Gert van Dijk and His Not-So-Ethical Arguments against Male Circumcision

“It is often suggested that the current worldwide debate on circumcision is an expression of growing anti-Semitism, anti-Islamic sentiment, or xenophobia. For several reasons I believe this is not the case.”

So writes Gert van Dijk, an ethicist at the Royal Dutch Medical Association, in an article that is a scholar example of xenophobia. The article, titled “His Body, His Choice”, sets out the usual, classic Christian arguments against Jewish and Muslim circumcision. Jewish and Muslim men are basically mutilated, brutally savaged by their evil parents who couldn’t care less about human rights. As always, parallels are made between Judaism, Islam, and child abuse. There is nothing new in the article at all. The anti-circumcision sentiment of medical organisations in predominately Christian countries is used as fact, research showing a link between circumcision and HIV prevention is played down, and the tiny minority of Jews who choose not to circumcise their sons is made into a global trend. For the record, I repeat my arguments on some key issues.

“Insofar as there are medical benefits, such as a possibly reduced risk of HIV infection, circumcision can be postponed until an age at which such a risk is relevant and the man himself can decide about the intervention or opt for alternatives,” van Dijk writes.

The risks are much greater in adult circumcision, and it’s a fact that young men don’t tell their parents or doctors about their sex life. By the time a boy legally becomes an adult male, he will most likely have had some sexual experience already. In the regions where circumcision is recommended for HIV prevention, it saves lives.

“The growing resistance to circumcision stems not only from medical and secular organisations, but comes also from within religious communities themselves. In the US and Israel, more and more Jewish parents are abandoning circumcision in lieu of rituals that do not lead to an infringement of physical integrity.”

The Jews who abandon circumcision are a tiny minority. In fact, the fastest growing Jewish subgroup in Israel is the ultra-Orthodox. They will die before giving up circumcision. So, what do the anti-circumcision activists suggest the government do about them? Send all Orthodox Jews to prison for practising Judaism in their own family—in the name of human rights?

Besides, using members of a minority group to legitimise oppression of that minority is really old school. I don’t know how many times I have met “cured gays” who found the straight light after praying to Jesus at some homophobic camp where they were taught about the evils of homosexuality. Gay sex destroys the body, gives you AIDS; same-sex attraction is unnatural, is a choice, and not a human right at all, etcetera. The anti-gay activists love these gay-turned-straight people and explore them to make life hell for gay people. If have no problem with gay people giving up homosexuality for religious conviction, but their decision is no excuse for anti-gay laws. The same thing goes for Jews and Muslims who give up circumcision. In a free society, they have that right, but they have no right banning those who wish to practise the religion in a traditional way.

“This growing aversion to NTC [non-therapeutic circumcision of minors] is therefore not caused by anti-religious or anti-Semitic feelings, but by an increased emphasis on human rights, combined with a growing awareness that children have the same fundamental human rights as adults. If it is not permissible to forcefully circumcise a grown man, why would it be permissible to do so to a child? The law protects the physical integrity of young girls, should it not do the same for boys? As it is his body, shouldn’t it be his choice?”

Needless to say, this argument is ONLY used when targeting minority religions. If children have the same fundamental human rights as adults, how could anyone allow the forced labour that is school? Could it be because adults always have to make decisions for the child because the child is not mature enough to know what is in her or his best interest? It might turn out that your child will one day hate you for picking a bad school that made his or her life worse than it could have been, but what is the alternative? Parents have to guess what is the best for their child.

Finally, female genital mutilation is about cutting off the girl’s clitoris, reduce her libido, and in the extreme cases, to physically prevent her from having sex by sewing her vagina shut. To compare that to male circumcision is in itself xenophobic. I am myself a circumcised man, and there is no resemblance between my lack of foreskin and the missing body parts of mutilated women.