Circumcision and law
Encyclopedia
There exist laws restricting or regulating circumcision
, some dating back to ancient times. In a number of modern states, circumcision is presumed to be legal, but under certain circumstances, more general laws, such as laws about assault or child custody, may sometimes be interpreted as applying to situations involving circumcision. Some countries have placed restrictions on circumcision.
. The Hebrew Bible
commands Jews to circumcise their male children on the eighth day of life, and to circumcise their male slaves .
Laws banning circumcision are also ancient. The ancient Greeks
prized the foreskin and disapproved of the Jewish custom of circumcision. 1 Maccabees
, 1:60–61 states that King Antiochus IV
of Syria
, the occupying power of Judea
in 170 BCE, outlawed circumcision on penalty of death. one of the grievances leading to the Maccabean Revolt.
According to the Historia Augusta, the Roman
emperor Hadrian
issued a decree banning circumcision in the empire, and some modern scholars argue that this was a main cause of the Jewish Bar Kokhba
revolt of 132 CE. The Roman historian Cassius Dio, however, made no mention of such a law, and blamed the Jewish uprising instead on Hadrian's decision to rebuild Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina
, a city dedicated to Jupiter.
Antoninus Pius
permitted Jews to circumcise their own sons. However, he forbade the circumcision of non-Jews that were either foreign-slaves or non-Jewish members of the household, contrary to He also made it illegal for a man to convert to Judaism. Antoninus Pius exempted the Egypt
ian priesthood from the otherwise universal ban on circumcision.
Criminal Code, routine circumcision of a male infant could be regarded as a criminal act", and that doctors who perform circumcision on male infants may be liable to civil claims by that child at a later date. No prosecutions have occurred in Queensland, and circumcisions continue to be performed.
In a case of sexual assault
in Queensland, Australia (1997), a district court awarded a man damages for nervous shock after a botched attempt to circumcise him with a broken beer bottle in a drunken attack. Making Australian legal history, the award was made against the assailant for unlawful wounding.
In 1999, a Perth
man won $A360,000 in damages after a doctor admitted he botched a circumcision operation at birth which left the man with a badly deformed penis.
In 2002, Queensland police charged a father with grievous bodily harm for having his two sons, then aged nine and five, circumcised without the knowledge and against the wishes of the mother. The mother and father were in a family court dispute. The charges were dropped when the police prosecutor revealed that he did not have all family court paperwork in court and the magistrate refused to grant an adjournment.
Cosmetic circumcision for newborn males is currently banned in all Australian public hospitals, South Australia being the last state to adopt the ban in 2007. In the same year, the Tasmanian President of the Australian Medical Association, Haydn Walters, stated that they would support a call to ban circumcision for non-medical, non-religious reasons. In 2009, the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute released its Issues Paper investigating the law relating to male circumcision in Tasmania, it "highlights the uncertainty in relation to whether doctors can legally perform circumcision on infant males".
The passage of the Human Rights Act 1998
has led to some speculation that the lawfulness of the circumcision of male children is unclear.
One 1999 case, Re "J" (child's religious upbringing and circumcision) said that circumcision in Britain required the consent of all those with parental responsibility, or the permission of the court, acting for the best interests of the child, and issued an order prohibiting the circumcision of a male child of a non-practicing Muslim
father and non-practicing Christian
mother with custody. The reasoning included evidence that circumcision carried some medical risk; that the operation would be likely to weaken the relationship of the child with his mother, who strongly objected to circumcision without medical necessity
; that the child may be subject to ridicule by his peers as the odd one out and that the operation might irreversibly reduce sexual pleasure, by permanently removing some sensory nerves, even though cosmetic foreskin restoration might be possible. The court did not rule out circumcision against the consent of one parent. It cited a hypothetical case of a Jewish mother and an agnostic father with a number of sons, all of whom, by agreement, had been circumcised as infants in accordance with Jewish laws; the parents then have another son who is born after they have separated; the mother wishes him to be circumcised like his brothers; the father refuses his agreement. In such a case, a decision in favor of circumcision was said to be likely.
