Against Circumcision

America should ban unnecessary infant genital cutting

A modified form of this piece was originally supposed to be published in March of 2019, but it was ultimately withheld out of concerns of religious and political sensitivity.

Male circumcision generally falls outside the scope of American political discourse. But that changed this last week, when outsider Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang took a position on the matter in an interview with the Daily Beast. Yang argued that he is personally opposed to the practice and that he wants policies that would “inform parents that it is entirely up to them whether their infant gets circumcised, and that there are costs and benefits either way.” 

Interestingly, though Yang opposes the practice he declined to embrace an outright ban of male genital cutting. But he should.

Infant circumcision—in which a doctor surgically removes the foreskin, a sheath over the head of the penis, shortly after birth—violates the natural rights of the male child. It should be illegal.

Americans, generally speaking, already understand that genital mutilation is wrong. This is why it is a crime in 28 states to cut or remove parts of the clitoral hood on young girls. Yet, there remains serious cognitive dissonance on the issue of male circumcision. 

The reason is due to ignorance, the support of the medical community and, most importantly, religious tradition. For instance, Yang later clarified that while he believed circumcision was not good he supports “the freedom of parents to adopt circumcision for any religious or cultural ritual as desired” and that he himself had attended a “brit millah,” the Jewish ceremony celebrating the ritual cutting of a male infant. 

For Yang, religious freedom means that parents can decide whether or not to remove part of their son’s genitals at birth. This is an incorrect understanding of religious liberty in the American tradition. 

There are limits to religious liberty. For instance, it cannot justify human sacrifice. If claims of religious belief trump the law, then the law has no force. The Founders knew this and said as much. George Washington articulated the limitations of religious freedom in his Letter to the Annual Meeting of the Quakers in 1789. There he wrote:

“I assure you very explicitly, that in my opinion the conscientious scruples of all men should be treated with great delicacy and tenderness; and it is my wish and desire, that the laws may always be as extensively accommodated to them, as a due regard to the protection and essential interests of the nation may justify and permit.”

Note that Washington says that the law ought to accommodate the “conscientious scruples” of all men but only as far as a “due regard” to the “essential interests” of the nation permit. Protecting young boys from an irreversible and medically unnecessary amputation in the most intimate parts of their body lies within the essential interests of the government. Circumcision violates the right to be protected from injury. 

No one would argue that parents should have the right to chop off a child’s ear or a finger. Children obviously cannot consent to such procedures and such actions would permanently mutilate the child without reason. Removal of the foreskin is no different.

The foreskin is not just a “flap of skin.” In fact, it is home to some 15,000 nerve receptors, many of which are especially sensitive to fine touch. The foreskin is similar to the eyelid—the inner portion of the organ is a mucous membrane designed to keep the male genitals clean and to keep the sensitive head area protected. The foreskin also plays a role in sexual intercourse, acting as a natural lubricant and protecting both the man and woman from discomfort.

Indeed, the foreskin’s role in the act of intercourse is the reason that Moses Maimonides, the 12^th century Jewish rabbi, wrote in The Guide for the Perplexed that:

“Similarly with regard to circumcision, one of the reasons for it is, in my opinion, the wish to bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ in question, so that this activity be diminished and the organ be in as quiet a state as possible.”

Maimonides continues, writing that “The bodily pain caused to that member is the real purpose of circumcision” and that the point of the procedure is to “weaken the faculty of sexual excitement” and to “diminish” the pleasure of the sexual act. For Maimonides, leaving a man’s genitals intact would cause too much pair bonding within marriage. 

Early circumcision advocates in America such as John Harvey Kellogg were more concerned about masturbation than marriage. Kellogg, in the 1910 edition of his book Plain Facts for Old and Young, writes regarding circumcision that “the operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases.” Kellogg also supported, in certain cases, using silver sutures to sew up the foreskin and the glans in the male in such a way as to prevent arousal totally. In addition, he advocated causing chemical burns on the clitoris in order to prevent “abnormal excitement” and self-stimulation in women.

This brand of ascetic sexual sadism has fallen out of favor (with the exception of the transgender movement) but modern doctors in America continue to encourage male circumcision for supposed health reasons instead of ideological ones. They claim that circumcision is necessary in order to prevent urinary tract infections and to weaken the spread of sexually transmitted disease. Both arguments are fallacious in the vast majority of cases. Basic hygiene prevents dirt accumulating within the foreskin. There are a multitude of methods of preventing STDs that do not require taking a knife to children. The human sexual organs are not defective by nature.  

A government dedicated to protecting its citizens ought to outlaw the practice of non-therapeutic infant circumcision. No one, not even Jews and Muslims, ought to be immune from this prohibition. A law that does not protect citizens equally is unjust. Jewish and Muslim boys have as much right to be protected from mutilation as their fellow citizens.

Religious liberty means a freedom to worship in anyway one chooses. It is not permission to violate the rights of others, even children. 

As a matter of concession to deeply held religious beliefs, the law could allow symbolic circumcisions that are not permanent or irreversible. In other words, the state could allow small cuts, akin to a paper cut, on the genitals of boys and girls whose parents believe such measures are necessary for their religious tradition.

While these allowances are not strictly just, because they are medically unnecessary and non-consensual, they allow the performance of a religiously motivated genital cutting ceremony in a way that is not permanently damaging to the child.

Circumcision is obviously a sensitive issue. Many parents have circumcised their children unthinkingly because an authority figure, usually a doctor, said that it should be done. Inculcating feelings of guilt and shame over irreversible decisions is not the aim of this piece. Instead, we should be oriented towards the future, seeking to change the cultural norms and laws which allow male circumcision.

Reason and logic—not the superstitions of doctors, rabbis, and imams—should be the standard for our laws.