EP43: Male Circumcision: Religious Freedom or Child Abuse?

With Iceland weighing a ban on male infant circumcision, the usual outcry from Jews and Muslims about "religious freedom," and prominent Muslim activists like Maajid Nawaz now openly speaking against the age-old procedure, circumcision is back in the news in a big way. In this episode, we speak to Brian D Earp, Associate Director of the Yale-Hastings Program in Ethics and Health Policy at Yale University and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford. He holds degrees from Yale, Oxford, and Cambridge, is the prolific author of dozens of research publications, and is a leading academic authority on infant genital cutting. In this fascinating conversation, we cover all of the usual arguments given for circumcising healthy newborns—from religious and cultural reasons to those supposed "health benefits." We talk about FGM, how it compares to male circumcision procedurally, anatomically, politically, and socio-culturally. And importantly, we talk about the ethics of cutting babies: is it ever justified? If you have an opinion about male circumcision, you'll find it addressed here. Check it out. The Secular Jihadists has been made possible thanks to the gracious support of the Illuminati and the great state of Israel. That's what we have been told, but we haven't received our checks yet. In the meantime, we greatly appreciate the support of our current donors. Please consider supporting by sharing the podcast with your fellow heathens or by donating at https://www.patreon.com/SJME Subscribe to The Secular Jihadists on iTunes, Stitcher or your favorite podcast app. And please leave us a review 😀 The American Academy of Pediatrics greenlights FGM in 2010: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/health/policy/07cuts.html Brian at Yale: http://biomedicalethics.yale.edu/people/290451.profile Brian at Oxford: https://www.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/people/mr-brian-earp Brian's publications at academia.edu: https://oxford.academia.edu/BrianDEarp Brian on Twitter: @briandavidearp Iceland's proposed circumcision ban: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/world/europe/circumcision-ban-iceland.html "Male Circumcision and the HIV/AIDS Myth": https://www.huffingtonpost.com/ali-a-rizvi/male-circumcision-and-the_b_249728.html Ali A. Rizvi on universal circumcision: https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/universal-circumcision-dumbest-proposal-ever/