In 2001 the General Medical Council had found a doctor who had botched circumcision operations guilty of abusing his professional position and that he had acted "inappropriately and irresponsibly", and struck him off the register. A doctor who had referred patients to him, and who had pressured a mother into agreeing to the surgery, was also condemned. He was put on an 18 month period of review and retraining, and was allowed to resume unrestricted practice as a doctor in March 2003, after a committee found that he had complied with conditions it placed on him. According to the Northern Echo, he "told the committee he has now changed his approach to circumcision referrals, accepting that most cases can be treated without the need for surgery.".
Fox and Thomson (2005) argue that consent cannot be given for non-therapeutic circumcision. They say there is "no compelling legal authority for the common view that circumcision is lawful."
In 2005 a Muslim man had his son circumcised against the wishes of the child's mother who was the custodial parent. He was found not guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm by a majority verdict of the jury.
In 2009 it was reported that a 20 year old man whose father had him ritually circumcised as a baby is preparing to sue the doctor who circumcised him. This is believed to be the first time a person who was circumcised as an infant has made a claim in the UK. The case is expected to be heard in 2010.
court ruled that the circumcision of a four-year-old boy arranged by his mother, who is Muslim, to be an illegal assault. The boy's father, who had not been consulted, reported the incident to the police. A local prosecutor stated that the prohibition of genital mutilation is not gender-specific in Finnish law. A lawyer for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health stated that there is neither legislation nor prohibition on male circumcision, and that "the operations have been performed on the basis of common law." The case was appealed and in October 2008 the Finnish Supreme Court ruled that the circumcision, " carried out for religious and social reasons and in a medical manner, did not have the earmarks of a criminal offence. It pointed out in its ruling that the circumcision of Muslim boys is an established tradition and an integral part of the identity of Muslim men". In 2008, the Finnish government was reported to be considering a new law to legalise circumcision if the practitioner is a doctor and if the child consents.
In February 2010, a Jewish couple were fined for causing bodily harm to their then infant son who was circumcised in 2008 by a mohel
brought in from the UK. Normal procedure for persons of Jewish faith in Finland is to have a locally certified mohel who work in Finnish healthcare perform the operation. In the 2008 case, the infant was not anesthetized and developed complications that required immediate hospital care. The parents were ordered to pay 1500 euros in damages to their child.
national who performed ritual circumcisions on seven boys was convicted of causing dangerous bodily harm by the state court in Düsseldorf
.
In September 2007, a Frankfurt am Main
appeals court found that the circumcision of an 11 year old boy without his approval was an unlawful personal injury. Reportedly, the boy, whose parents are divorced, was visiting his Muslim father during a vacation when his father forced him to be ritually circumcised. According to a report by the German ddp press agency, the boy, who lives with his mother, plans to sue his father for 10,000 Euro.
n man was cleared of a charge of reckless endangerment over the death of a baby from haemorrhage and shock after he had circumcised the child. The judge directed the jury not to "bring what he called their white western values to bear when they were deciding this case" and after deliberating for an hour and a half they found the defendant not guilty.
, Jewish circumcision is entirely legal, as is after-death circumcision. In 1999, the Israeli Supreme Court
overruled an attempt to have after-death circumcision outlawed.
was a Member of the Netherlands Parliament she asked it to consider making the circumcision of male children unlawful. In May 2008 a father who had his two sons, aged 3 and 6 circumcised against the will of their mother was found not guilty of causing them serious physical harm but was given a 6 week suspended jail sentence for taking the boys away from their mother against her will.
