May 10 2012

Jaw Dropping Quote of the Week

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Colorado has been considering a bill to prohibit the use of Medicaid to pay for circumcisions (the bill is apparently now dead). And during a hearing on the bill, a doctor who has stopped performing circumcisions on patients entirely explained why she supports the bill (this isn’t the jaw-dropping part):

They included Dr. Jennifer Johnson, a family physician who works with Medicaid and uninsured patients at Clinica Family Health Services.

“I’ve done at least 100 circumcisions and just recently decided to stop,” Johnson testified.

She said she and her husband, who is Jewish, decided not to circumcise their own son, who is now 4. She said she was concerned when she researched the issue and found that removing the foreskin from a boy’s penis damages numerous nerve endings. While circumcision is traditional in the Jewish community, Johnson said her husband was open to new research about the potential harms from circumcision.

If boys or men decide to remove the foreskin as adults, then they can make that decision, Johnson said. But she decided that as a physician, she should no longer do a procedure that is “potentially harmful.”

“This is not a necessary procedure,” Johnson said. “It’s a healthy, normal body part.”“There are a lot of medical needs in our population. We have no business using limited health care dollars on a medically unnecessary cosmetic procedure.”

A very reasonable argument. Now here comes the jaw-dropping quote:

One lawmaker, Rep. Sue Schafer, D-Wheat Ridge, elicited laughter in the hearing room when she asked Dr. Johnson if circumcision might help reduce teen pregnancy rates and teen sexual activity by reducing nerve sensation in boys’ penises.

“I’m wondering if there’s a risk of more sexual activity, more male irresponsibility” for uncircumcised boys, Schafer asked.

*headdesk*

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20 comments

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1

Marcus Ranum

May 10, 2012 at 9:10 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

One lawmaker, Rep. Sue Schafer, D-Wheat Ridge, elicited laughter in the hearing room when she asked Dr. Johnson if circumcision might help reduce teen pregnancy rates and teen sexual activity by reducing nerve sensation in boys’ penises.

And masturbation!!! Goodness knows, something must be done!
2

d cwilson

May 10, 2012 at 9:13 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Hmm.

The fact that Rep. Schafer’s remark elicited laughter makes me wonder if she was making a joke. Have to see the video clip to know for sure.

Or maybe she was teeing one up for Rush to go on a tirade about how uncircumsized men are “sluts” who want us to pay them not to have sex.

Yeah, I’m not holding my breath for that either.
3

wholething

May 10, 2012 at 9:14 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

No, it’s castration that would have an impact on teen pregnancy, not circumcision.
4

tbp1

May 10, 2012 at 9:20 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’m with d cwilson on this. It seems likely to me that it was intended as a joke.
5

Blondin

May 10, 2012 at 9:24 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

It sounds like Rep. Schafer might subscribe to the same school of thought that supports female genital mutilation. Remove the pleasure from sex so the kids will only commit the vile act for procreative purposes as gawd intended.
6

Ace of Sevens

May 10, 2012 at 9:29 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

So we can’t give girls a shot that makes their arm sore for a few hours to give them well-evidenced protection from HPV, but we can cut off a bit of a boy’s penis for some vaguely defined and supported health benefits. What’s the difference? Tradition. Be glad the bible doesn’t say to beat kids, too. Oh, wait.
7

Chiroptera

May 10, 2012 at 9:51 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

One lawmaker, Rep. Sue Schafer, D-Wheat Ridge, elicited laughter in the hearing room when she asked Dr. Johnson if circumcision might help reduce teen pregnancy rates and teen sexual activity by reducing nerve sensation in boys’ penises.

Boy, there’s someone who hasn’t read the manual. Preventing teen pregnancy isn’t a responsibility we’re supposed to put on a male.

Typical woman and Democrat not to understand that.
8

regexp

May 10, 2012 at 9:52 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I don’t think its jaw dropping – its well known that in the fringes – that is one of the reasons they favor circumcision.

As someone who is circumcised – I would have to say – didn’t reduce sexual activity for me. :)
9

joeina2

May 10, 2012 at 9:56 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I was under the impression that Dr. Kellogg, of Kellogg’s Cereal fame, promoted circumcision to reduce sexual activity, including masturbation, because he viewed both as detrimental to health. His initiatives are the main reason circumcision is practiced widely in the U.S. today. Lets be honest, in the early U.S., or even now, the fact that a practice is celebrated in Jewish culture would not have lead to it becoming widespread.

(Side note, Dr. Kellogg’s brother was actually the industrialist behind the cereal company, but Dr. Kellogg invented corn flakes, the flagship cereal, alongside him).

He also promoted the application of carbolic acid to the clitoris, to prevent masturbation in young girls.

Can we have a new slogan for progressives? I’m thinking “I like sex, therefore I can’t vote Republican”.
10

martinc

May 10, 2012 at 10:02 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

regexp said:

As someone who is circumcised – I would have to say – didn’t reduce sexual activity for me. :)

How can you tell? Maybe if you hadn’t been circumcised, you’d have done it twice as much.
11

The Lorax

May 10, 2012 at 10:16 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Silly woman, don’t you know it’s the females who have to have their genitalia viciously mutilated at birth in order to prevent teen pregnancy?

But seriously…

I really hope she was making a joke, but even if she was, it was in bad, bad taste.
12

Who Knows?

