Let's cut to the chase ...

It pains me to pun about such an issue, but in a dispute about circumcision, a cutting remark may not be the unkindest cut of all. Once again, I refer to a post, with which I am in basic agreement, at my favorite normblog.

The legal dispute concerns a 12-year-old boy whose parents are divorced, and who are contesting the issue of circumcising their son, all the way to the state supreme court. If I am not mistaken, the tradition is to circumcise a healthy infant boy on his eighth day. Since this boy is 12 years old, he is way past the point of being not conscious of what such a procedure might entail in terms of physical and psychological effects.

If the boy is not legally mature enough to be the arbiter of this dispute between his parents, he is certainly the person who must endure a preponderance of the consequences of its resolution. The only reasonable resolution, as is abundantly obvious to me, is to postpone the issue until such time that the boy is legally of age to make this decision without interference by either parent.

To the best of my knowledge, circumcision is an irreversible procedure. The father, who is in favor of the procedure for his son, is a convert. Many converts are highly susceptible to holier-than-thou syndrome. I say, if the father can't wait for his son to make this very personal and painful decision without any coercion from him or the courts, let the father undergo the procedure as proxy for his son, even if, nay especially if, he has undergone the procedure before. F*ck him if he can't take a joke.