In 2004, a 22 year old Rastafarian convert was forcibly circumcised by a group of Xhosa tribal elders and relatives. When he first fled, two police returned him to those who had circumcised him. In another case, a medically circumcised Xhosa man was forcibly recircumcised by his father and community leaders. He laid a charge of unfair discrimination on the grounds of his religious beliefs, seeking an apology from his father and the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa. According to South African newspapers, the subsequent trial became "a landmark case around forced circumcision." In October 2009, the Bhisho Equality Court (High Court) ruled that, in South Africa, circumcision is unlawful unless done with the full consent of the initiate.
enacted a law allowing only persons certified by the National Board of Health to circumcise infants. It requires a medical doctor or an anesthesia nurse to accompany the circumciser and for anaesthetic to be applied beforehand. After the first two months of life circumcisions can only be performed by a physician
. The stated purpose of the law was to increase the safety of the procedure.
Swedish Jews and Muslims objected to the law, and in 2001, the World Jewish Congress
called it "the first legal restriction on Jewish religious practice in Europe since the Nazi era." The requirement for an anaesthetic to be administered by a medical professional is a major issue, and the low degree of availability of certified professionals willing to conduct circumcision has also been subject to criticism. According to a survey, two out of three paediatric surgeons said they refuse to perform non-therapeutic circumcision, and less than half of all county council
s offer it in their hospitals. However, in 2006, the U.S. State Department stated, in a report on Sweden, that most Jewish mohel
s had been certified under the law and 3000 Muslim and 40-50 Jewish boys were circumcised each
year. An estimated 2000 of these are performed by persons who are neither physicians nor have officially recognised certification.
The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare reviewed the law in 2005 and recommended that it be maintained, but found that the law had failed with regard to the intended consequence of increasing the safety of circumcisions. A later report by the Board criticised the low level of availability of legal circumcisions, partly due to reluctance among health professionals. To remedy this, the report suggested a new law obliging all county councils to offer non-therapeutic circumcision in their hospitals, but this was later abandoned in favour of a non-binding recommendation.
who circumcise children must take care that all applicable rules regarding informed consent are satisfied. If consent is invalid, then a circumcision is a battery.
CNN reported in 2005 that a California group has submitted to Congress a bill entitled the "Male Genital Mutilation Bill". The report stated that while it's unlikely the bill will go anywhere in the near future, it raises important questions about gender equality, religious freedom, and the protection of children. After a failed attempt to add a similar bill to a San Francisco ballot, the state of California enacted in October 2011 a law protecting circumcision from local attempts to ban the practice.
Disputes between parents
Occasionally the courts are asked to make a ruling when parents cannot agree on whether or not to circumcise a child.
In January 2001 a dispute between divorcing parents in New Jersey was resolved when the mother, who sought to have the boy circumcised withdrew her request. The boy had experienced two instances of foreskin inflammation and she wanted to have him circumcised. The father, who had experienced a traumatic circumcision as a child objected and they turned to the courts for a decision. The Medical Society of New Jersey and the Urological Society of New Jersey both opposed any court ordered medical treatment. As the parties came to an agreement, no precedent was set. In June 2001 a Nevada court settled a dispute over circumcision between two parents but put a strict gag order on the terms of the settlement. In July 2001 a dispute between parents in Kansas
over circumcision was resolved when the mother's request to have the infant circumcised was withdrawn. In this case the father opposed circumcision while the mother asserted that not circumcising the child was against her religious beliefs. (The woman's pastor had stated that circumcision was "important" but was not necessary for salvation.) On 24 July 2001 the parents reached agreement that the infant would not be circumcised.
On 14 July 2004 a mother appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court to prevent the circumcision of her son after a county court and the Court of Appeals had denied her a writ of prohibition. However, in early August 2004, before the Supreme Court had given its ruling, the father, who had custody of the boy, had him circumcised.
In October 2006 a judge in Chicago
granted an injunction blocking the circumcision of a 9 year old boy. In granting the injunction the judge stated that "the boy could decide for himself whether to be circumcised when he turns 18."
