German court rules religious circumcision on boys an assault

[CliveStaples]

I didn't say that it should. The standard should be that the individual should consent when body parts are being cut off. Unless, of course, there is a valid medical reason.

What is a valid medical reason?

Absolutely! But what "choice" does an adolescent have? The parents can certainly tell an adolescent that he's having this done and that's all there is to it. Also, parents can certainly exert considerable pressure on an adolescent. The only way someone can truly make their own choice and consent to something like this is if they are at least 18.

Parents can do lots of things to their kids without the child's consent. Should spanking be a crime? Grounding?

What precisely is the distinction you're drawing here?

Generally true. So why not wait until the kid is 18 and can make that choice for himself?

That wasn't my point. All I said is that your argument isn't as strong against circumcision for older patients.

Crappy argument. A circumcision is very rarely a necessary procedure.

I never claimed otherwise.

Why perform an unnecessary procedure when there is a real risk that a vital part of someone's body can be damaged?

Because the procedure is thought to have benefits that justify the cost.

What if there was a religious ritual where some sort of substance was poured into your eyes. And what if this substance was usually harmless, but there was a 1 in 10,000 chance that it could make you go blind? Would you take that chance? I wouldn't.

What you personally wouldn't choose to do is irrelevant.

Another crappy argument. Plastic surgery is done with a person's informed consent! And we don't do facelifts or tummy tucks on kids.

Piercing ears?

Hardly. Adults can have all the elective medical procedures they want. I have no problem with that at all. But when you want to take sharp objects to the privates of children....

Right, and fixing cleft lips could be described as "taking sharp objects to the mouths of innocent children". Your cheap emotional bullshit is irrelevant; we're talking about principles. Don't turn this into emotional blackmail.

Your reasoning seems to be, "If an adolescent doesn't have a choice in the matter, the medical procedure shouldn't be performed." But it seems that there are counterexamples to this principle: a young child who is knocked unconscious by some physical trauma (say, being hit by a car) might require medical attention. Should surgery not be performed because the adolescent doesn't have a choice in the matter?

More crappy arguments. Of course, if a medical procedure is NECESSARY the parents have a right to act in the child's best interests. Where is the child's "best interests" when it comes to circumcision?

...? Are you saying that my counterexamples don't actually disprove the principle I gave? Because that's all they had to do in order to be a 'good argument'. Since you think what I wrote was a "crappy argument", obviously I must have failed to disprove the principle.

Can you go into more detail? You brought up medical necessity and "best interests", but didn't explain why the counterexamples don't work to disprove the principle.

And that's not what I've argued.

Well, you weren't very articulate, were you? You didn't really give the principle that you were basing your conclusion on. So I had to guess; the first principle I gave was an extreme version, albeit one that was technically consistent with the conclusion you gave.

By going to the extreme, I thought I could find a place of agreement: that the principle I gave was wrong. Then we could slowly back the principle up until we located the source of our real disagreement.

Sounds like a pretty good argument against circumcising infants and children.

Thank you. Read up a bit on presenting arguments and maybe you can do things like provide the warrant and reasoning for a conclusion.