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Circumcision classed as possible child abuse in draft CPS document
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2026
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It shouldn't be any more illegal than any harmless cosmetic procedure.
The last thing you want is unsupervised and unsanitary procedures done by a religious zealot.
Outlawing circumcision sends you down the same road as outlawing ear piercings or abortions or transgender surgery. You're guaranteed to do more harm than good.
It is not a "harmless cosmetic procedure." It's more akin to ritual scarification or removing something like a lip, eyelid, or nose. It destroys nerve endings, causing a permanent loss of sensitivity, and the head of the penis is a mucus membrane that the foreskin is meant to keep moist and protect from damage. Most people had it done before they were old enough to be aware of the difference, but those who had it done later in life often report things like a reduction in the ability to feel sexual pleasure.
Medically necessary circumcision or somebody choosing to have it done is one thing, forcing an amputation onto a baby is entirely different. It's like forcing a trans person to go through the wrong puberty: unwanted and permanent physical changes that can take years of therapy and medical procedures to heal from.
There’s more reasons to have it done. It’s ultimately something that parents should only consider if they have a history of urinary tract issues since often times foreskin can cause issues like UTIs to be more frequent.
Also, as a male with a circumcised dick I haven’t needed therapy for it. So comparing it to a trans person is kind of rude to the trans community. It’s also straight up not a big deal. My parents made decisions they felt were right at the time. Life goes on. I’m doing the same with my child and the hope is that I make more good decisions than bad.
I'm trans and I brought it up for a couple of reasons: first, Weevil brought up gender affirming surgeries in regards to trans people as part of some slippery slope argument. Secondly, trans medical issues tie very well into my exceptions that I mentioned in the second part of my comment - medical necessity and consent.
You may not have any issues with being circumcised, but there are plenty of men out there who do. To the point that there's a "foreskin restoration" process that involves using clamps and rubber bands to yank on the skin of your penis until it stretches into some resemblance of a foreskin. It doesn't reverse any of the consequences of circumcision, but some men at least feel less dysphoric after doing it. I myself thought that my dysphoria was related to being circumcised before I learned words like "transgender" and "gender dysphoria." Still not a fan of what was done to me, though. Enough to weigh in on conversations around the subject in the way that I have.
Generally, I think it's a situation of "people don't miss what they never knew they had." There's plenty of data from men who were circumcised later in life reporting a loss of sensitivity and difficulty with sexual pleasure and satisfaction post procedure compared to before. And this is why I compare it to being forced through an unwanted puberty. Permanent physical changes that you do not consent to. A baby cannot consent to having their genitals permanently altered. And a trans kid unable to access puberty blockers is as capable of preventing an unwanted puberty as a baby is capable of fighting a doctor/Rabbi/priest/etc.
Now for the exceptions: consent I've kinda already talked about, but if you understand the consequences and want to do it, I don't see why you shouldn't be able to anymore than somebody who wants to get a Prince Albert or a Jacob's Ladder. And the big one, medical necessity. There are a number of reasons that it would be medically necessary, and they're all valid regardless of the age at which they appear. Phimosis is a real thing that can hit at pretty much any age up to post puberty. I once worked with a poor kid who had to get it done for that reason at the age of 18. Although, based on a comment I saw elsewhere in this thread about the number of babies who die from UTIs related to circumcision, there may be some room to talk about what strictly is and isn't "medically necessary."
Basically, if your doctor says that you need to for health reasons or it's your own informed choice, go right ahead. But if you're forcing it on a baby due to peer pressure from the dead or because of some sense of "my dad hit me and I turned out fine," then that isn't right and should not be considered kosher.
Great insight!
I would add, though, that you absolutely can miss what you never knew you had, even if you don't know you're missing it. (Else, why the concept of eggs?) I have seen several intact men in these communities say that their primary sexual sensation comes from their foreskin. Say you were one of those men, and had your primary source of sexual sensation amputated at birth. You could go through much of your life knowing that something was "not right" with sex, but not knowing what.
I completely agree and experienced it myself (missing what you don't have). I just meant in the terms of a bunch of replies that I've gotten in here to the tune of "I'm a cis guy who was circumcised at birth and it doesn't bother me at all."
