Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal titled, “Germany’s Circumcision Police”. It starts off well.
There was a head-spinning moment in Germany last week: News emerged that a rabbi had been criminally charged for performing his religious duties. Rabbi David Goldberg of northern Bavaria, who shepherds a 400-member community, is the first person to run afoul of a ruling by a Cologne judge earlier this year that criminalized circumcision, a basic religious rite.
There is some precedent outside of Germany for such a ruling. …
Even though we disagree on policy, agreeing on basic facts is always good. But his essay slowly falls off the path.
… In the United States, a San Francisco ballot initiative tried last year to make circumcision an offense punishable by a $1,000 fine and up to a year in prison; it failed to get enough votes. …
That’s not an accurate summary of what happened last year. A court ruled that the local ballot initiative conflicted with an existing state law and struck it from the ballot. It had nothing to do with getting enough votes.
… But the circumcision ban deserves universal scorn.
…Does the German government really want to get into a public battle over whether they are better guardians of the health and welfare of Jewish (and Muslim) children than their parents?
As long as parents continue to circumcise their healthy sons, I hope so. Obvious physical harm for subjective non-therapeutic benefits is unacceptable without the individual’s consent. Protecting the rights of all citizens is a legitimate role of the state.
The Los Angeles Times recently cited a study predicting that as the number of circumcisions goes down in the U.S., the cost of health care will steadily climb. Eryn Brown reported that “If circumcision rates were to fall to 10% . . . lifetime health costs for all the babies born in a year would go up by $505 million. That works out to $313 in added costs for every circumcision that doesn’t happen.”
I’m not impressed by Rabbit Boteach endorsing the idea that a child’s normal body – and by extension, his rights – has a price beyond which we’ll justify non-therapeutic intervention to remove parts of it. But, more importantly, the key in that is not $313. It’s predicting. Aaron Tobian and his co-authors used a data model to make a guess. There are many factors involved. They are not constant. Cost, availability, and need could be quite different in two decades. For the potential benefits against sexually transmitted infections, circumcision can be chosen later. That would match the ethics of the studies that used adult volunteers. This study seeks to “prove” that a specific, non-urgent solution should be applied now, regardless of ethics.
Why? Because circumcision has been proven to be the second most effective means—after a condom—for stopping the transmission of HIV-AIDS, with the British Medical Journal reporting that circumcised men are eight times less likely to contract the infection.
He gets credit for mentioning condoms, which puts him ahead of the AAP. Still, condoms provide greater protection than circumcision, and remain necessary after circumcision. So, cost-wise, it’s condoms or condoms and circumcision. The former is cheaper and ethical. Infant circumcision is not ethical, including when potential benefits against STDs are cited.
While the Germans decry the barbarity of circumcision for men, they also overlook the benefit to women who are the men’s partners. Male circumcision reduces the risk of cervical cancer—caused by the human papillomavirus, which thrives under and on the foreskin—by at least 20%, according to an April 2002 article in the British Medical Journal.
They overlook the potential benefit to women? Do they? They can agree that (voluntary, adult) circumcision may confer reduced risk to female partners while also finding it unacceptable to impose circumcision on infant males (i.e. not “men”). Rabbi Boteach ignores the ethical foundation for the court’s ruling.
While some attempt to equate male circumcision with female clitoridectomy, the comparison is absurd. Female circumcision involves removing a woman’s ability to have pleasure during sexual relations. …
Not necessarily. Yet, in spite of that, it remains unethical. At some point, the human rights principle(s) involved must factor. Equal protection is a human rights principle.
… It is a barbarous act of mutilation that has no corollary to its male counterpart. …
This is also not true. Within what he wrote, it is, because he limited himself to clitoridectomy. The scope of illegal female genital cutting/mutilation is much broader than that, including any cutting that is anatomically analogous to (or less harmful than) male circumcision. That’s relevant.
… Judaism has always celebrated the sexual bond between husband and wife. Attempts to malign circumcision as a method of denying a man’s sexual pleasure are ignorant. …
Male circumcision controls male sexuality, with a long history as an attempt to limit sexual pleasure. It is still used to reduce pleasure for males.
… Judaism insists that sex be accompanied by exhilaration and enjoyment as a bonding experience that leads to sustained emotional connection.
If we ignore explicit statements in favor of circumcision as a way to diminish male sexual pleasure, Rabbi Boteach’s claim here is not mutually exclusive from reduced sexual pleasure. Intent does not guarantee outcome.
We Jews must be doing something right in the bedroom given the fact that, alone among the ancient peoples of the world, we are still here, despite countless attempts to make us a historical footnote.
This is evidence that male circumcision does not eliminate male reproductive ability. No one has claimed it does. His statement is a non-sequitor. The ability to reproduce is not proof that circumcision is acceptable or that it does not affect sexual pleasure or inflict harm.
Related: From the Cut Podcast, a debate between Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and Cut director Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon.