The debate below about circumcision has gotten fast and furious. I stand in the untenable position of neither believing that circumcision should be promoted by the authorities as a "health" precaution in the modern world, but also not considering it an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. That being said, one thing that should be value neutral are statistics. Here is a description of the regions of the world where circumcision is and isn't routine. In short, it is a common practice in most of Africa, with the exception of the southern portion of the continent. It is normative amongst Muslims, in the United States and a few nations which imitated American practice such as South Korea and the Philippines. Here are the rates for US regions over the past decade or so:
Year
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Northeast
69.6 68.3 66.5 68.3 68.0 65.4 64.6 66.9 68.9 64.7 66.4
North Central 80.1 79.8 80.9 81.6 82.9 81.4 81.4 81.0 81.0 77.8 79.5
Southern
64.7 66.1 63.6 64.5 64.6 64.1 63.9 62.5 64.0 57.7 58.5
Western
34.2 42.6 36.3 38.0 38.3 36.7 37.3 40.9 32.6 31.4 31.7
All 62.7 64.1 60.2 62.8 63.2 61.5 62.4 63.1 60.1 55.9 57.4