There's the possibility of something akin to how some trans people experience permanent low-grade dysphoria and it affects their frame of reference. Basically, if we were to map the feelings of dysphoria out on a scale from 0 to 10, the average person would be at a 0 under normal circumstances, but some people are born at a 2 or a 3. So to them, a 5 would be the average person's 3, and experiencing a 0 would be like getting glasses for the first time and realizing that trees have individual leaves and this is how everybody else sees the world. If you can only reach a 6 on a scale of how enjoyable an experience is while the average person can hit a 10, how would you have the frame of reference to know that you are or aren't missing something when you've never felt a 7 or above? So these people saying that they weren't negatively affected could just be mistaking a 6 for a 10 and there's no way for us or them to know for certain.
Ah, yes, indeed! Related to that, I've seen a lot of comments from circumcised men on here saying that they're glad that they had it done, because they're already "too sensitive," by which they mean that they reach orgasm too easily. (Not that it's too pleasurable.) I'm a straight guy, so I've only experienced one penis, but my friend who has experience with his own, and many more, says that that's not how it works. He says that intact men have better awareness of their own level of arousal, and better control over the level of stimulation, and can last longer before.
That's certainly a case of not missing what you never knew.
You seem incapable of thinking of anyone besides yourself.
BS
That's absurd and you should know better. Tell someone who had their nose removed that "it's just like circumcision" and see how they respond.
They'd probably respond similarly to telling somebody who was circumcised without consent and doesn't like it that it's just a harmless cosmetic surgery. Or telling a trans person forced to experience the wrong puberty that it isn't a big deal/we can't allow trans kids to go on puberty blockers because they might regret it (despite the fact that all the effects of puberty blockers are reversed by...stopping taking them).
Source: am trans, was forced through the wrong puberty, and was circumcised without consent as a baby and hate it. Did you know that there are people out there so traumatized by being circumcised as a baby that they willingly use clamps and rubber bands to slowly stretch out the skin on their dick until it looks like a foreskin again? The info on how to do it is easily accessible online and the tools are easily purchased. I know this because I discovered it and considered it not long before I discovered words like "transgender" and "gender dysphoria" and found out that there were words for feelings that I did not have the language to understand before.
I used those specific body parts as examples for a few reasons. Namely, they're all designed to protect mucus membranes and keep them moist, like the foreskin. Removing them would also be permanent and result in negative effects - like how circumcision causes nerve damage and desensitization. There really isn't a great comparison, and those who had it done as a kid don't know what they're missing. We do have plenty of reports from people who had it done later in life, though, and there's plenty of data on the loss of sensitivity and struggle with sexual pleasure and satisfaction post-circumcision.
I guess the closest thing would be if people were ritualistically shooting lasers into their babies' eyes to damage the lenses so that they needed glasses or something. Some people just like the way that glasses look. I knew a guy who didn't need glasses and wore a pair without any lenses in them just because he liked the way that they looked. But given the choice between glasses and 20/20 vision, I'd personally take the 20/20 vision, thanks.
If we started doing it at birth and told them it was normal, then yeah its the same.
The topic is child (cannot consent, hell in some cases cannot talk yet because too young) circumcision, you are talking about puberty+(can semi-consent: can decide who to live with in family seperation for example) issues?
I agree about the black market but perfect is the enemy of good?
Also harmless? WTF
There’s lots of things that parents do to their kids without their consent. I’d argue it’s worse to share their face on social media than to circumcise due to the true dangers of predators usage of technology. That doesn’t mean I think parents should be considered abusive if they do. That said, this is in the UK so I don’t have a horse in that race.
This is your fantasy. Sharing their face on social media is less dangerous than biking to a friend's house
Depends on where you live.
No no it doesn't again outside of your fantasy. Almost all harm that comes to kids unfortunately comes from people who are close to said kid.
Did you think there are random people on facebook waiting for a picture of a kid so they can somehow find that kid? Your perspective is demented.
What fantasy? Check who you rely to.
Kids bicycling is perfectly safe around where i live.
Posting kids' photos on the internet is never safe unless you take serious precautions (like covering the whole face).
Btw OP's post is about child mutilation, not photos.
