Talk:Circumcision

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Former good articleCircumcision was one of the Natural sciences good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
February 3, 2013Peer reviewReviewed
February 12, 2013Good article nomineeListed
March 14, 2022Good article reassessmentDelisted
Current status: Delisted good article


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Circumcision in Australia

This article claims that circumcision is common in Australia, but that is no longer the case. According to the Australian government, only about 10% of new borns go through the procedure https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/amp/article/circumcision 49.199.181.240 (talk) 22:06, 3 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In addition to that, the Health Direct page links to https://raisingchildren.net.au/newborns/health-daily-care/health-concerns/circumcision, which paints a very different picture to what's written in this Wikipedia article:
"The only major western country where circumcision is very common is the United States. Circumcision is uncommon in the United Kingdom, most of Europe and Asia, South America and Central America." Sleepy.lion1668 (talk) 04:05, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bioethics of circumcision

Should we re-add ethics to the lead? We previously agreed in past discussions on having controversies like bioethics included in the lead. Prcc27 (talk) 22:08, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We'd be scrapping the bottom of controversies if it was added. I don't think many healthy, psychologically normal people care about the subject matter to any serious extent. No one really cares if they're circumcised or not. As a Mexican, we sometimes jab Canadians and Americans about it in various comedy shows, but as a ranchy joke rather than a serious issue. I'm against the idea. I'm uncut and think it's stupid but that's hardly a controversy. A lot of people do a lot of stupid things. FootballRocker (talk) 19:15, 6 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like you are basing this on your own anecdotal experiences..? Ethics is absolutely an important controversy. Major medical organizations tend to address the issue of ethics in their policy statements on circumcision. Also, pretty ridiculous for you to insinuate that caring about one’s circumcision status somehow makes you psychologically abnormal. Prcc27 (talk) 05:46, 8 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Based on previous discussions, a concise reference to it might be warranted. Piccco (talk) 21:49, 12 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Circumcision's not controversial enough for this to be added. Only abortion, female genital mutilation, and a few other topics have any mention of controversy in their leads.
Gender-affirming surgery, gender-affirming care, labiaplasty, pearling, and other articles (in my view) have set WP: PRECEDENT for this; none mention it in theirs. KlayCax (talk) 16:02, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Consensus

Hi, @Prcc27:. Where are you getting the notion that there's a present consensus to include it in the lead? KlayCax (talk) 00:15, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There's currently no mention to the ethical views on circumcision in the lead, and there has to be one, since that has always been the standard. I don't have any specific wording in mind and I think any mention has to be concise. If I remember correctly there used to be a sentence saying that "there are various ethical, cultural, etc. views on circumcision". That was decent. Piccco (talk) 00:25, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am fine with using different wording if other users think the current wording is too vague. I would be open to the previously used “there are various ethical, cultural, etc. views on circumcision” wording as a compromise. Prcc27 (talk) 01:01, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm mystified why "theologians" are being invoked anywhere. Bon courage (talk) 01:16, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Bon courage: Theologians shouldn't be mentioned in the lead at all. Agreed.
@Piccco:/@Prcc27:. Wikipedia almost never lists ethical disputes/controversies in the articles of medical procedures and/or body modifications unless it is overwhelmingly notable. Even cases such as gender-affirming care and gender-affirming surgery make no mention of controversy as it's seen as "poisoning the well" against the topic in question. The same applies to articles surrounding tattoos, piercings, and other adornments, despite similar controversy in some cultures. Circumcision is nowhere near as controversial as a subject such as abortion. It's legal in every polity. At the very least, it should only be considered if neonatal circumcision is criminalized in at least one country or reaches some sort of widespread controversy.
Neither is presently the case. We also already talk about the debate in developed countries already. KlayCax (talk) 02:03, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
We do not have to use the “theologians” wording, and we have used different wording without that term in the past. Something can be legal yet controversial. Just this week, the U.S. state of New Hampshire debated whether or not it should be funded by taxpayers, and ethics was discussed in the debate. More importantly, major medical organizations mention ethics in their policy statements. A concise sentence in the lead is not WP:UNDUE. Prcc27 (talk) 03:58, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The criteria is generally substantial controversy. Not merely "controversy has happened".
The New Hampshire bill was about Medicare funding. It wasn't about the ethics of the procedure. Many states in the United States already do not cover it.
Many people support defunding it (including me) but would also say that the actual consequences of the procedure are relatively neutral/non-impactful in developed countries. KlayCax (talk) 20:17, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Says who? That is not what any Wikipedia policy or guideline says. WP:WBA does say the lead should mention "consequential or significant criticism or controversies" in the lead. I already explained how the controversy is significant in my remarks above. Having "substantial" be the threshold would be WP:UNDUE. To answer your question about gender affirming care, I am not aware of any major medical organizations going into great detail about ethical controversies. Furthermore, that article does not have a section on ethics, this article does. The Lead should follow the body. Prcc27 (talk) 21:31, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How is controversy surrounding circumcision "consequential" or "significant"? KlayCax (talk) 18:04, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would argue any consistently reported controversy regarding a medical procedure is probably significant enough to mention. RakdosWitch (talk) 19:54, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Wording

