In my personal view, I don't really care about the legal aspect of it. I believe parents should decide what is and isn't the best for their child. If they choose to get them vaccinated, breast or bottle feed, home or publicly educate, etc. If it doesn't appear that circumcision has any benefits, then that's something they should consider. But it's still their choice and in my mind, their right to choose what they feel will be best for their child.

As I've stated before, all surgery carries a certain amount of risk and surgery on infants is riskier still. Seems to me the burden of proof is really on the people like yourself who are advocating an apparently unnecessary surgical procedure to demonstrate why they feel that it is worth the risk.

Not sure what this non sequitur has to do with anything.

How far do you take that though? If parents wanted to have their children's pinky toes surgically removed, would you support their right to do so?

Complications for circumcision are usually very minimal. Its clear its becoming an outdated practice but generations of families aren't gonna disregard their past history due to some minor complications.

It's an interesting ethical question, to be sure of. I'm not sure I have an answer. I don't know what it's like to be a parent, for one thing.

Maybe if they had a second pair, and it was done for aesthetic/functional purposes, however minor they'd be?

I'm just trying to make it a more fair comparison.

I think you may have missed what I was getting at with that question. The point wasn't "to make a fair comparison", it was to question where the line is between what is acceptable and what isn't when it comes to parents having surgical procedures done on their children.

I think it's a pretty fair comparison. Just imagine a religion claiming God says we should cut off our pinkies and so people start doing it to their kids. After some time, people would start to say feet look better that way and are easier to keep clean and smell better because you don't collect filth between the pinky and it's neighbouring toe. You might hear some ridiculous claim that it reduces the risk of some trivial diseases, like pinky cancer or corns.

I think I'd rather lose a pinky than my hood.

Why are people so passionate about this topic? Is it really that big of a difference either way? I doubt it.

Why not? It's something people don't agree on that affects the lives of millions, including participants in this discussion. You can discuss it on several levels, for example on religion, ethics, medical consequences or culture.

As for how trivial it is, that depends. Perhaps most think it's trivial, but there is the occasional complication and clearly there are people who feel that circumcision has drastically reduced their sexual function.

Norwegians generally don't circumcise, but I still feel it's a very interesting subject and something that people should discuss, think and read about before they decide whether or not to have the procedure done on their own children.