German court declares circumcisions a crime

[Reffo]

I don't agree with most of the points you are making for circumcision, and I'm honestly stating as much. I don't think the dubious medical benefits can justify it, and I do think that it is a non-consensual physical interference just like cutting off someone's useless pinky toe. I consider that to be physical harm. But I consider that the physical harm is JUSTIFIED in some cases - like for Jews, where this is a very significant cultural practice which far outweighs the relatively minor physical interference/harm. I think though that in many cases, in the general population, where they do it for silly reasons like 'we wanted him to look like his dad', circumcision really isn't justifiable

You don't agree with the hygiene issue? You don't agree with the fact that circumcised men tend to catch STDs less readily? You don't agree with the many other points that dayag raised? But you claim that circumcision is akin to cutting off the pinkie toe. And to female circumcision? Yet, you are against the banning of male circumcision? Well I have to say that if I held your views, which I am not, I would be in favour of banning male circumcision, even for religious reasons in the same way that I favour banning female circumcision. But as it is, I am NOT in favour of banning male circumcision because I don't agree that it is a form of harming a male infant in the same way that female circumcision harms females.

Well, assuming your nails stayed a constant length (i.e. they don't grow and so don't raise the risk of injuring your infant) then I'd be inclined to say parents shouldn't be messing with them for no good reason... Yeah...

Yeah, that sums up your position. Male circumcision is just as harmless as clipping the finger nails, irrespective of whether the finger nails grow back or not. Yet you are talking about "the principle of causing harm to others". I just don't get it ...

[curlyg]

You don't agree with the hygiene issue?

How about washing? Do you need to non-consensually cut off part of someone's body for this?

You don't agree with the fact that circumcised men tend to catch STDs less readily?

How about condoms? Do you need to non-consensually cut off part of someone's body for this?

You don't agree with the many other points that dayag raised?

Addressed previously.

But you claim that circumcision is akin to cutting off the pinkie toe. And to female circumcision?

In that they're all kinds of physical interference, as I made clear, yes.

Yet, you are against the banning of male circumcision?

Right.

Well I have to say that if I held your views, which I am not, I would be in favour of banning male circumcision, even for religious reasons in the same way that I favour banning female circumcision.

The difference is one of degree, not of kind. FGM is extremely harmful and is used to perpetuate the subordination of women - it produces no cultural utility to compensate for the severe physical harm being inflicted. Circumcision is a relatively minor interference, but the cultural utility of belonging, compliance with cultural practice, religious compliance, etc. are all net positives which by far outweigh the physical harm caused by circumcision.

But as it is, I am NOT in favour of banning male circumcision because I don't agree that it is a form of harming a male infant in the same way that female circumcision harms females.

You keep asserting that, but you don't make any attempt to substantiate it. I've given my criteria repeatedly - a permanent non-consensual interference with the natural state of the human body is harmful. You've made no effort to refute it or suggest some alternative, you've just restated your opinion repeatedly.

Yeah, that sums up your position. Male circumcision is just as harmless as clipping the finger nails, irrespective of whether the finger nails grow back or not. Yet you are talking about "the principle of causing harm to others". I just don't get it ...

They're not analogous in the slightest, as I've already made clear. One is not permanent, the other is. One involves removing an asymptomatic part of the body which serves some purpose, the other involves removing a part of the body that serves no purpose (i.e. excess growth in the fingernails).

Let's try this thought experiment. Assume, as you've suggested, that fingernails don't grow back. You only get one for each finger. Do you think it should be legal for parents to completely remove the functional part of the infant's fingernails (i.e. the parts which are not mere excess and pose no danger to the infant's wellbeing)? Do you support parents carrying out completely unnecessary and dangerous surgeries to remove the appendix in infants as Aliyah has indicated sometimes occur? These kinds of practices seem to me to be pretty unethical to me, I'd be quite surprised if you didn't feel the same way in that regard.

[Reffo]

How about washing? Do you need to non-consensually cut off part of someone's body for this?

Despite washing, males with foreskins suffer greater incidences of problems associated with hygiene related issues.

How about condoms? Do you need to non-consensually cut off part of someone's body for this?

Condoms are not always available. Some men don't always use them. Being circumcised at least offers some protection. Not full proof of course but you cannot discount the benefit. It is statistically significant.

You don't agree with the many other points that dayag raised?