It appears we have a consensus that controversy/ethics should be included in the lead. We may need to get a stronger consensus on what that wording should actually be though. The theologian wording seems to not have much support. There used to be a sentence on bioethics (i.e. major medical organizations hold “widely variant perspectives on the bioethics” of circumcision) so that could be an option as well. If I am not mistaken, isn’t KlayCax the person that came up with “there are various ethical, cultural, etc. views on circumcision”? Seems like a reasonable compromise, unless/until we can expand on and improve the wording. Prcc27 (talk) 16:31, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Lack of Consensus on HIV prevention

The article states that:

"There is a consensus among the world's major medical organizations and in the academic literature that circumcision is an efficacious intervention for HIV prevention in high-risk populations if carried out by medical professionals under safe conditions." While this might be true for some time or for the world's major medical organization, there is certainly no consensus in the academic literature. Quite the contrary actually. The 3 studies used by the WHO are now highly controversials and have raised significant questions regarding methodology and ethics while one could easily find hundreds of literature stating that circumcision has little to no effects on HIV prevention :

Here is a very small list of research finding male genital surgery did not reduce HIV risk or even increased risk for heterosexual men and women. I could add dozens more:

Chao, 1994 - male circumcision significantly increased risk to women

Auvert, 2001 - 68% higher odds of HIV infection among men who were circumcised (just below statistical significance)

Thomas, 2004 - circumcision offered no protection to men in the Navy

Connelly, 2005 - circumcision offered no protection to black men, and only insignificant protection for white men

Wawer, 2009 - the only RCT on M-to-F HIV transmission found male circumcision increased risk to women by 60%

Westercamp, 2010 - circumcision offered no protection to men in Kenya

Darby, 2011 - circumcision offered no benefit in Australia

Brewer, 2011 - youth who were circumcised were at greater risk of HIV in Mozambique

Rodriguez-Diaz, 2012 - circumcision correlated with 27% increased risk of HIV (P = 0.02) and higher risks for other STIs in men visiting STI clinics in Puerto Rico

Nayan, 2021 - circumcision offers no protection to men in Ontario

Frisch, 2021 - in Denmark, a national cohort study reveals circumcision provided no protection against HIV or other STIs

It could be also useful to mention that the advertised promotion of VMMC for HIV prevention has also some contrary effects, leading men to have unprotected sexual relationships leaded by the beliefs that they would be protected thanks to their circumcision : Nov. 2013: Zimbabwe: Circumcised men indulge in risky sexual behaviour Nov. 2013: Zimbabwe: Circumcised men demand unprotected sex from HIV positive pregnant prostitute Sept. 2014: Uganda: Circumcision Promoting Risky Behaviour Oct. 2012: Malawi: Men more likely to practice unsafe sex after circumcision


This is definitely not what one could call a scientific consensus. Petrarco123 (talk) 13:03, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

While the cherry-picked lists made by anti-circumcision orgs like CIRP.org and 'circumsitionnews' (both of whom you have linked above) can be impressive to newcomers to the topic, they do not establish that there is not a consensus. And on Wikipedia we cannot conduct original research by counting sources to try to undercut the higher-tier sources that we do have, which are quite clear about the consensus. MrOllie (talk) 13:36, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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