First off--nobody does. Children are people; ownership is slavery. I was just trying to get your attention.
I thought about starting this off by citing some of the many negative references to circumcision as a possible HIV transmission reduction agent, but Duffie and "um,no" have done that quite thoroughly in the comments section. So I'll just bleed there for awhile, thanks rabbi.
I was more struck by Um's comment that
Libertarianism is about Liberty. Circumcising an infant removes the fundamental liberty of maintaining bodily integrity. Depriving a child of part of his penis... Depriving him of the right to make that choice, when there's no medical need... Well, that doesn't sound very Libertarian to me!
While I'm still not sure about circumcision and "bodily integrity," this response made me think about who gets to make decisions for children and why. Um,no strongly believes that "depriving a child of part of his penis" is a bad thing, an anti-Libertarian action. Atheist Richard Dawkins has maintained that baptizing a baby is equally bad (he wants Britain to change its legal reference of "Jewish children" (and etc) to "children of Jewish parents," so that the kids will not be forever marked by a religious identity they did not chose. Senator Margaret Rose Henry believes that "children" old enough to have drivers' licenses should be required by the state to wear bicycle helmets. Children are sometimes tried for crimes as minors, and Christian Scientists have been hauled into court for refusing to allow appendectomies for minor children.
Start with the concept that I think Libertarians would share: children, however young, are people and have fundamental (property) rights.
Second concept (a little shakier, perhaps, but still generally acknowledged): At early stages of development, children are not competent to judge risks or make certain decisions on their own (which is why my 4 1/2 year old grandson is required to hold my hand when we cross the street together). The issues regarding which children are competent to make decisions expands until, at some roughly defined point (usually 18 or 21 depending upon whether you want to dodge shrapnel or drink a beer) the child becomes considered a full-fledged adult, with all the rights of acquiring and disposing of property thereto apertaining.
So here's the tough third concept: at various developmental levels, then, someone else must make decisions for children (with or without their input, and certainly without requiring their approval); the tough question is "Who?"
I think (with the certainty that I will be corrected if I am wrong) that while um,no finds male circumcision appalling, s/he would stick with advocating against it rather than enforcing a ban via statist coercion. Part of me can imagine Delaware Penis Inspector Number 9 checking each newborn boy released from Christiana Care for the presence of a foreskin. I don't think I want to empower an already statist government to start directly overseeing my family's health care. (Is that in the DE Single-Payer plan proposal? Probably.)
But I have no problem (and this might be my failing as a pragmatic Libertarian) with parents refusing life-saving treatment to a minor child on religious grounds being overruled by the State. (Yet I don't want the State to be able to overrule the decision of parents who have a comatose, terminally ill child to refuse "heroic" life-saving measures, either.)
Where's the boundary between a legitimate, compelling State interest and unwarrented Statist interference in the life of my family?
I personally want it set as much in favor of the parents (as opposed to the government) even if it means the exposure of their offspring to second-hand smoke or trimming the end of the penis like a cheap cigar, because--on balance--I trust parents more, and if and when mistakes ae made I would rather parents make them than the State.
My idea is that the onus should always be on the government to prove an immiment danger of immediate, significant physical or mental harm before it overrules parental decisions. I will agree that, in some cases time being of the essence, the government should have a limited ability to take emergency measures to stabilize a situation (i.e., temporarily removing a child from a household while investigating credible charges of sexual abuse), but that standards of indirect harm (second-hand smoke), incidental harm (falling off a bike with no helmet), or potential harm (letting the rug rats watch too much TV and not read) are not justifiable.
The burden of proof, in such cases, should always lay upon the State.
The problem is that we now have such an intrusive nanny state, and so many people convinced they know better than me how to raise my kids, that they recognize no such boundary and no such burden.
Comments
A couple of points:
1. I think Libertarians will agree (with the hope of being corrected if I'm wrong) that the state should not engage in sexual discrimination. The state either has, or does not have, a legitimate interest in protecting minors from medically unnecessary surgical modification/excision of their genitals.
2. Given 1., the anti-FGM law (and state counterparts) must be rejected as anti-Libertarian, or, must be extended to provide equal protection to males.
"Part of me can imagine Delaware Penis Inspector Number 9 checking each newborn boy released from Christiana Care for the presence of a foreskin. I don't think I want to empower an already statist government to start directly overseeing my family's health care."
I suggest a more libertarian mechanism. When a person grows up, if they find their genitals were mutilated without a legitimate medical need, that person should be able to seek damages from the medical practitioner/s who caused him/her that damage.
Once an 18 year old can reclaim damages for their totally unnecessarily mutilation while an infant, that quick profit for the surgery won't be so attractive, and malpractice insurers probably won't want anything to do with doctors who engage in such activity.
How's that for a libertarian solution?
Nor is there ever any urgency to infant circumcision. The only relevant complaint that manifests in babies is urinary tract infections, several times more prevalent in girls than boys, and then treatable non-surgically. The strongest claim regarding UTIS is that it reduces them 10-fold - from 1.0% to 0.1%, meaning that circumcising 1000 babies wastes 991 circumcisions - 990 on babies who wouldn't have got UTIS anyway, and one on a baby who gets one anyway.
Most of the other things circumcision is supposed to be good for don't manifest until he is old enough to decide for himself, penile cancer (very, very rare) typically in old age.
Circumcision is presented as an important decision parents must make (at least, in the US, not the rest of the developed world) but there's a catch. If they say No, they're just deemed not to have decided yet, and asked again and again.
Do you think it would be statism to make it illegal to cut part of a little girl's genitals off - the exactly corresponding part, the clitoral hood, under surgical conditions, with anaesthetic? Well it is, throughout the English-speaking world, and with no let-out for religion or culture, only pressing medical need In some jurisdictions not even an adult woman's informed consent allows it.
A major part of the problem is that circumcision is already customary. If it were new and someone suggested introducing it, I think Libertarians would immediately take the side of the individual whose body it is.
With that said, there are a growing number of people who aren't circumcised, due to the open mindedness of the issue. Maybe an informative approach instead of a legislative one is better off, and inherently, IMO, a more libertarian way of handling the issue.
(BTW, I didn't picture a state penis inspector, I pictured a social worker taking away a kid for abuse of a child for unnecessary surgery.)