This checks out, well at least according to WebMD.
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You are not. You’re being debated in good faith by individuals who disagree with you. When you deny their individual agency by implying that they’re towing a “company line”, you lose credibility despite having reasonable points and counterpoints to offer.
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There’s an important bit of nuance to the CDC and WHO studies in that these are not recommendations for infant circumcision; so it’s an informed and personal choice one makes for themselves, rather than one being made for them for the reasons of religion or conformity.
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While I wasn’t present, pretty much the same tableau took place between a member of my family and her daughter, though it was a boy. Like you, the daughter and her partner stood their ground. I’m proud of her for that.
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I certainly wish I’d had a baby-sized can of pepper spray in that operating room.
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Slight tangent, but Jason Alexander - the actor who played George Costanza and quite unlike his character on the show seems to be a mensch - said in an interview that that was the one episode he objected over to Larry David, and David actually rewrote it to be less problematic, so what we saw wasn’t the worst version. It was the one episode he thought was antisemetic, not because of the bris, but because of the stereotype of the mohel.
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Good choice, but I don’t recall circumcision being offered pre-natally. Once the baby is out of your body, it’s the baby’s body, and it should be their choice, which they can make once they are able to consent. non-consensual genital mutilation is by no means one of those “it’s none of my business” things, as with other non-consensual abuses.
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It’s definitely a touchy subject (which is why I’m staying out of this topic except for a few easy jokes). [ETA: the puns just come naturally with this subject…and again!]
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It’s hardly comparable. Gardasil does not involve the permanent and irreversible removal of important erogenous tissue.
To an (ex)European, circumcision appears to be one of those strange North American cultural blindspots.
If the debate was whether I have the right to have a doctor remove the labia of my infant daughter because it’s cleaner that way and so she will look like her mother in the shower (which seems to be the primary cultural justification), would there be any debate at all?
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Pepper spray is illegal where I live but hardware stores sell pressure packs of WD40, which works pretty well when spayed at the eyes, or so I am told.
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And then there are odd outliers like me.
I was circumcised as an adult, for medical reasons, after almost a decade of active adult sex, so I actually have some grounds for comparison.
But I have learned, over the years, that the very last thing anyone in one of these “debates” really wants is an actual informed opinion, especially if it disagrees with their own cherished beliefs.
(And woe betide anyone who would dare to suggest to a surgically-altered gentleman that his genitalia aren’t all that they might otherwise be. The amount of rage and bluster that can generate is really quite something to behold.)
Comparisons aside, I’m still kind of croggled that, “Is it okay to surgically alter an infant’s (or for that matter, anyone’s) genitals without their consent?” is still a question.
Of course it isn’t okay. Regardless of whether you believe that “it makes no difference” or that it reduces STD transmission or that it decreases masturbation or WHATEVER, it is not your decision to make.
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Roses are red.
Holy fucking false equivalency, Batman!
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As someone who’s had the “before and after” experience, yeah, that sensitivity was one of my biggest pre-surgical concerns.
And, yes, that sensitivity does go away over time.
That’s right, folks, it reduces the tactile sensitivity of the glans penis.
(Someone will undoubtedly be along to inform me that that’s not significant – or maybe even an advantage – but since my opinions are obviously biased by actual facts, I am obviously not an objective source. 
)
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I assume the wink signals a joke/sarcasm. But just in case not - MY culture does it - for “medical” reasons and shallow reasons. They don’t have any religious reason for it. IMO, it’s unnecessary mutilation… or elective surgery, if you prefer. If you disagree, then fine.
Hey, thanks, man!
Well, that escalated quickly.
We know that it MAY effect STD delivery for some STDs. Of course there are other ways to mitigate your risk. But maybe your point has more merit in Uganda where the study took place that not only has a much higher STD and HIV rate, but has lower sex education and access to safe sex practices (and some cultural resistance to them.) But even that paper said while it may reduce rates, it certainly wasn’t a means of consistent prevention.
As for your tangent at the end, IIRC there are some cultures who do (did) circumcisions as a rite of manhood.
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Exactly, some of us might have more skin in the game than others. 
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I must:
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There are, notably the Xhosa of southern Africa.
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thank goodness you can’t circumcise with guns!
Circumcision doesn’t happen in nature and aren’t medically necessitated, whereas mommas in the wild will bite off umbilical cords. Umbilical cords will go gangrenous and falls off by themselves as intended by nature, hopefully the same isn’t true for a penis or vagina, one is intended by our biology the other is not. Not even remotely equivalent.
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