1 Comments:
At 8:55 AM, HeimishinBP said…
Dear Editor:
I'd like to take issue with your position on the issue. Religious interference aside, one must look at the data that is behind the campaign. What are the true risks that are associated with the act. According to available statistics, the rate of infection is lower than HIV with condom use - meaning, there is a greater chance of getting HIV with a condom, than getting herpes via Metziza Bpeh. Why is it that the NYC Health Dept isn't educating everyone about the risks of condom use, but are promoting it as a means of preventing HIV.
I believe that this is just an attempt by the social elite to take steps to eventaully ban a ritual that they determine as sadistic and ancient. There is no medical evidence backing their actions. Of the cases reported, it was later determined that the deaths were not as a result of the ritual, yet the health dep't continues to make believe it was. If it truly was the cause of death, then why hasn't the Attorney General brought manslaughter charges against the Mohel?
No one in the Jewish community is saying that if the risks were great then we should stop the practice. What is beings said is that the facts don't back their campaign, and therefore it is just a blatant blood libel. If we can't trust the commissioner to use statistics that are accepted worldwide, then how can we trust him at all. He is losing all his credibility by making an issue out of a no issue. A similar thing occured recently regarding the "Super AIDS virus" that was said to be discovered in NY. There were emergency warnings to the gay community about it, including evidence to back it. It was only a mere three weeks later that it was said to have been just on over panicked administration, and there was not need for the "education campaign"
Let's leave religion out of this, and deal with the facts.
http://vosizneias.blogspot.com/2006/01/ny-times-opinion-column-on-metzitzah.html