Male Circumsicion

This stems from the recent BBC Newshour podcast I just finished listening to, which can be found at: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/newshour

episode: 5/27/2011, 2pm

Firstly, lets define what the foreskin, and circumcision is:

Male circumcision is the practice of removing a collection of tissues, the foreskin, from the penis at birth. Many people actually don't know what a foreskin actually is, so let me define it here before we start. A foreskin is a double layered fold of skin and mucosa surrounding the glans of the penis. The outer layer is primarily skin, the inner layer is a mixture of specialized mucosa, highly specialized erogeneous nerve endings. The functions of the forskin include creating a 'gliding mechanism' in sexual intercourse, as well as protection for the naturally sensitive glans, and regulation of the natural environement (moisture, oils, etc) around the glans. Circumcision removes the outer layer of skin, the inner mucosa tissues, many of the erogeneous nerver endings, the penis' inborn gliding mechanism, 

See the wikipedia page for a brief overview of ethical, social, relgious, and medical issues surrounding the act of cicumsicion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision.

There are movements in San Francisco and other cities in the United States to make cicumcision of male infants illegal. It does not make 'later-in-life' circumcisions illegal - one can still get one if they want it.

In short:

Religious Groups (Jews + Muslims, specifically mentioned in this podcast) don't like the idea of outlawing infant circumcision because they feel it is a form of censorship and an infringement on their rights to freedom of religious expression.

Anti-circumcision groups: the forskin of the penis is an important erogenous zone, and benefits males in terms of sexual function and also in overall genital health.

Personally, I feel that circumcision is somewhat barbaric, and certainly non-essential. Whatever health benefits might purportedly arise from cutting off your dick-skin could easily be achieved through good personal hygiene and using condoms while having sex. Certainly, getting circumcised and having unprotected sex with multiple partners is not going to prevent you from contracting STDs. Are men that are circumcised 'not whole'? Certainly not! But, can one honestly make the argument "Yes, I prefer my parents to remove parts of my body that they/society deem non-important without my consent"? Even if there are health benefits, it seems that most of the 'biggies' are directly related to sexual activity - something I doubt most infants take part in. Can one really make the argument that no-foreskin offers a better protective power than foreskin+condom, or circumcised+condom? My guess would be that condoms are the thing that prevents infection, above all other factors. Regardless, I like my foreskin, and see no reason why I should cut it off, and am thankful for my parents for not doing so. Here are some articles that go in-depth into medical considerations surrounding circumcision:

Study 1 - http://www.cirp.org/library/disease/HIV/vanhowe4/
This study is a meta-study, combining results from several other studies. They found that there was not a correlation between HIV-AIDS and circumcision.

Study 2 - http://tinyurl.com/3jefcbc (may or may not work)
This study comes a year after study 1, and includes study 1's results as a reference. Study 2 finds that there IS a correlation between reduced risk of HIV-AIDs and circumcision in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Study 3

And a study on cervical cancer vs human papeloma virus residing in foreskin: http://tinyurl.com/4x4fqgl
And its almost not worth linking to wikipedia, since I assume that's the first place everyone goes for information these days, but I thought the discussion on the article on circumcision was really thorough, 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision#cite_note-VanHoweHIVmeta-159