Note the lack of self-examination from this story:
“There’s a lot of anti-circumcision propaganda that has affected doctors. These anti-circumcision people have killed a lot of people with their nonsense.” – Brian Morris, Australian scientist
Unless Morris can back up his statement with evidence, I’m going to suggest that he may be engaging in the same type of propaganda he believes opponents of unnecessary genital cutting are engaging in. More so, since the death of infants as a direct result of circumcision is provable with examples, while his assertion that people are guaranteed to die unless males have routine, non-medically indicated circumcision as an infant forced upon them is inherently unprovable.
A thought occured to me after I participated in a local Race for the Cure.
If decreased HIV risk is cited as a reason for infant circumcision, why don’t we also remove male infants’ breasts?
Breast cancer happens in men (in fact, affliction rates among men are increasing), and when it does the prognosis is generally worse than with women. Breast cancer is not preventable in the way that HIV infection is. Male breasts serve “no” purpose, the same way that a foreskin serves “no” purpose.
So why do I think that advocates of circumcision (particularly the “it cuts down on HIV” crowd) would not be into preemptive male infant mastectomy?
It’s worth noting that breast cancer is more prevalent in men than penile cancer.
Parents and doctors may toss around the idea of circumcision to “prevent” penile cancer and nobody questions it. Yet, they’d be (appropriately) horrified at the thought of infant mastectomies for males. I’d expect a pause on this from circumcision advocates, except they’re generally blind to anything approaching common sense regarding the foreskin and general life risks.