Addressed previously

Not really. All you said was that the benefits are not sufficiently quantified. That's your opinion, the rest of us feel that all benefits are worth while especially since there are NO adverse effects that those millions of us who are circumcised are worried about (a significant majority of us if you want to be pedantic).

In that they're all kinds of physical interference, as I made clear, yes.

Yes you also made it clear that if the finger nails would not grow back then you would oppose clipping the finger nails of children. To the rest of us, that is just being trivial.

The difference is one of degree, not of kind. FGM is extremely harmful and is used to perpetuate the subordination of women - it produces no cultural utility to compensate for the severe physical harm being inflicted. Circumcision is a relatively minor interference, but the cultural utility of belonging, compliance with cultural practice, religious compliance, etc. are all net positives which by far outweigh the physical harm caused by circumcision

Let's just be clear about this shall we? I agree that the differences are a matter of degree. Male circumcision is trivial that's why it is the parents right to decide to do it. Female circumcision is harmful. That's why female circumcision should be banned.

However, if I would hold the same opinion about male circumcision as you seem to. That it is a kind of non consensual mutilation, then I would oppose it too on the same basis as I oppose female circumcision. That's being non arbitrary and consistent.

You keep asserting that, but you don't make any attempt to substantiate it. I've given my criteria repeatedly - a permanent non-consensual interference with the natural state of the human body is harmful. You've made no effort to refute it or suggest some alternative, you've just restated your opinion repeatedly

I justified myself at least as much as your attempted justifications for opposing circumcision. The only thing that you seem to hang your hat on is the fact that a piece of skin must not be removed non consensually during infancy. Yet it is a known fact that it's removal at later life can cause more trauma.

I have hundreds of millions of participants on my side who don't miss that piece of skin. What do you have?

They're not analogous in the slightest, as I've already made clear. One is not permanent, the other is. One involves removing an asymptomatic part of the body which serves some purpose, the other involves removing a part of the body that serves no purpose (i.e. excess growth in the fingernails)

That sounds to me like a big brother telling me that it is my duty to miss a useless bit of skin. Well then, hear this curlyg, I don't miss it. And neither do the vast majority of hundreds of millions of men who have been circumcised world wide for thousands of years. You keep on ignoring that.

Let's try this thought experiment. Assume, as you've suggested, that fingernails don't grow back. You only get one for each finger. Do you think it should be legal for parents to completely remove the functional part of the infant's fingernails (i.e. the parts which are not mere excess and pose no danger to the infant's wellbeing)? Do you support parents carrying out completely unnecessary and dangerous surgeries to remove the appendix in infants as Aliyah has indicated sometimes occur? These kinds of practices seem to me to be pretty unethical to me, I'd be quite surprised if you didn't feel the same way in that regard.

Only if removing it would serve some worth while benefits. Can you think of any? I can't. But we sure listed benefits associated with male circumcision. You don't have to accept them but suffice it to say that millions of us are convinced that there ARE worth while benefits.

[dayag]

update from German Ambassador:

German Ambassador to Israel Andreas Michaelis told a Knesset committee on Monday that Berlin will introduce legislation allowing circumcision to be practiced in the country.

Speaking before the Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs Committee, Michaelis said a law will be introduced overturning a recent court ruling that banned circumcision in Cologne because it violates children’s rights...

source: http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/Jew...aspx?id=276876

[dayag]

Austrian governor joins anti-Islamic, anti-Jewish Religious freedom party.

The governor of Vorarlberg has told hospitals run by Austria's westernmost province to suspend circumcisions motivated by religious custom, citing a German regional court ruling that the practice amounted to causing criminal bodily harm.

Markus Wallner says he sees the German decision last month, arising from the case of a child whose circumcision led to medical complications, as "precedence-setting judgment."

He told provincial hospitals Tuesday not to perform the procedure except for health reasons until the legal situation is clarified in Austria.

The decision does not affect religiously motivated circumcisions performed outside hospitals run by the Vorarlberg government, and comes a week after two Swiss hospitals announced that they would temporarily stop performing circumcisions.

source: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/...sions-1.453361

[dayag]

Thank you Justice Minister Karl!

Doctors in Austria's westernmost province have been cleared to resume circumcisions after the Justice Ministry reassured them that they can perform the religious practice without risking criminal charges, officials said on Monday.

Spooked by a regional court ruling in neighboring Germany that the practice supported by Muslims and Jews amounted to physical abuse, the governor of Austria's Vorarlberg province last week advised doctors to suspend it, triggering a heated debate.

