The misguided push to ban circumcision
By Editorial Board, Wednesday, July 25, 7:51 PM
The Washington Post
FINANCIALLY TROUBLED Europe has plenty to worry about. Yet some in the Old World have decided this is a good time to pick a fight with Islam and Judaism over a ritual that both have practiced for many centuries: circumcision of young males.
In June, a state-level appeals court in Cologne, Germany, released a ruling making it a crime to circumcise a male younger than 18, except to treat an ailment. The case involved a 4-year-old Muslim, circumcised by a Muslim doctor at his parents’ request. The court said parental autonomy and religious freedom must yield to the child’s right of “physical integrity.” The ruling did not set a national precedent, but it put an accepted practice under a legal cloud — to the point where the German Medical Association advised doctors to stop elective circumcisions for the time being.
To her credit, Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized the ruling, and last week the German parliament passed a resolution calling for legislation that would clarify the law to permit Jewish and Muslim practices. But at least one German opinion poll suggests that the public opposes such a law.
Meanwhile, the Cologne case reverberates. On Tuesday, the governor of the Austrian state of Vorarlberg ordered public hospitals to cease religious circumcisions in view of the ruling. In Zurich, the children’s hospital has suspended circumcisions until at least next month, pending a review of what a spokesman called “medical and ethical issues” raised by the Cologne court.
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