In November 2007, the Oregon Supreme Court
heard arguments from a divorced Oregon
couple over the circumcision of their son. The father wants his son, who turned 13 on 2 March 2008, to be circumcised; the child's mother opposes the procedure. The parents dispute whether the boy is in favor of the procedure. A group opposed to circumcision filed briefs in support of the mother's position, while some Jewish groups filed a brief in support of the father. On 25 January 2008, the Court returned the case to the trial court with instructions to determine whether the child agrees or objects to the proposed circumcision. The father appealed to the US Supreme Court to allow him to have his son circumcised but his appeal was rejected. The case now returns to the trial court.
Other disputes
In September 2004 the North Dakota Supreme Court
rejected a mother's attempt to prosecute her doctor for circumcising her child without fully informing her of the consequences of the procedure. The judge and jury found that the defendants were adequately informed of possible complications, and the jury further found that it is not incumbent on the doctors to describe every "insignificant" risk.
In February 2004 in California
, a man argued that he was Hebrew and circumcised his son out of religious duty. The judge ruled "it is only illegal if one mutilates a female -- there is nothing in the penal code about a male child.". However, in December 2004 in Vancouver, Washington
, a man was convicted of second degree child assault after he attempted to circumcise his son with a hunting knife and was sentenced to serve three years in jail.
In March 2009 a Fulton County, Ga.
, State Court jury awarded $2.3 million in damages to a 4-year-old boy and his mother for a botched circumcision in which too much tissue was removed causing permanent disfigurement.
In August 2010 an eight day old boy was circumcised in a Florida hospital against the stated wishes of the parents. The hospital admitted that the boy was circumcised by mistake, but the mother has sued the hospital and the doctor involved in the case.
, according to an article in The Jewish Press
, Jewish ritual circumcision was forbidden in the USSR. However, David E. Fishman, professor of Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
, states that, whereas the heder
and yeshiva
, the organs of Jewish education, "were banned by virtue of the law separating church and school, and subjected to tough police and administrative actions," circumcision was not proscribed by law or suppressed by executive measures.
Jehoshua A. Gilboa writes that while circumcision was not officially or explicitly banned, pressure was exerted to make it difficult. Mohel
s in particular were concerned that they could be punished for any health issue that might develop, even if it arose some time after the circumcision.
Circumcision
Male circumcision is the surgical removal of some or all of the foreskin from the penis. The word "circumcision" comes from Latin and ....
, some dating back to ancient times. In a number of modern states, circumcision is presumed to be legal, but under certain circumstances, more general laws, such as laws about assault or child custody, may sometimes be interpreted as applying to situations involving circumcision. Some countries have placed restrictions on circumcision.
History
There are ancient religious requirements for circumcisionCircumcision
Male circumcision is the surgical removal of some or all of the foreskin from the penis. The word "circumcision" comes from Latin and ....
. The Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
commands Jews to circumcise their male children on the eighth day of life, and to circumcise their male slaves .
Laws banning circumcision are also ancient. The ancient Greeks
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
prized the foreskin and disapproved of the Jewish custom of circumcision. 1 Maccabees
1 Maccabees
The First book of Maccabees is a book written in Hebrew by a Jewish author after the restoration of an independent Jewish kingdom, about the latter part of the 2nd century BC. The original Hebrew is lost and the most important surviving version is the Greek translation contained in the Septuagint...
, 1:60–61 states that King Antiochus IV
Antiochus IV Epiphanes
Antiochus IV Epiphanes ruled the Seleucid Empire from 175 BC until his death in 164 BC. He was a son of King Antiochus III the Great. His original name was Mithridates; he assumed the name Antiochus after he ascended the throne....
of Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, the occupying power of Judea
Judea
Judea or Judæa was the name of the mountainous southern part of the historic Land of Israel from the 8th century BCE to the 2nd century CE, when Roman Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina following the Jewish Bar Kokhba revolt.-Etymology:The...
in 170 BCE, outlawed circumcision on penalty of death. one of the grievances leading to the Maccabean Revolt.
