Should female circumcision be legal in the US?

[mjkidd]

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sure, if adult females or adult males want to mutilate their genitals, of course they should be allowed to.

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So you think that parent's shouldn't be able to have their children circumcised? I'm not arguing with you, I'm just interested in your viewpoint.

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I don't think they should be able to, but I don't understand how people take my stance on this but are then pro-choice.

FWIW, I don't think male circumcision is a big deal and my view that parents shouldn't be able to take frivolous actions like that is mostly principle based.

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This is my viewpoint (I don't think parents should be allowed to circumcise their children, but I support abortion rights). In fact, I think that infanticide should be acceptable, although there is little to no call for it with today's medical technology. I think that parents should be able to decide whether or not they want to raise their child; if they choose not to raise the child, they can abort the fetus. If they choose to raise the child, then they have no right to make irreparable decisions about that child's body.

The crux of my view is that I don't regard a newborn child or fetus as a person -- it can't talk, communicate, fend for itself, etc. That infant or fetus has no rights, unless its parents choose to give it rights by taking on the obligation to care for it. Once the parents make that decision, then the child or fetus has all the rights of a person, and no one -- not even the parents that gave him those rights -- can make irreparable decisions like circumcision for him.

For what it's worth, I don't think that male circumcision is a trivial matter. I think my foreskin is worth well over 50k to me.