If anyone needed another example to my points, today's Washington Post has an article about those wanting MALE circumcision banned, versus those who consider it required.


an excerpt:

"It is a sensitive issue. Pun absolutely intended.

* * *

How intactivists define circumcision: a cruel, traumatic and unnecessary surgery (the American Academy of Pediatrics says the benefits are not sufficient enough to recommend the procedure) that causes enduring sexual and psychological injury to a helpless infant who can't give his consent.

How much of the medical community defines circumcision: a simple, nearly painless operation that removes an obsolete part of the body that can increase a man's susceptibility to infections and sexually transmitted diseases (circumcision reduces the risk of getting HIV by 60 percent, studies show).

How religion defines circumcision: as a covenant with God, as conveyed to Abraham.

It's a lopsided fight, but each side has doctors and lawyers. Each side has data. Each accuses the other of denial. One side is labeled as a bunch of baby-cutting sex criminals. The other is labeled as sex-obsessed, fanatical loonies who are duping the public.

"We don't want to understand this," says Van Lewis, who has protested infant circumcision in Tallahassee since the '70s and helped make Florida one of 16 states that no longer publicly fund circumcision. "We're living in denial as a nation. Of what we've done to ourselves."