According to the Historia Augusta, the Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
emperor Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
issued a decree banning circumcision in the empire, and some modern scholars argue that this was a main cause of the Jewish Bar Kokhba
Bar Kokhba
Bar Kokhba is a name of Simon bar Kokhba, the leader of the Bar Kokhba's revolt, the second of the Jewish-Roman Wars.Bar Kokhba may also refer to:...
revolt of 132 CE. The Roman historian Cassius Dio, however, made no mention of such a law, and blamed the Jewish uprising instead on Hadrian's decision to rebuild Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina
Aelia Capitolina
Aelia Capitolina was a city built by the emperor Hadrian, and occupied by a Roman colony, on the site of Jerusalem, which was in ruins since 70 AD, leading in part to the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136.-Politics:...
, a city dedicated to Jupiter.
Antoninus Pius
Antoninus Pius
Antoninus Pius , also known as Antoninus, was Roman Emperor from 138 to 161. He was a member of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty and the Aurelii. He did not possess the sobriquet "Pius" until after his accession to the throne...
permitted Jews to circumcise their own sons. However, he forbade the circumcision of non-Jews that were either foreign-slaves or non-Jewish members of the household, contrary to He also made it illegal for a man to convert to Judaism. Antoninus Pius exempted the Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian priesthood from the otherwise universal ban on circumcision.
Australia
In 1993, a non-binding research paper of the Queensland Law Reform Commission (Circumcision of Male Infants) concluded that "On a strict interpretation of the assault provisions of the QueenslandQueensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
Criminal Code, routine circumcision of a male infant could be regarded as a criminal act", and that doctors who perform circumcision on male infants may be liable to civil claims by that child at a later date. No prosecutions have occurred in Queensland, and circumcisions continue to be performed.
In a case of sexual assault
Sexual assault
Sexual assault is an assault of a sexual nature on another person, or any sexual act committed without consent. Although sexual assaults most frequently are by a man on a woman, it may involve any combination of two or more men, women and children....
in Queensland, Australia (1997), a district court awarded a man damages for nervous shock after a botched attempt to circumcise him with a broken beer bottle in a drunken attack. Making Australian legal history, the award was made against the assailant for unlawful wounding.
In 1999, a Perth
Perth, Western Australia
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia and the fourth most populous city in Australia. The Perth metropolitan area has an estimated population of almost 1,700,000....
man won $A360,000 in damages after a doctor admitted he botched a circumcision operation at birth which left the man with a badly deformed penis.
In 2002, Queensland police charged a father with grievous bodily harm for having his two sons, then aged nine and five, circumcised without the knowledge and against the wishes of the mother. The mother and father were in a family court dispute. The charges were dropped when the police prosecutor revealed that he did not have all family court paperwork in court and the magistrate refused to grant an adjournment.
Cosmetic circumcision for newborn males is currently banned in all Australian public hospitals, South Australia being the last state to adopt the ban in 2007. In the same year, the Tasmanian President of the Australian Medical Association, Haydn Walters, stated that they would support a call to ban circumcision for non-medical, non-religious reasons. In 2009, the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute released its Issues Paper investigating the law relating to male circumcision in Tasmania, it "highlights the uncertainty in relation to whether doctors can legally perform circumcision on infant males".
Bulgaria
Male circumcision was very strongly discouraged in Bulgaria in the 1980s as part of attempts to pressure the country's Muslim minority but there was no actual legislation against the practice.England and Wales
Male circumcision has traditionally been presumed to be legal under British law, however some authors have argued that there is no solid foundation for this view in English law.The passage of the Human Rights Act 1998
Human Rights Act 1998
The Human Rights Act 1998 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom which received Royal Assent on 9 November 1998, and mostly came into force on 2 October 2000. Its aim is to "give further effect" in UK law to the rights contained in the European Convention on Human Rights...
has led to some speculation that the lawfulness of the circumcision of male children is unclear.