No not it isn't its in fact far more dangerous than your drive to work by the numbers.
There is no reason to believe someone's face being posted on the internet is a substantial risk because although kids do get hurt or killed the overwhelming factors are trust by kids and family members and in a tiny minority of cases either opportunity created by the kids being unsupervised and perceptibly vulnerable or tricked into communicating with a bad person.
There is no reason to believe any significant number of cases had its genesis in a situation whereby the perp saw the kids face posted on facebook and said that kid that kid is the one I'm going to kidnap whereas cases that had their genesis in physical opportunity or trust are incredibly common.
How in your mind DOES this work. Do you think that snatchers are furiously combing facebook for kid faces and then doing detective work to identify and surveil the location looking for an opportunity to do the snatch? Does this sound real?
Studies show that we are terrible at understanding the magnitude of risk of uncommon events and drastically over estimate uncommon risk and underestimate commonly faced risks. For example the number of kids who were attacked because their face was posted on facebook in 2025 is probably zero but almost a thousand people per year die on bicycles and 400,000 are injured and end up in the emergency room.
Bikes are very dangerous. Posting your tike's face... not so much. The dangerous people are statistically the perverts you will stupidly trust because you have shitty judgement WHILE obsessing about not posting their face on facebook.
If the parents were made aware that its abusive and do it anyways then yes its abuse. Some people will question things naturally and thats fine, others will need information brought to them directly and thats also fine.
We should expect parents to put effort into making the best decisions they can with the information they have available.
Again, people get their baby's ears pierced all the time. And that's just the tip of the iceberg on parent approved medical procedures. If circumcision upsets you, how do you feel about ear tubes, tonsillectomies, and cleft pallet repair?
I would say the cost of criminalization far outweighs the benefit.
People should not be piercing their baby's ears too. Neat that you used the same argument Republicans use use against gay marriage. We don't see your kind here to often.
People shouldn't be arrested for piercing a babies ears either.
Having the police kick down your door and drag you to a cell over this shit is not an improved outcome
How are people going to be dragged to a cell for getting a procedure done that no Dr will do again?
That's the whole problem. You won't have doctors doing it. You'll have rabbis doing it.
Why would Rabbis be immune from the law again? If you cannot legally perform a procedure then you cannot legally perform a procedure. No this wouldn't violate freedom of religion because holding them to the same law as everyone else isn't discrimination.
You've drifted from "everyone will just follow the law" to "I can't wait to throw a bunch of rabbis in jail"
Banning a sacrament?
You can't just call anything a sacrament and it magically becomes a different thing legally. It's perfectly ok to have standards for medical procedure and have it apply to all.
How? Its child abuse.
You are truly sick with how much it's important for you to chop off babies dicks. You are defending a barbaric stupid meaningless ritual with such ridiculous arguments, why?
Having children ears pierced should also be criminal, but at least with ear piercing it doesn't do any damage and can be removed later, as opposed to having their genitals mutallated by a religious nutjob for nothing.
Fact is, this would die out if not forced on helpless babies at 8 days old because no sane person would want to inflict this on their body unless theres a very good medical reason (which there is none for most of people).
All the examples you gave stem out from the person's own decision or due to medical necessity.
I would argue that people who support this fucked up ritual should also be criminalized.
It's sick to arrest people. The entire criminal justice system in the UK is a nightmare of abuse and neglect.
Anyone who would advocate finding new reasons to expose more people to it is deranged. Anything you think you're protecting people from pales in comparison to expanding the scope of your miserable fascist police state
I truly believe that the jailing system is hell on earth and is not a fix for anything. Having said that, I never mentioned jailing anyone, just said it should be criminalized.
Its not a 'new reason', its literally an ancient one. People have been doing this sick shit since before history. I think their recoknin should come NOW.
Since this how our law system operates, it is very fine by me to release all the people who were arrested for drug offences and shoplifting, and replace them with all the baby-dicks-chopping-sick-fucks. If you hurt someone else, especially defenseless ones, you should be reformed(HARD) before allowed to return back to society. I do believe that giving you all the professional guidance and psychological counseling you need with your mental illness will serve us all way better than jailing you.
