Repost: Equal Protection Clause.

Originally posted April 14, 2004:

Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1:

No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.amendmentxiv.html

I won’t touch on how the PATRIOT Act violates this.

As far as I know, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is illegal in this country. Right? Right. Part of that makes it illegal to remove the female prepuce (clitoral hood). We’ve all heard about that Georgia law that wanted to make female genital piercings illegal, lawmakers construing it as FGM. Of course, they wouldn’t even understand why anybody would want to do such a thing. If it weren’t for the jews, we’d be saying the same thing about circumcision.

Yeah, that’s my point. By law, if female circumcision (excising of the clitoral hood/labia), then male circumcision should be illegal. “…nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”. I understand “jurisdiction” to mean where the law is applicable. As in, laws in New Jersey don’t apply to people outside of New Jersey. I understand “equal” to mean that, hey, you can’t make exceptions to the law because of race/religion/gender/sexual orientation.

I do not think it’s necessary to outlaw circumcision. All I’ve ever said is that circumcision is a choice, a choice not to be made by parents but by the boy the foreskin belongs to. The same “hygiene” reasons Americans use for circumcision are the same ones used in Africa for FGM. Are we civilized enough to have confidence that we can teach our children to clean themselves?

So-called medical reasons are insufficient. Newsflash: circumcision does not prevent all penile infections. Just ask the parents of those who had their son circumcised. And, what do you know, there’s an infection on the glans anyway. As I’ve said many times, it’s illogical to go Bush Doctrine on “unnecessary” body parts. Tonsils have a purpose (I was told they attract the attention of diseases. Er. I can’t articulate it.), appendices have a purpose (white blood cells, I believe). Among other things, the foreskin acts as a masturbator. Like other mammals, it keeps the moist glans retracted until it becomes aroused.

It’s irrational to chop off body parts before anything is even remotely wrong. Just because you have a risk of breast cancer doesn’t mean you should hack off your breasts. Penile cancer isn’t even that common. If you want to use the Bush Doctrine argument, we should be removing prostates, not foreskins.

Phimosis (inability to retract) is not a valid reason to circumcise, and ESPECIALLY not at a young age. Foreskins become retractable at a variable age. Some pretty young. Others never retract fully, but that doesn’t stop them from enjoying their sexuality.

There’s another concept which I’ve run across recently. When boys are born, penises look pretty much the same. I’m talking size-wise. You can’t predict just how large or small the penis will be. As such, you can’t know how much skin to hack off. Plenty of boys with “successful” circumcisions end up with too tight of skin. If your boyfriend’s scrotum rides up too much when he gets erect, blame it on circumcision.

Now I’m just babbling. My point is that, under law, since female circumcision is illegal, male circumcision should also be illegal. I already qualified that I don’t think this is necessary, and that I just want to see routine infantile circumcision outlawed. If you want to take a knife to your genitals, do it on your own time, just don’t do it to your children.

It makes me wonder why nobody’s bothered trying this in court. Or, maybe somebody has and I don’t know about it. Fact remains, baby girls have special rights over baby boys; that’s sexist and if I understand the fourteenth amendment correctly, unconstitutional. The female prepuce is protected under the law. The male prepuce is not. The male prepuce does not have equal protection under the law.

I’m fascinated by the logic that circumcision helps prevent AIDS. Or rather, that because of this we should hack off foreskins. Denying this “benefit” of circumcision is unnecessary. Circumcision can’t protect people from their own stupidity. It’s not a cure. It just reduces risk. Moreover, most of Europe is intact, and there’s hardly any HIV/AIDS there. Your brain is the best protection you have.

Related to this is the risk of cancer. So the logic there is that we should Bush Doctrine body parts that could become diseased in the future. (And the similar logic that we should hack off all extraenous body parts.) To the first, I ask whether infants with a chance of breast cancer later in life should have masectomies. To the second, should we be hacking off appendices and tonsels at birth?

For the most part, I’m either preaching to a choir, or there’s a lot of people just bobbing their heads. I think it’s been a while since I brought up the topic in my diary. If you agree with me, don’t keep quite, educate others. Even I have to pipe up now and then. If you disagree, educate yourself. And if you’re just bobbing your head, there’s tons of resources out there. Come to terms with it in your own time.

http://www.intact.ca/vidphil.htm

There’s nothing I can say I haven’t said or thought before.