One 1999 case, Re "J" (child's religious upbringing and circumcision) said that circumcision in Britain required the consent of all those with parental responsibility, or the permission of the court, acting for the best interests of the child, and issued an order prohibiting the circumcision of a male child of a non-practicing Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
father and non-practicing Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
mother with custody. The reasoning included evidence that circumcision carried some medical risk; that the operation would be likely to weaken the relationship of the child with his mother, who strongly objected to circumcision without medical necessity
Medical necessity
Medical necessity is a United States legal doctrine, related to activities which may be justified as reasonable, necessary, and/or appropriate, based on evidence-based clinical standards of care. Other countries may have medical doctrines or legal rules covering broadly similar grounds...
; that the child may be subject to ridicule by his peers as the odd one out and that the operation might irreversibly reduce sexual pleasure, by permanently removing some sensory nerves, even though cosmetic foreskin restoration might be possible. The court did not rule out circumcision against the consent of one parent. It cited a hypothetical case of a Jewish mother and an agnostic father with a number of sons, all of whom, by agreement, had been circumcised as infants in accordance with Jewish laws; the parents then have another son who is born after they have separated; the mother wishes him to be circumcised like his brothers; the father refuses his agreement. In such a case, a decision in favor of circumcision was said to be likely.
In 2001 the General Medical Council had found a doctor who had botched circumcision operations guilty of abusing his professional position and that he had acted "inappropriately and irresponsibly", and struck him off the register. A doctor who had referred patients to him, and who had pressured a mother into agreeing to the surgery, was also condemned. He was put on an 18 month period of review and retraining, and was allowed to resume unrestricted practice as a doctor in March 2003, after a committee found that he had complied with conditions it placed on him. According to the Northern Echo, he "told the committee he has now changed his approach to circumcision referrals, accepting that most cases can be treated without the need for surgery.".
Fox and Thomson (2005) argue that consent cannot be given for non-therapeutic circumcision. They say there is "no compelling legal authority for the common view that circumcision is lawful."
In 2005 a Muslim man had his son circumcised against the wishes of the child's mother who was the custodial parent. He was found not guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm by a majority verdict of the jury.
In 2009 it was reported that a 20 year old man whose father had him ritually circumcised as a baby is preparing to sue the doctor who circumcised him. This is believed to be the first time a person who was circumcised as an infant has made a claim in the UK. The case is expected to be heard in 2010.
Finland
In August 2006, a FinnishFinland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
court ruled that the circumcision of a four-year-old boy arranged by his mother, who is Muslim, to be an illegal assault. The boy's father, who had not been consulted, reported the incident to the police. A local prosecutor stated that the prohibition of genital mutilation is not gender-specific in Finnish law. A lawyer for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health stated that there is neither legislation nor prohibition on male circumcision, and that "the operations have been performed on the basis of common law." The case was appealed and in October 2008 the Finnish Supreme Court ruled that the circumcision, " carried out for religious and social reasons and in a medical manner, did not have the earmarks of a criminal offence. It pointed out in its ruling that the circumcision of Muslim boys is an established tradition and an integral part of the identity of Muslim men". In 2008, the Finnish government was reported to be considering a new law to legalise circumcision if the practitioner is a doctor and if the child consents.
In February 2010, a Jewish couple were fined for causing bodily harm to their then infant son who was circumcised in 2008 by a mohel
Mohel
A mohel is a Jewish person trained in the practice of brit milah "covenant of circumcision."-Etymology of the Hebrew and Aramaic term:...
brought in from the UK. Normal procedure for persons of Jewish faith in Finland is to have a locally certified mohel who work in Finnish healthcare perform the operation. In the 2008 case, the infant was not anesthetized and developed complications that required immediate hospital care. The parents were ordered to pay 1500 euros in damages to their child.