Another state governor came out in favor of a national ban.

Austria's Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim leaders united in defence of circumcision on Friday, condemning calls to limit the practice as an attack on religion and demanding that the government clarify its legality.

A letter from Justice Minister Beatrix Karl giving the legal all clear has now helped assuage concerns, a spokesman for Vorarlberg Governor Markus Wallner said...

source: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/...sions-1.454759

[dayag]

Now the Norwegian ombudsman thinks she has the right to tell the world's Jews and Muslims how to practice their religions.

THE HAGUE - Norway’s ombudsman for children's rights has proposed that Jews and Muslim replace male circumcision with a symbolic, nonsurgical ritual.

Dr. Anne Lindboe told the newspaper Vart Land last month that circumcision in boys was a violation of a person’s right to decide over his own body. “Muslim and Jewish children are entitled to the same protection as all other children,“ she said. She added that the practice caused unnecessary pain and was medically unbeneficial...

Ervin Kohn, president of The Jewish Community of Oslo, said that Norwegian Jews “will not be able to live in a society where circumcision is forbidden.” He noted that the mandate of Norway’s children’s ombudsman did not extend to devising Jewish rituals. Norway has a Jewish community of about 700.

In June, a spokesperson for Norway’s Center Party, which has 11 out of 169 seats in parliament, proposed a ban on circumcision in babies.

source: http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/Jew...aspx?id=280251

[dayag]

A decision in the Cologne District court is being used by Bavarian prosecutors?

Jewish groups and Israeli politicians on Wednesday lashed out at German authorities after Bavarian prosecutors filed criminal charges against Rabbi David Goldberg for performing a circumcision.

The rabbi has been slapped with charges of committing bodily harm, in the first known case to arise from an anti-circumcision ruling in May...

source: http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/Jew...aspx?id=282134

Goldberg, 64, a Jerusalem native living in Hof Saale in Bavaria, told JTA he had not yet received a notice from the court. He said he would decide what to do after he had seen it. The charge was confirmed to the main Jewish newspaper of Germany, the Juedische Allgemeine Zeitung.

The rabbi also said he did not know what act the charges could refer to, since he has not performed any circumcisions recently in Germany. “Only abroad: in Budapest, in the Czech Republic, in Italy,” he said.

source: http://forward.com/articles/161461/g...circumcisions/

[Pleepleus]

Intactivists have been ignoring medical studies and lying through their teeth for years, but the evidence has been building that the benefits of neonatal male circumcision outweigh the risks and the American Academy of Pediatrics is now speaking clearly on the topic.

So, in your face to the liars who claim there are no medical benefits to circumcising baby boys!

For the first time in more than a decade, the American Academy of Pediatrics has revised its policy on male circumcision showing more support for the procedure, yet stopping short of recommending routine circumcision.

The academy, the leading U.S. pediatric group, now says the health benefits of circumcision outweigh the risks and that families who choose to circumcise their baby boys should be able to.

"The tone of the policy certainly shifts somewhat in favor of circumcision in that it recognizes that there are clear medical benefits that outweigh the risks of the procedure, and that those benefits are sufficient to justify coverage by insurance," said Dr. Douglas Diekema, a member of the academy's circumcision task force...

But Dr. Marvin Wang, director of newborn nurseries at MassGeneral Hospital for Children and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, said that the contents of the new statement and the academy's shift toward circumcision are not surprising.

"[b]This new policy still puts the decision-making in parents' hands[b]," Wang said. "But what the AAP says now is, 'We have enough to say that you can make the decision based on religion, cultural and family issues. But guess what? You can now throw health in as a reason for doing it if you want to.'"

source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1826069.html

[dayag]

The American Academy of Pediatrics is being joined by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists!

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists announced that it would endorse the findings and stated that the report would help clinicians in advising parents of the health benefits and risks of male newborn circumcision in an unbiased and accurate manner.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...273512,00.html

[dayag]

I'm happy physicians will be able to carry out circumcisions, but the Berlin authorities need to legalize mohels and traditional Jewish Brit Milah.

One of Germany’s 16 states has declared circumcision legal.

Berlin, Germany’s capital and itself a state, is the first to declare the practice legal following Cologne court ruled in June that non-medical circumcisions on children amounted to a criminal offense, according to DPA, a German news wire. National legislation is also pending to legalize circumcision.

