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wikify Parental rights
== Pseudo-parental rights arguments ==
* '''"MY baby, MY choice."'''
*: Many (esp. young) parents still believe that the [[parental rights ]] are universal, including the right to choose to have their son's genitals mutilated for non-medical reasons. That's not the case. Parental custody is, above all, a parental duty to protect the child from harm and to decide for the good of the child. A purely cosmetic foreskin amputation, which is not medically indicated, is not for the benefit of the child as long as it is unable to make decisions.
* '''"I have given birth to my boy, so he is my property."'''
*: No, he is not. Simple as that. People own equal rights just from their birth onwards. No person is property of another person. Slavery has been abandoned a long time ago. This is 21st century.
* '''"I am his mother/father. My [[parental rights ]] allow me to decide whatever I want for my child."'''*: No, you may have misunderstood [[parental rights]]. Basically, [[parental rights ]] protect children from indoctrination by the state, giving the parents far-reaching rights in education. But first of all, parenting and education means keeping harm off of a child. The state has a permanent responsibility to ensure that parents do no harm to their children.
* '''<q>Circumcision is a <q>personal preference</q>.'''
*: This pseudo-argument implicates that it would be the allowed preference of the parents to have their child genitally mutilated or not. In fact, there is no effective law that allows parents to have their children cut off healthy parts of their body without medical indication. (This also applies to the [[German Circumcision Act]] which repeals itself through its legal text and is a foreign body in German legislation.) In many countries, girls are protected from [[FGM|female genital mutilation]] by special laws. Boys are implicitly protected in all countries by the prohibition of bodily harm without medical indication.
* '''"The child isn't yours, so you don't have to care!"'''
*: This argument is often heard by young parents who wonder when [[intactivists]] add informative comments about the circumcision to their publicly posted statements about the circumcision of their sons. Almost always they don't understand [[parental rights ]] and wonder why strangers care more about their child and his well-being and human rights than they do themselves.
* '''"Those who are not circumcised, can / may not talk!"'''