Germany
In October 2006, a TurkishTurkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
national who performed ritual circumcisions on seven boys was convicted of causing dangerous bodily harm by the state court in Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
.
In September 2007, a Frankfurt am Main
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
appeals court found that the circumcision of an 11 year old boy without his approval was an unlawful personal injury. Reportedly, the boy, whose parents are divorced, was visiting his Muslim father during a vacation when his father forced him to be ritually circumcised. According to a report by the German ddp press agency, the boy, who lives with his mother, plans to sue his father for 10,000 Euro.
Ireland
In October 2005 a NigeriaNigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
n man was cleared of a charge of reckless endangerment over the death of a baby from haemorrhage and shock after he had circumcised the child. The judge directed the jury not to "bring what he called their white western values to bear when they were deciding this case" and after deliberating for an hour and a half they found the defendant not guilty.
Israel
In IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, Jewish circumcision is entirely legal, as is after-death circumcision. In 1999, the Israeli Supreme Court
Supreme Court of Israel
The Supreme Court is at the head of the court system and highest judicial instance in Israel. The Supreme Court sits in Jerusalem.The area of its jurisdiction is all of Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories. A ruling of the Supreme Court is binding upon every court, other than the Supreme...
overruled an attempt to have after-death circumcision outlawed.
Netherlands
When Ayaan Hirsi AliAyaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Magan Ali is a Somali-Dutch feminist and atheist activist, writer, politician who strongly opposes circumcision and female genital cutting. She is the daughter of the Somali politician and opposition leader Hirsi Magan Isse and is a founder of the women's rights organisation the AHA...
was a Member of the Netherlands Parliament she asked it to consider making the circumcision of male children unlawful. In May 2008 a father who had his two sons, aged 3 and 6 circumcised against the will of their mother was found not guilty of causing them serious physical harm but was given a 6 week suspended jail sentence for taking the boys away from their mother against her will.
South Africa
The Children's Act 2007 makes the circumcision of male children under 16 unlawful except for religious or medical reasons. Eastern Cape Province passed a law (Application of Health Standards in Traditional Circumcision Act 2001) to regulate traditional circumcision, which causes the death or mutilation of many youths by traditional surgeons each year. Among other provisions, the minimum age for circumcision is age 18.In 2004, a 22 year old Rastafarian convert was forcibly circumcised by a group of Xhosa tribal elders and relatives. When he first fled, two police returned him to those who had circumcised him. In another case, a medically circumcised Xhosa man was forcibly recircumcised by his father and community leaders. He laid a charge of unfair discrimination on the grounds of his religious beliefs, seeking an apology from his father and the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa. According to South African newspapers, the subsequent trial became "a landmark case around forced circumcision." In October 2009, the Bhisho Equality Court (High Court) ruled that, in South Africa, circumcision is unlawful unless done with the full consent of the initiate.
Sweden
In 2001, the Parliament of SwedenParliament of Sweden
The Riksdag is the national legislative assembly of Sweden. The riksdag is a unicameral assembly with 349 members , who are elected on a proportional basis to serve fixed terms of four years...
enacted a law allowing only persons certified by the National Board of Health to circumcise infants. It requires a medical doctor or an anesthesia nurse to accompany the circumciser and for anaesthetic to be applied beforehand. After the first two months of life circumcisions can only be performed by a physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
. The stated purpose of the law was to increase the safety of the procedure.
