Topic: German Court rules religious circumcision a crime
Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
quote:RT.com A German court has ruled that parents can’t have their sons circumcised on religious grounds in a move which has angered Muslim and Jewish groups in the country.
The court in Cologne decided that a legal guardian’s authority over a child does not allow them to subject them to the procedure, which the court called minor bodily harm, reports The Financial Times Deutschland.
Neither does religious freedom, which is protected by law in Germany, give grounds for such decisions to be taken for the children, the ruling says.
The court was considering a case against a Muslim doctor, who performed circumcision on a four-year-old boy at his parents’ request. Two days after the procedure bleeding started, after which the boy had to be taken to hospital.
German authorities learned about the incident and launched a criminal investigation against the doctor. The initial court trial ruled that there was no violation of the law, but the prosecutor’s office took the case to the Cologne district court.
The decision sets a precedent, which may affect medical practice across the country. The possible ban on circumcision provoked outrage among Jewish and Muslim organizations in Germany, where every year thousands of boys are circumcised in their early years at the request of parents. They regard the ban as a "serious interference in the right to freedom of religion." But none of the organizations so far has commented on the verdict, explaining they first need to study thoroughly the reasoning of the judges.
Some experts however don’t rule out that the right for religiously motivated circumcision will be considered by the Federal Constitutional Court.
I figured I post this before you know who does.
I am against this practice but I find this ruling very uncomfortable, in germany of all places to boot. I think the focus should be on getting non-religious for "hygiene" circumcisions to stop first as that's simply a matter of ignorance.
IP: Logged |
posted
Tell that to my painfully serious surgery at age 12. Ignorance my bleeding penis!
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
That's a proper medical reason, not the "Let's have our child circumcised because otherwise the other boys will make fun of him." that happens.
IP: Logged |
posted
Ugh. All of this arguing about circumcision LITERALLY nearly made me soil myself out in society because I have stress related stomach problems. I need to try to not argue about it, but dang it, babies really should have the right to make that decision when they grow up.
That is not unreasonable.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
Round 54257 of the Hatrack Circumcision Debate begins!
Remember, fight fair, no direct insults and no hitting below the belt unless they have had ample time to heal since the procedure.
Posts: 2302 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
The Maasai circumcise at puberty as a rite of passage to manhood. No anesthetic, just a big (not always clean) knife wielded by an elder. Takes them several weeks to heal.
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Since I was circumcised at puberty, I am glad my parents were Episcopalian and not Maasai, as I had a general anesthetic, and (I assume) a very clean scalpel.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
today i described Metzitzeh B'peh to someone today and he really seriously thought i was having him on and he refused to believe it
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's horrible. The cutting shouldn't be done and definitely NOT metziteh B'peh. UGH! Why can't there be a tradition of being kind and gentle and buying a baby an awesome guitar or something?
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Thus, it became quite common in the Jewish world to perform metzitzah via a safe method, such as a sterilized glass tube. This removes all risk and is almost the universal practice today, although some ultra-Orthodox communities, most notably Hassidic Jews and some communities in Israel, continue to use the oral method.
quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: Ugh. All of this arguing about circumcision LITERALLY nearly made me soil myself out in society because I have stress related stomach problems. I need to try to not argue about it,
Look, is there really any reasonable indication, either on your or our end that you will ACTUALLY stop arguing about even the stuff you admit you should not be arguing about?
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Why am I the wrong one here? I'm stating DON'T cut babies. Leave the choice up to him. That's really not that unreasonable when you start to think about it.
Plus there are still folks who insist on the oral suction and don't bother using the pipette. If children are dying from herpes as a result of oral suction, you'd think they'd stop doing this, but it would be nice if people stopped cutting the genitals of babies in general. There's science and several millions of years of evolution to consider too... Why should i change my mind about cutting infant's genitals?
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Given the tacit threat that she will literally crap her pants if you argue with her, who would?
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: Why am I the wrong one here? I'm stating DON'T cut babies. Leave the choice up to him. That's really not that unreasonable when you start to think about it.
Plus there are still folks who insist on the oral suction and don't bother using the pipette. If children are dying from herpes as a result of oral suction, you'd think they'd stop doing this, but it would be nice if people stopped cutting the genitals of babies in general. There's science and several millions of years of evolution to consider too... Why should i change my mind about cutting infant's genitals?
The thing is that you have spent approximately forever stating that you know you shouldn't be arguing these things and that all these bad things and bad feelings result from it and you really don't want to think about it and shouldn't even discuss the subject, but then you pretty much never actually stop arguing about it.
