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!"