Routine circumcision of male babies is generally regarded as usually medically unnecessary. Parents may have their child circumcised for cosmetic reasons, ie to look like the father. Or for religious reasons. Or for other personal reasons. But why should these personal choices be funded by the taxpayers?

Various jurisdictions around the world have ceased funding medically unnecessary male circumcisions. This fair and sensible policy is well overdue in Australia.

For an overview, have a look at:

http://www.norm-uk.org/

Better still, why have Medicare at all? Why should the fit have to pay the medical bills of the unhealthy? After all many of the unhealthy are so because they choose to lead an unhealthy lifestyle. We had a perfectly good health system before Hawke/Blewitt introduced this Medicare rort.

You are kidding arent you?

We certainly did NOT have a "perfectly good" system before Hawke introduced medicare.

Because my family couldn't aford to send me to specialists my choldhood astma wasn't correctly diagnosed untill I was 13. If caught earlier it may well have been more treatable. As it is still bothers me to this day.

On the issue of cosmetic surgery I could also say the same things about post cancer plastic surgery. And I don't just mean breast re construction either.

Well, I admit perfectly good is stretching the truth, but Medicare really irks me: I resent being forced by law to shell out substantial sums of money for the Medicare levy, in addition to being "forced" into private health insurance. I would prefer to opt out of the system and save my own health insurance.

Back to the topic: this is a very old debate and I thought it was a forgone conclusion that circumcision reduces disease risk? Sure, if every man washed his foreskin regularly and thoroughly there would be no need to circumcise, but that won't happen.

This is no different from female genital mutilation of young girls. I don't see how it will be changed due without some political leadership calling it for what it is.

"Sure, if every man washed his foreskin regularly and thoroughly there would be no need to circumcise, but that won't happen."

Well Robg, most Australians have access to a shower and could reasonably be expected to use it as necessary. Those who can't be bothered to take the quick and easy step of washing behind the foreskin are surely the unhealthy, unhygienic, unthinking minority. Maybe they're also the ones who don't wash their hands before eating and contaminate not only their own food but that of others as well at picnics, bar-b-cues, restaurant buffets etc. Maybe they use public swimming pools and don't bother to shower thoroughly first.

Most of us manage to shave, shampoo our hair and brush our teeth regularly, three things which take far more time and effort than simply cleaning behind the foreskin.

But regardless of this, the point I was making is why should the taxpayers be subsidising what is usually an unnecessary procedure?

The tax payer pays for the roads we all drive on. The tax payer pays for public facilities that we all use. Have a look around you and have a good long hard think about all of those public facilities and services we each (rich and poor) use daily, which we take for granted, thanks to the tax payer. A civilised society looks after its ill because even if the public hospitals only benefit you in terms of the research knowledge they generate about illness and health, we will all one day find ourselves benefiting from public health services.

Furthermore, I do not perceive male circumcision as a cosmetic procedure!

I saw a comment that the new cervix anti cancer innoculation should be
given to uncircumsized boys. This because that is the source of the virus.

Has anyone else heard that ?

Why is non-medical circumcision even legal - it is unauthorized, unnecessary surgery, without the consent of the patient. If he wants someone to cut the the protective skin away from around the end of his penis he can get someone to do that when he is old enough.

It is an epitomizing sign of the times that the government pays for women to go to Africa to protest against female circumcision in a foreign country while all around this country little boys are getting the ends of their dicks cut off for no good reason - except to say, 'if this is what we are prepared to do to you when you havent done anything wrong, imagine what we are prepared to do to you if you cross us'

Some people seem to get rather het up about this.
I suspect the Jews woke up to this virus problem some thousands of years ago
and practised male circumcision to protect the women from the virus and cancer.
They either did not have an explanation or forgot why they do it.
It's like their practice of not eating pork. The arabs also do not eat pork.
Their reason for not eating pork was quite valid as they could not control the parasites.
However the Chinese worked out what the animal husbandry solution was
and they then could eat pork.
The Jews and the Arabs as usual were slow on the uptake and then let
religious dogma overide their original purpose.

what is the ladies' preference on that subject :-)

"Furthermore, I do not perceive male circumcision as a cosmetic procedure!"
Well, it is, whether you consider it or not. It is mutilation of a child who has no say in what is done to them and it will affect sexual response (http://www.infocirc.org/winn.htm). I don't get why religious people do it. Wouldn't they be against it... you know since "we are made in God's image".

If you check both your history and your medical procedures you will find that it's more than cosmetic or relegious.

Circumcision evolved among ALL desert dwellers from the bushmen of the Kalahari, to the Australian aborigines, to the Arabs. And then became part of thier various relegious rites.

It evolved because good hygiene, which is water dependent, was not always available, among these tribes.

This is something which does not normaly happen in modern society.

HOwever the military still has some good horror stories, among soliders, who have been deployed to desert areas.

Rex, you're only looking at this from a "fully funtioning" point of view. As a nurse, I see many males with foreskin intact, both those in their twilight years who are unable to care for themselves, as well as those of all ages who don't have the mental capacity to comprehend hygiene and in relation to Sparticusss's post, I for one could tell you some horror stories too! If you value your nurses at all, please leave male circumcision on Medicare alone and vote "1" for curcumcision. For those of you who are older and considering having the procedure done, just remember this....it only hurts until the pain goes away :-)

sparticusss, “HOwever the military still has some good horror stories, among soliders, who have been deployed to desert areas.”

There are also heaps of ‘horror stories’ about circumcision-gone-wrong. If it is ever screened again there was a doco, whose name I have forgotten, about a boy whose circumcision was botched so they amputated his penis and testicles and tried to raise him as a girl – horror story indeed.