You've had it recommended to you pretty much constantly that yes, you should indeed follow through with the whole not-arguing part, but barring that you should probably at least stop constantly bringing up how much this terribly distresses you to end up arguing about it anyway or constantly mentioning that you shouldn't be arguing about it anyway, if you're just going to keep arguing about these things that unreasonably distress you pretty much no matter what.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
If you believe that God insists you circumcise your child, I won't try to stop you.
If you choose to be circumcised yourself, hey, go for it. I have no problem with circumciscion, only circumcision-without-consent.
If you circumcise someone without their consent for any other reason other than valid medical reason ("it helps prevent AIDS!" is not a valid medical reason), then I have a problem with you.
Your son may grow up like me: he may resent his parents permanently altering his body for no good reason. Whatever you think the benefits are, do they really outweigh the possibility that your son resents you later? That, not every day, but frequently, for the rest of his life, will be angry that you did this to him?
Let him choose. There's a reason why countries in Europe don't have a circumcised adult population. People mostly *don't* choose to do it when given the choice. That should tell you something.
Please be prepared to look your son in the eye, when he is 23 and talks to you about this, to say, "I knew you might grow up to be anti-circumcision, and resent me for doing this to you without your consent, but I felt the benefits were more important. I made the right decision, and even though you're upset with me, I'm not sorry. I am sorry you are upset, but I'm still not sorry I did it. It was the right choice."
How do you think that will make him feel? Perhaps that his feelings don't matter? That is a very unpleasant feeling, let me tell you.
Posts: 454 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
My parents thought along the same lines, which is why I was uncircumcised at age 12 when I got a nasty infection, and needed to have a very painful and serious (general anesthesia) surgery with weeks of down time and a lot of pain, right when I was just starting to figure out what my little friend was for.
So, yea, I wouldn't have had a problem if they had nipped me as a babe. Even after all that I did research before deciding with my wife what to do for our son. And we did decide, after talking with his MD.
If he has a problem with that as an adult, then I say "Great!" because that means his life will be in such a good place that a painless (local anesthesia) out patient surgery which was doctor recommended twenty plus years ago is a current problem for him.
I hope that being circumcised as an infant is the biggest problem he will have to deal with in his adult life! That would be awesome!
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
I am against the practice and feel that aside from medical reasons you should never circumcise your children unless its for *important* religious or cultural reasons, just in case.
People doing it for purely aestetic reasons disturb me, my rational is this:
If your community is such that no matter where you are in the world, hypothetically lets call you the Seiyoujins, know at sight that because of a special earing you got when you were pierced as a child; that you are a member of this community; with its shared history, culture, practices, and sense of shared suffering in a world of oppression; then I think a non lethal minor injuring in the ear to be a small price to pay as the price of entry into that community.
From what I know medically of circumcision, it's not much different from trimming your fingernails... Where your fingernails never grow back...
IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I am against the practice and feel that aside from medical reasons you should never circumcise your children unless its for *important* religious or cultural reasons, just in case.
Why would the parents' religious or cultural reasons trump their son's medical rights?!
Posts: 4519 | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged |
Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Price of entry into 6000 years of history.
IP: Logged |
posted
No, circumcision is more like someone peeling off the nail, cutting around the tip of your finger and peeling the skin off. Look, it's the child's body, ok? A person's genitals are THEIR jurisdiction. No one has the right to alter them without the consent of the person who owns them. It doesn't matter if it's religion or culture. People don't have the right to even prick a girl's clitoris for religious reasons, yet an entire foreskin can be cut off. It really isn't right. A person's right to having a whole body should trump everything, I think.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I think it should... I'd up and move to another culture, but I don't really give much of a flying pig about cultures to a certain extent if they are asking me to do something to a child that makes me go, really? Why is this necessary? It's not like you'll even SEE it. No thanks. There's other communities that would welcome someone without cutting off part of them.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:...they are asking me to do something to a child that makes me go, really? Why is this necessary? It's not like you'll even SEE it. No thanks. There's other communities that would welcome someone without cutting off part of them.
This has actually happened to you? Someone asked you to circumcise your child?
quote:Originally posted by Corwin: Sorry, I was asking for rational reasons.
You are asking for rational reasons of religion? I think that makes you irrational.
Religion requires the belief of something beyond mere fact. Might as well demand that apples taste like oranges.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
You don't have to ask a rational reason of religion; instead, you can state that practitioners of this particular cultural habit have to provide a reason for its permission that succeeds a secular test.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Angst]](graemlins/angst.gif)
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
Color me surprised.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
