Jewish and Muslim groups in Germany condemned a court ruling on Wednesday that deemed circumcision to be equivalent to grievous bodily harm.

The court in Cologne declared that the procedure violated a child's "fundamental right to bodily integrity". Religious groups claimed that the ruling trampled on freedom of belief and could lead to "circumcision tourism".
The court said the right of the child outweighed that of parents in what legal experts said could be a landmark case.

The ruling said: "The religious freedom of the parents and their right to educate their child, would not be unacceptably compromised if they were obliged to wait until the child could himself decide to be circumcised.

"The body of the child is irreparably and permanently changed by a circumcision. This change contravenes the interests of the child to decide later on his religious beliefs."

The case concerned a four-year-old Muslim boy who was circumcised at the request of his parents but was later taken to hospital with bleeding.

The doctor was charged and tried for grievous bodily harm but was acquitted on the grounds that he had parental consent. Prosecutors appealed against the decision but the doctor was again acquitted, this time owing to the imprecise nature of the law.

The Cologne ruling is not binding but legal experts said it appeared to clarify a grey area in the law and would offer a guide to doctors.

"The court has, unlike many politicians, not been deterred by the fear of being criticised as anti-Semitic or anti-religious," said Holm Putzke, a professor in criminal law at Passau University. "The ruling is very important because, for the first time, physicians have legal certainty." Jewish and Muslim groups criticised the decision. "This ruling is an outrageous and insensitive measure," said Dieter Graumann, the head of the Central Committee of Jews.

"Circumcision of newborn boys is a fixed part of the Jewish religion and has been practised worldwide for centuries. This religious right is respected in every country in the world."

The committee called on the German parliament to protect the freedom of religion. Mr Graumann added that the ruling was "an unprecedented and dramatic intervention in the right of religious communities to self-determination".

Jewish groups were supported by leaders of Germany's large Muslim population "I feel the decision is discriminatory and counters efforts to promote integration," said Ali Demir, the chairman of the Islamic Religious Community in Germany. "This is a harmless procedure that has thousands of years of tradition and a high symbolic value.

"We will end up with circumcision tourism to neighbouring countries."
Aiman Mayzek, the chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, said: "Religious freedom is very important in our constitution and cannot become the pawn of a one-dimensional ruling that also further strengthens existing prejudices and cliches about this issue."

The World Health Organisation has estimated that nearly one in three boys under 15 is circumcised. Thousands of German boys are made to undergo the procedure each year. The country has around four million Muslims and 105,000 Jews, and a 2007 study found that
10.9 per cent of males under 17 had been circumcised.

While equating ritual circumcision with grievous bodily harm, the Cologne court said that the practice was acceptable on medical grounds.

Excellent news, it’s about time that courts and governments started taking serious action on this issue, and hopefully it won’t be long before the procedure is outlawed all together (except for health reasons). I cannot believe that in the 21st century West, we are still allowing infant genitals to be mutilated by ideologues and charlatans with scalpels. What right does the west have to criticise FGM in Africa when it’s male equivalent is being done in it’s own hospitals? To me, the religious freedom argument is not enough to justify the harming of the sexual organs of non-consensual children, the health justifcations are spurious (let’s cut off fingernails so they don’t get dirt under them!) and the whole practice a sad indictment on the cruelty humans do to each other.

Ban circumcision now.

babyfinland posted:

glad to see biopolitical governmentality is still operative

Of course it is, and rightly so.

aerdil posted:

r u cut iwc?

nope, complete and proud

gyrofry posted:

you're a survivor, not a victim. never forget that cycloneboy

i'll use whatever nomenclature i feel like.

deadken posted:

i approve of circumcision but its not really enough. ideally all male infants should have their penises removed entirely. reproduction rights could be assigned based on some kind of lottery perhaps. a better world

infants are way too young to consent to having their genitals mutilated. i suggest we have the penises of adult men cut off. starting with you. also finishing with you.

deadken posted:

waaay ahead of you. im transitioning guys

trans-atlantic doesnt count

MadMedico posted:

Isn't the point of non-ceremonial circumcision to prevent men from masturbating? Why is this a bad thing?

1. Doesn't work.
2. Really obviously doesn't work.
3. There's no reason to prevent men from masturbating.

WeedSmoker420 posted:

Maybe you were privileged enough to be born into a culture that doesn't ritualistically mutilate the penises of its sons, but not everyone is, and they would rather condemn their male descendants to torture than sacrifice their sacred identity.

I was born into such a culture. We're called Americans, and there are hundreds of millions of us.

WeedSmoker420 posted:

It is still heavily practiced in the US, but it is declining, and Christians do not have any sacred need to commit MGM. The Jews and Muslims do.

God's not real, sacredness is a fiction.

huh???

Edited by blinkandwheeze (June 30, 2012 05:16:13)