Since the year 2000, there have been at least 32 (and possibly up to 46) infant deaths due to the use of drop-side cribs. The manufacture of those cribs are to be effectively banned in the United States.
According to the CDC, about 100 children choke to death on food every year. The American Academy of Pediatrics is now suggesting that the shape of food, hot dogs in particular, be changed to prevent some of these deaths.
About 115 neonatal boys (those less than 28 days old) die from SIDS every year. Every parent is aware of the constant barrage of “SIDS awareness” information from day one of your child’s birth.
117 neonates die from complications from circumcision every year. Yet elective circumcision, which is a form of nonconsensual genital modification, is not seen as a threat to the health, lives, and bodily integrity of children. Amazingly enough, the AAP has recently decided to support changing the law to allow pediatricians to offer a minor incision to the clitorises of babies. It’s not enough that we cut baby penises for shits and giggles, even if it sometimes ends in death – we have to start cutting baby clitorises as well.
I don’t understand America’s love affair with circumcision, even when supporting it completely contradicts common sense. Drop-side cribs are deemed too risky but genital cutting is not, even though circumcision is responsible for 2-3 times the amount of deaths annually than those cribs have caused in the past decade.
Say no to hot dogs! But keep cutting up babies.
Yeah, okay.
Tags: american academy of pediatrics, choking hazards, circumcision, drop-side cribs, female circumcision, genital cutting, sids
She Has My Eyes 
May 25, 2010 at 10:36 am |
That article about the female “nicking” is interesting because it again gets into the conversation from the other day. If X is my cultural belief, even if its based on what we would consider skewed reasoning, why do I not have a right to carry it out? The most clear-cut answer is that in this case, you are carrying it out on someone else, but the same is true of parents who home-school using seemingly ridiculous curricula or who put their kids into little pageants, harming self-esteem, etc. There ARE lines.
Anyway, I think the statistics are interesting and telling of how committed we are as a country to social norms.
May 25, 2010 at 11:18 am |
Child pageants are an especially good example. You have the pageants that are really just kids playing dress-up and having fun with their parents, and then you have the ones with the fake eyelashes and hair extensions and gobs of makeup to make seven-year-olds looks seventeen. Is it abuse to force a child to practice their catwalk six hours a day? If not, why not and if so, where exactly is the line? And as for homeschooling, you have the kids who are taught math and history and then you have the kids who are taught that God hates fags and loves dead soldiers. Is it abuse to force a child to hold a sign and taunt the mourning at funerals or not? My gut may say one thing but the law, which attempts to clearly articulate where that line is, says another.
I do think that it’s easier for many people to draw a line when the actions directly involve other people (in these examples, children) rather than when it just involves the person choosing the action. It’s definitely that way for me.