially zero side effects.

The foreskin is the most sensitive part of a male's penis according to a study recently published in the British Journal of Urology.

The glans of the circumcised penis is less sensitive to fine touch than the glans of the uncircumcised penis. The transitional region from the external to the internal prepuce is the most sensitive region of the uncircumcised penis and more sensitive than the most sensitive region of the circumcised penis. Circumcision ablates the most sensitive parts of the penis.

Circumcision is not a religious requirement for Christian males. The Book of Acts chapter 15 in the New Testament is very clear on that point of Christian doctrine.

Christian parents in the United States who circumcise their sons for so called religious reasons are replacing almost 2,000 years of established Christian doctrine with their own modern ideas.

The foreskin is not a birth defect.

All boys are born with a foreskin unless he has a congenital abnormality. The foreskin is a normal part of the male anatomy.

According to a study recently published in the British Journal of Urology the foreskin is the most sensitive part of a male's penis. Cutting off the most sensitive part of a male's penis is harmful, especially in light of the fact that HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases can be prevented with abstinence, monogamy with a faithful partner, and consistent use of condoms.

It also cuts your chance of getting a carcinoma of the penis down to essentially zip, amongst other things.

Cancer of the vulva is more common than cancer of the penis. If someone proposed cutting off a girl's labia to prevent cancer of the vulva, most people would be outraged. In my opinion there is no ethical difference between using cancer of the vulva as a justification for cutting the genitals of girls and using cancer of the penis as a justification of cutting the genitals of boys.

Clitoridectomy is not the only type of female genital cutting (FGC), just as male circumcision is not the only type of male genital cutting (MGC).

Genital scarification is one of the least damaging forms of FGC. Several years ago doctors at Harborview Hospital in Seattle proposed offering that type of FGC to parents who wanted to do it to their daughters for cultural or religious reasons. Making an incision in a girl's labia or in the hood of her clitoris is less damaging than cutting off a boy's foreskin.

How much can a doctor cut a girl's genitals before it is a violation of her human rights?

No, in a male the prepuce is the foreskin and in a female the prepuce is the hood of the clitoris.

"prepuce (Science: anatomy) A covering fold of skin, often used alone to designate the preputium penis. A fold of skin covering the tip of the clitoris. A fold of skin covering the tip of the penis. The mammalian foreskin."

Many men in Africa feel the same way about uncircumcised women.

Most men in the world who were circumcised as children were circumcised because their parents are Muslims. In Europe boys are only circumcised if the parents are Muslim or Jewish or if the boy has a rare medical problem that can not be cured with less-invasive methods of treatment.

They do it because of culture and tradition. Those are the same reasons why we circumcise boys in this country.

Every year in this country approximately 1.2 million boys have a normal, healthy, functional part of their genitals cut off without a valid medical indication.

That is only half true. Federal law bans the practice of female genital cutting, but not the practice of male genital cutting.

All children, both boys and girls, should be protected from unnecessary genital cutting.

I also believe it is a matter of choice. I believe it should be the choice of the male himself once he is old enough to give his own informed consent about whether or not he wants to have a normal, healthy, functional part of his penis cut off for social or cultural reasons.

How much do you sons know about circumcision and the normal male anatomy? For example do they know the following facts?

• Most of the men in the world (~70%) are not circumcised and never have a medical problem related to their foreskin.
• Most of the men in the world circumcised as children were circumcised because their parents are Muslim.
• The United States is the only country in the world that still circumcises most infant boys for non-religious reasons.
• No professional medical organization in the world recommends that boys should be circumcised.
• The American Academy of Pediatrics first said in 1971 there is no medical indication of infant circumcision.
• A male's foreskin has a very high concentration of specialized nerves that are cut off by circumcision.

The standard of care used for all other pediatric surgery requires the medical benefits of the surgery to significantly outweigh the medical risks and harms or for the surgery to correct a congenital abnormality. Elective non-therapeutic circumcision of boys is the only surgery that violated that standard of care.

Using the same logic used in the article you cited, there are reasons to circumcise girls. If a girl's labia minora is cut off when she is a child, she will never get cancer of the labia and she will never get infections of the labia. However these small potential medical benefits do not significantly outweigh the medical risks and harms of the surgery.

If someone used that line of reasoning to justify female genital cutting of girls, no one would fall for it. Why do we as a society give it credibility when it is used to justify male genital cutting of boys?

It is past time for American doctors to start using the same standard of care for a boy's foreskin that they now use for a girl's labia and for all other parts of a child's body, i.e. surgery is only performed when the medical benefits of the surgery significantly outweigh the medical risks and harms or the surgery corrects a congenital abnormality.

Judge rules against boy’s circumcision

"In a case that has been closely watched by anti-circumcision groups nationwide, a Cook County judge ruled Tuesday that the medical benefits of the procedure are not clear enough to compel a 9-year-old Northbrook boy to be circumcised against his will." - Chicago Tribune, October 24, 2006

It seems odd to me for a doctor to cut off a normal healthy part of a boy's penis (at any age) when there is no medical condition present that requires surgery for treatment. If the surgery is not medically necessary, why should it ever be done to a child?

If it is done at all, it should only be done when the boy is old enough to get a tattoo or to get his penis pierced. In other words it should only be done when the boy is an adult and if he gives his own informed consent for his body to be permanently modified.

What does playing dodge-ball have to do with medically unnecessary genital surgery on a child?

pandoraou812 - Of course it would be. If you chose to get it done, they do it right after the baby is born.

It is also traumatic for a baby to have a very sensitive part of his penis cut off.