Talking about fascism - being a right wing nut job that lives by ridiculous 'religious doctrine' is the fascism here. Trying to save innocent humans from mutalation is something you think is fascistic??? Then what is the whole point of pretending we have a 'civilized society'??? So much stupidity and cruelty, you should be ashamed.
What do you think the consequences of criminalization happen to be?
If it was an either-or game, I could almost sympathize with the sentiment. But this isn't either-or. You're packing them all in cheek-to-jowl. The prison population of England & Wales quadrupled in size between 1900 and 2018, with around half of this increase taking place since 1990. And it posed to keep growing with an additional 95,700 to 105,200 by March 2029.
There is no end to it. There is no swapping out the less-bad for the more-worse. You're just finding a new excuse to add more people to the incarceration pile.
Whatever we as a society decide them to be. It can also be community service, financial penalties, institutionalization, etc..
And regarding the rest, I'm not sure if you are trolling or not so I'll give it a last try.
You are deflecting from the main point. Are you so bothered by the fact that these people would be jailed that you are willing to accept babies gential mutlation for the sake of religion? Any reason other than critical medial emergency is straight up degenerate and insane. Do you also think that it should be allowed on females?
What about pedophiles? Murderers? Rapists? Should they also roam free because you are uncomfortable with jailing?
You won't solve crime, nor the incarceration problems by letting psychos do whatever the fuck they want. Something gotta give. Currently the choice is between letting people practice barbaric, sadistic and primitive rituals that causes pain, suffering and death to others, or letting them go through the justice system(however messed up that system may be).
As I said earlier, I fully support institutionalizing them for psych evaluation and treatment and allowing them back to society only once they are fully rehabilitated, but since we live in a broken society, jailing them would be the lesser evil. If they do not want to experience the 'joys' of going through this process, maybe they should mutilate their own gentilia instead of those of innocent children. This would also be fine by me.
The cost of criminalizing it is virtually nobody does it because they don't want to lose their license or go to jail this seems pretty cheap
Rabbis will continue to perform the surgery in secret, in the same way piercings and abortions and transgender surgery continues in the face of criminalization.
You can't keep such secrets at scale at all. Abortions can be performed by giving someone a couple of pills whilst not being visibly pregnant and thereby avoiding life changing, ruining, or sometimes ending consequences of pregnancy.
It is damn near impossible to keep people from getting abortions because we give women so many reasons to have them. Compared to that almost all circumcisions would stop because it would be impossible to hide any substantial portion of the pop getting or giving them.
You are arguing we shouldn't enact a policy that would end 99.9% because somewhere someone would be doing 0.1%
Literally the same thing that female genital mutilators say about their 'cultural right' to circumsize their daughters.
What are kids anyway in your eyes beyond property that parents should have the right to permanently brand with their mark of religion.
If you knew anything about the subject, you wouldn't be saying this.
It should not be legal. It is a cosmetic surgery forced upon children.
Cosmetic surgery should not be banned on children. What is up with the UK and wanting to criminalize everything?
Did you listen to yourself?
Do you even know what braces are for?
You consider braces surgery?
Tooth removal, sure, braces?
Surgical Orthodontics has been around for a while.
But it's cosmetic so we need to outlaw this, too? Because reshaping the jaw of a minor should be a crime?
Considering the minor's teeth are still growing (as well as the minor around them), i'd say it's a bit stupid to mess with them, but it'll surely fill dentists' pockets.
And braces don't really require surgery so i fail to see your point.
Anyway this is about minors' genital mutilation, but do carry on with your whataboutisms in the void.
This is why libertarians exist. Just people speaking so far out their ass about something they know nothing about, then demanding an armed goon squad make these delusions an executable offense. And the end result is so repulsive that "get rid of the entire government" is the reflexive response.
Literally go talk to a dentist. Or any medical professional, for that matter. And explain your profound insights, while waving a badge and a gun at them.
Can you legally get any other cosmetic surgery on a less than 1 yr old?
BS argument.
And the woman should have their vagina mutilated too for the same then right?
Let's clear the roads between 8-10 PM so we can have some car racing and donuts.
And take your now legal guns and drugs too, we can have a fun evening of supervised shooting and meth!