May 10, 2012 at 11:12 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

As someone who is circumcised – I would have to say – didn’t reduce sexual activity for me. :)

How would you know?
13

jamessweet

May 10, 2012 at 12:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Man, as to the bill itself, that’s a tough one for me. On the one hand, I agree with everything Dr. Johnson said. On the other hand, I can’t help but feel like there is a dangerous confluence of ethnic minorities and class issues here. I think it’s fair to argue that this would disproportionately impact low-income Jews, and that just doesn’t quite sit right.

I think on balance I’d be in favor of it… I mean, I don’t favor Medicaid paying for homeopathy, right? But it’s not an easy call…
14

Robert B.

May 10, 2012 at 1:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

jamessweet, if a religious group is disproportionately performing unnecessary harmful cosmetic surgery on infants, I have no trouble with them being disproportionately impacted. It’s a religious procedure, not a medical one – covering it under Medicare is arguably unconstitutional and certainly not the government’s obligation. (Actually I think infant circumcision should be banned, even the much less harmful boys’ form. But that’s the next fight.)
15

mechanoid

May 10, 2012 at 1:59 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Hitchens pointed out Maimonides position:

Similarly with regard to circumcision, one of the reasons for it is, in my opinion, the wish to bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ in question, so that this activity be diminished and the organ be in as quiet a state as possible. It has been thought that circumcision perfects what is defective congenitally. This gave the possibility to everyone to raise an objection and to say: How can natural things be defective so that they need to be perfected from outside, all the more because we know how useful the foreskin is for that member? In fact this commandment has not been prescribed with a view to perfecting what is defective congenitally, but to perfecting what is defective morally. The bodily pain caused to that member is the real purpose of circumcision. None of the activities necessary for the preservation of the individual is harmed thereby, nor is procreation rendered impossible, but violent concupiscence and lust that goes beyond what is needed are diminished. The fact that circumcision weakens the faculty of sexual excitement and sometimes perhaps diminishes the pleasure is indubitable. For if at birth this member has been made to bleed and has had its covering taken away from it, it must indubitably be weakened. The Sages, may their memory be blessed, have explicitly stated: It is hard for a woman with whom an uncircumcised man has had sexual intercourse to separate from him. In my opinion this is the strongest of the reasons for circumcision.

Src: http://www.cirp.org/library/cultural/maimonides/

It seems the intent is quite clear.
16

escuerd

May 10, 2012 at 3:14 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

jamessweet, if a religious group is disproportionately performing unnecessary harmful cosmetic surgery on infants, I have no trouble with them being disproportionately impacted. It’s a religious procedure, not a medical one – covering it under Medicare is arguably unconstitutional and certainly not the government’s obligation.

QFT
17

Tony

May 10, 2012 at 5:57 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Rep. Schafer’s full question was this:

“Rep. [Lois] Court said earlier ‘there are no dumb questions’, and that we will speak in a respectful manner, but I’m concerned about the rate of teen pregnancy, the rate of date rape, sexual violence, and when you talk about more nerve endings in the penis, in the foreskin, I’m just wondering if there’s any risk of more sexual activity among young men, more male irresponsibility, so if you’d be good enough to comment on that.”

I pulled her question from the audio archive of the Health and Environment Committee meeting provided on the Colorado Legislature’s website. That excerpt is here (mp3). Maybe there was laughter in the committee meeting room, but I didn’t hear it in the audio. I definitely didn’t get the impression she was joking.
18

Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe

May 11, 2012 at 1:19 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

I’m concerned about the rate of teen pregnancy, the rate of date rape, sexual violence

O.o

yeah, no. European men don’t commit more rapes and sexual violence than American ones; rape and sexual assault don’t have anything to do with the number of nerve-endings, and everything to do with patriarchy
19

dingojack

May 11, 2012 at 3:49 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Rape stats worldwide (UN 2009):
(per hundred thousand)

Sweden 53.2
New Zealand 30.9
USA 28.6
Belgium 26.3
UK (England & Wales) 24.1
UK (Northern Ireland) 22.3
Norway 19.8
Isreal 17.6
Finland 17.2
France 16.6
Luxembourg 11.9
Estonia 11.9
Germany 8.9
Liechtenstein 8.4
Switzerland 8.1
Denmark 7.3
Moldovia 7.2
Spain 5.5
Czech Rep. 5.1
Hungary 4.9
Lithuania 4.9
Romania 4.8
Malta 4.7
Latvia 4.4
Russain Fed. 4.4
Croatia 4.3
Poland 4.2
Cyrus 3.9
Bulgaria 3.5
Portugal 3.0
Slovakia 2.8
Slovenia 2.8
Belarus 2.5
Ukraine 1.9
Canada 1.5
Japan 1.2
Egypt 0.1

[Take all with a grain of salt, consider that 'rape' may differ in definition, and add at least 40% for unreported rapes].

Source: The Eighth United Nations Survey on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2001–2002) – Table 02.08 Total recorded rapes.

Following Rep. Sue Schafer’s logic (bearing in mind the stats for Israel), Ukrainian boys must be castrati.
Dingo
20

interrobang

May 11, 2012 at 9:28 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment

Speaking as an end-user with experience operating both models, I disagree with Maimonides completely. Maybe it’s just my particular sample, but the ones with the foreskins don’t seem as able to get off with women, putting on a condom is a lot harder, and, yuck, sub-foreskin smegma buildup.

While what the particular penis-owner wants to do with his penis is entirely up to him, I gotta say, for me personally, I prefer to stick to the Ramones’ second rule — eat kosher salami!