In the UK, circumcision is only performed by Jewish and Muslim parents. No one else does it. Not for social reasons, not for 'cleanliness', not for 'wanting to look like the other boys'. I learned that the US had more widespread circumcision from the TV.

Frankly, it's so alien a concept to me I almost can't offer my view. Maybe if all the males in my upbringing had been a certain way I'd see both sides, but I still feel this is a cosmetic procedure done for social reasons - to look like fathers/other kids - and that doesn't sit well with me. The HIV prevention evidence is far too flawed for me to consider it worthy of consideration.

The US is way out of line with other developed countries.  For example: from the summary statement of the paediatric policy on circumcision of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians:

"After extensive review of the literature the RACP reaffirms that there is no medical indication for routine neonatal circumcision." (those last 9 words in bold on their website).

Most of the people responsible for this statement will be circumcised themselves or married to circumcised men, since the circ rate in Australia was 90% in 1950 (down to 12.6% now).  

Non-therapeutic circumcision is *banned* in most Australian public hospitals.

You're pollimg the wrong people. You don't poll people who get paid to perform this surgical excision of the male prepuce, circumcision for short. You don't poll parents who paid to  have it done to their young men. You poll people who had it done to them and don't mind, compared to the people who had it done to them and regret it. This ratio would show how much dissension circumcision causes amungst circumcised men because of the various long term negative side effects. Most Intact men are decidedly against having them selves be circumcised, understably, although they can be fooled into having it done. Why do people try to fool people into sacrificing their joy skin? Do they know that they can cause dysfunction when cutting the right nerves?

I live here in the US and I'm against unnecessary genital surgery on male babies. It's quite obvious, that routine male circumcision is not needed.

It should be left up to a young man to decide for himself, when he's at least eighteen years old. It's no one else's business.

There are no medical indications for circumcision of newborn infants.  The Council on

Scientific Affairs of the American Medical Association classifies neonatal male circumcision as a

non-therapeutic procedure.  No disease is present in newborn male infants, so no therapeutic

action is required. The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of

Obstetricians and Gynecologists, in a joint publication, Guidelines for Perinatal Care, have reclassified neonatal circumcision as an “elective procedure.”   This re-classification removes any

suggestion that newborn circumcision is a normal part of hospital routine or a medically

recommended procedure. Non-therapeutic infant circumcision, therefore, is not presently the

American standard of care.

A few doctors have expressed the opinion that there are medical or prophylactic benefits

from circumcision. The medical evidence, however, does not support these claims. Recent

evidence-based statements from the American Academy of Pediatrics,  the American Medical

Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American College of

Obstetricians and Gynecologists9 firmly establish that circumcision is not medically necessary.

All decline to recommend the procedure. All emphasize that circumcision is an elective

procedure.

Medical societies worldwide find that the alleged benefits do not exceed the known risks.   They counsel that circumcision should not be routinely performed, meaning that circumcision

should not be performed without a specific medical indication.

"New [not very good, neither double blinded nor placebo controlled] evidence shows less transmission of AIDS in [to, but not from] circumcised men." Yes, and doubtless evidence would show zero AIDS transmission in castrated men. AIDS is a hot-button item to use to push circumcision, but in the developed world - IF the African studies were correct - it would take hundreds or thousands of circumcisions to prevent one transmission.

The fact is that circumcision is a "cure" looking for a disease. It has always lit on the ailment we most fear at the time, and it was inevitable that AIDS would be wheeled up.

We don't "respect cultural obligations" to cut baby girls' genitals, no matter how minimally, aseptically and/or anaesthetisedly (so this has nothing to do with how terrible it is in Africa), and in some jurisdictions even an adult woman's informed consent does still not make it legal. The double standard is glaring.

I am delighted that the comments here have been in defense of leaving boys foreskin intact!

My son is the ONLY uncircumcised boy in my husband's and my families, both immediate and extended!

I suspect neutral is a euphemism for not wanting to get into the political argument that circumcision has become in the United States. If anything, I am encouraged that circumcision will likely never be universal nor automatic again as questioning medical authority is now considered being a good patient.

I wonder if those who are neutral are also neutral about slicing female parts... Remember the huge outcry against a Seattle hospital when it offered to slit the clitoral foreskin of baby girls in response to immigrant parents' demands that their daughters as well as their sons be circumcised?