My son had a trapped, rancidified sebum problem with his penis – the typical ‘hygiene’ problem of uncircumcised penises – our midwife showed us how to simply ease the prepuce away from the glans, to which it is normally adhered, and so make it easy to keep clean. This is a process much less invasive, dangerous and painful than conventional circumcision but equally effective. To maintain that it is necessary to amputate the foreskin to allow penises to be kept properly clean is as justifiable as maintaining that it is necessary to amputate vaginal labia to allow vaginas to be kept properly clean.

From this paper:
http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:FE8K_qjxoHQJ:www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org/essay_contest/finalists/FIRSTPLACE_GERSHUNl.doc+sebum+penis+%22male+circumcision%22&hl=en&gl=au&ct=clnk&cd=5
“Routinely performed by untrained and unsupervised medical interns, male circumcision involves removing the foreskin (prepuce) from the head of the penis (glans penis). What circumcision proponents may consider a “useless piece of skin” is interestingly as much as 80 percent of the skin on the penis. Far from useless, the foreskin is healthy, highly sensitive tissue, which protects the glans and provides it with optimal warmth, pH balance, and sebum (moisturizing oil). Amputating the foreskin also destroys three feet of veins, arteries and capillaries, 240 feet of nerves, and more than 20,000 nerve endings.
The procedure itself takes 10 to 12 minutes and is performed on the first or second day after birth. Strapped to a tray or board with his arms and legs restrained, the infant’s penis and surrounding area are sterilized with antiseptic. General anesthetic is never used because of the respiratory risk it poses. Local anesthetic is occasionally used in topical or injected form, but is surprisingly uncommon.

I am not a health professional, Wildcat, but I like to have informed opinions on subjects which I find interesting. Two relevant websites:

http://www.norm-uk.org/
Already posted once. What do you think about the various points raised here?

And an Australian site:

http://www.circinfo.org/

You mention "many males with foreskin intact, both those in their twilight years who are unable to care for themselves, as well as those of all ages who don't have the mental capacity to comprehend hygiene".

In our twilight years, many of us will need extra care, with many aspects of our personal lives. This is just one instance. Cleaning behind an incapacitated older man's foreskin shouldn't be a problem, either for the patient or the carer. Surely it's just a normal part of having a shower, at any time of a man's life.

As for "the mental capacity to comprehend hygiene", what small proportion of men would really come under that category? I agree that some are never taught and/or some just can't be bothered, but we can't modify all the rules of society just to suit people with poor attitudes to hygiene, can we?

If you are talking about men who really do have general comprehension problems, then surely we already give special consideration to these people, in all sorts of ways.

As for soldiers who go to fight in the desert [raised in another post], well again we're looking at a small number of exceptions. This kind of consideration does not apply to the community in general.

Rex, I was actually talking about men with mental illness and yes, we provided for them very nicely as a society. We closed down all the institutions without thinking through the consequences and left a huge proportion of them (women too) out on the street without proper support. Unfortunately, so called "normal" people haven't a clue as to how much damage has been done by do-gooders and money orientated Government policy. The same people have no idea as to just how many people with mental illness live in appalling conditions. Forget hygiene. They often don't even get basic support or necessities such as shelter, clothing and food.

Wildcat. I really do not think that people should be subjected to medical procedures just because it is convenient for the nursing staff. This goes for institutionalisation in general. It may be convenient, but it is inhumane. The government should provide people with a mental illness services at their convenience, ones which protect their dignity and sense of worth. Offcourse in turn, if the provision of humane health services cause more inconvenience to the nursing staff,then the government should compensate the nursing staff accordingly. But to demand that we go backwards in time, just coz it is a pain for the health professionals, well wasn't that the justification for atrocities committed during ww2?

I have enjoyed reading all these posts about whether Medicare should fund circumcision of infants and children and I have three things to add;

1. The penis is a delicate piece of equipment and easily damaged, particularly on a tiny infant or young boy who has not finished growing and developing, so why try to fix something which isn't broken unless you're looking for trouble?

2. Every surgical procedure done has complications and in a certain percentage of individuals, these are sever enough to affect function. The true extent of complications in circumcision has never been documented because physicians so rarely examine the erect penis of an adult man to see problems such as scarring of the urethra, glans or shaft or tethering of erection due to the removal of too much skin.

3. In Australia, a gender inequality exists where girls and women have the right to decide the fate of their own body in regard to circumcision, while boys and men do not. Many adult men are unhappy about being circumcised while they were infants or boys but we don't often hear from them as they feel too embaressed to speak out. The time is long overdue for Medicare to stop funding the procedure which injured these men in the first place. I sued the doctor who circumcised me and won, and I hope more men in future do the same. And just to put this whole issue in a global perspective, European men are not circumcised and a European friend of mine maintains that he would never ever speak to his parents again if they had removed any part of his body without waiting until he was old enough to ask him first.

Circumcision protects against AIDS http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,1971635,00.html.

As a circumcised male with a circumcised son I'm not sure what the big-deal is on this thread. I was done not for religious reasons, but for hygienic ones, as were most males my age. I had my son done for similar reasons.

I find it interesting that so many approve of modifications to our body done by drugs, and now genetics, but have problems with modifications done directly. And what is circumcision if not a pre-emptive surgical strike?

Now we have a metric which could enable us to calculate whether there is a net benefit from circumcision. What's the value to society of 50% less hiv?

If Medicare is available for drugs it ought to be available for operations, unless they are cosmetic.

JOKE TIME!

Two five year old boys are sitting in a hospital waiting room. One leans over to the other and says, "What are you in here for?"

The other says, "Circumcision."

The first boy says "Oh, man! I had that done right after I was born.

I couldn't walk for a year!"