The state has authorized only doctors, and not mohels, to perform circumcisions. National legislation could authorize mohels. The state also required that parents be informed of the procedure’s medical risks before consenting, and that doctors do everything possible during the procedure to reduce pain and limit bleeding.

source: http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/Jew...aspx?id=283934

[dayag]

This is exactly what I expected.

BERLIN – The representative assembly of Berlin’s Jewish community objected on Thursday to an administrative order issued by the Berlin senator for justice and consumer protection outlining stringent new conditions for circumcision.

Sen. Thomas Heilmann from the Christian Democratic Union party posted his directive on the city’s website, including the specification that Jewish ritual be performed by a doctor rather than a mohel.

The Jewish assembly of the 10,500-strong community wrote in a statement that it “took notice” of Heilmann’s decree and slammed the decision as a “flagrant intervention in the over-3,000-year tradition of Judaism.”

The assembly said it “unanimously rejected the statement of the Senate for justice and consumer protection administration.”

Berlin, which is both the capital city of Germany and a federal state, will continue to criminalize circumcision unless it is performed by a doctor and the state advises the parents of the risk associated with male circumcision...

source: http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/Jew...aspx?id=284197

[JerichoMissile]

everyone her eshould stop whinging about what germany is doing, germany is a sovereign country than can ban anything or make any laws they want, if your a jew in germany
and you dont like it, tough luck, your a jew living in germany, your living as the minority in a country whos great grandpaprents wanted and nearly succeeded to wipe our people out, if you dont like it, you know what to do (move to israel), thats probably why the germans are doing this law because they want all the jews to leave probably for good. not some rubbish about
how circumcision is 'dangerous' etc...

[dayag]

everyone her eshould stop whinging about what germany is doing, germany is a sovereign country than can ban anything or make any laws they want, if your a jew in germany
and you dont like it, tough luck, your a jew living in germany, your living as the minority in a country whos great grandpaprents wanted and nearly succeeded to wipe our people out, if you dont like it, you know what to do (move to israel), thats probably why the germans are doing this law because they want all the jews to leave probably for good. not some rubbish about
how circumcision is 'dangerous' etc...

Germany is a democracy and German Jews and Muslims have every right to complain and make their voices heard. It is their country too.

I doubt the Berlin Abgeordnetenhaus crafted this law legalizing circumcision by doctors in order to increase Jewish emigration. Keep in mind that the Federal government will be crafting their law soon to legalize circumcision when their summer break ends later this month.

Jews and Muslims are protesting together:

Jews and Muslims gathered in Berlin on Sunday to demonstrate against a controversial circumcision court ruling, Deutsche Welle reported.

According to the report, some of the protesters said they could not live in Germany if the practice is outlawed...

Rabbi Yitzhak Ehrenberg showed demonstrators a letter of complaint he received from state prosecutors after he encouraged his congregation to adhere to the millennia-long tradition of circumcision.

"I will say it once more: We're going to continue," the rabbi shouted to applause from the demonstrators.

Another attendee at the protest was Kenan Kolat, who heads the Turkish Community in Germany.

Kolat, a Muslim, said that Muslims and Jews must work together to ensure that circumcision remains legal. He added that more Muslim parents are beginning to take trips to Turkey to have their sons circumcised in the wake of the Cologne court's decision...

The policy will apply until the German parliament passes legislation on the issue, subsequent to recommendations made last month by a parliamentary ethics committee.

source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Ne...9#.UE5fxYejgfw

[Aliyah1995]

everyone her eshould stop whinging about what germany is doing, germany is a sovereign country than can ban anything or make any laws they want, if your a jew in germany
and you dont like it, tough luck, your a jew living in germany, your living as the minority in a country whos great grandpaprents wanted and nearly succeeded to wipe our people out, if you dont like it, you know what to do (move to israel), thats probably why the germans are doing this law because they want all the jews to leave probably for good. not some rubbish about
how circumcision is 'dangerous' etc...

JM,

While I have trouble understanding why Israelis are moving to Germany (the thought makes me want to vomit), there are many Jews who were born in Germany and that is their home. They are used to it. They are used to the language, culture, etc. They are not just going to pack up and move to Israel just like that (just like most American Jews are not going to pack up and move to Israel). Like Dayag says, Germany is a Democracy, and Jews (and Muslims) have a right to practice their religion. Any Western country that treats Judaism with contempt, quite frankly, has no place in the Democratic, Western world.