Swedish Jews and Muslims objected to the law, and in 2001, the World Jewish Congress
World Jewish Congress
The World Jewish Congress was founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in August 1936 as an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations...
called it "the first legal restriction on Jewish religious practice in Europe since the Nazi era." The requirement for an anaesthetic to be administered by a medical professional is a major issue, and the low degree of availability of certified professionals willing to conduct circumcision has also been subject to criticism. According to a survey, two out of three paediatric surgeons said they refuse to perform non-therapeutic circumcision, and less than half of all county council
County Councils of Sweden
A county council, or landsting, is an elected assembly of a county in Sweden. A county council is a political entity, elected by the county electorate and typically its main responsibilities lie within the public health care system. In each county there is also a county administrative board which...
s offer it in their hospitals. However, in 2006, the U.S. State Department stated, in a report on Sweden, that most Jewish mohel
Mohel
A mohel is a Jewish person trained in the practice of brit milah "covenant of circumcision."-Etymology of the Hebrew and Aramaic term:...
s had been certified under the law and 3000 Muslim and 40-50 Jewish boys were circumcised each
year. An estimated 2000 of these are performed by persons who are neither physicians nor have officially recognised certification.
The Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare reviewed the law in 2005 and recommended that it be maintained, but found that the law had failed with regard to the intended consequence of increasing the safety of circumcisions. A later report by the Board criticised the low level of availability of legal circumcisions, partly due to reluctance among health professionals. To remedy this, the report suggested a new law obliging all county councils to offer non-therapeutic circumcision in their hospitals, but this was later abandoned in favour of a non-binding recommendation.
United States
In the United States, circumcision is not specifically unlawful. However, some believe that the circumcision of a child violates general laws enacted for the protection of children. DoctorsPhysician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
who circumcise children must take care that all applicable rules regarding informed consent are satisfied. If consent is invalid, then a circumcision is a battery.
CNN reported in 2005 that a California group has submitted to Congress a bill entitled the "Male Genital Mutilation Bill". The report stated that while it's unlikely the bill will go anywhere in the near future, it raises important questions about gender equality, religious freedom, and the protection of children. After a failed attempt to add a similar bill to a San Francisco ballot, the state of California enacted in October 2011 a law protecting circumcision from local attempts to ban the practice.
Disputes between parents
Occasionally the courts are asked to make a ruling when parents cannot agree on whether or not to circumcise a child.
In January 2001 a dispute between divorcing parents in New Jersey was resolved when the mother, who sought to have the boy circumcised withdrew her request. The boy had experienced two instances of foreskin inflammation and she wanted to have him circumcised. The father, who had experienced a traumatic circumcision as a child objected and they turned to the courts for a decision. The Medical Society of New Jersey and the Urological Society of New Jersey both opposed any court ordered medical treatment. As the parties came to an agreement, no precedent was set. In June 2001 a Nevada court settled a dispute over circumcision between two parents but put a strict gag order on the terms of the settlement. In July 2001 a dispute between parents in Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
over circumcision was resolved when the mother's request to have the infant circumcised was withdrawn. In this case the father opposed circumcision while the mother asserted that not circumcising the child was against her religious beliefs. (The woman's pastor had stated that circumcision was "important" but was not necessary for salvation.) On 24 July 2001 the parents reached agreement that the infant would not be circumcised.
On 14 July 2004 a mother appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court to prevent the circumcision of her son after a county court and the Court of Appeals had denied her a writ of prohibition. However, in early August 2004, before the Supreme Court had given its ruling, the father, who had custody of the boy, had him circumcised.
In October 2006 a judge in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
granted an injunction blocking the circumcision of a 9 year old boy. In granting the injunction the judge stated that "the boy could decide for himself whether to be circumcised when he turns 18."
In November 2007, the Oregon Supreme Court
Oregon Supreme Court
The Oregon Supreme Court is the highest state court in the U.S. state of Oregon. The only court that may reverse or modify a decision of the Oregon Supreme Court is the Supreme Court of the United States. The OSC holds court at the Oregon Supreme Court Building in Salem, Oregon, near the capitol...
heard arguments from a divorced Oregon
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
couple over the circumcision of their son. The father wants his son, who turned 13 on 2 March 2008, to be circumcised; the child's mother opposes the procedure. The parents dispute whether the boy is in favor of the procedure. A group opposed to circumcision filed briefs in support of the mother's position, while some Jewish groups filed a brief in support of the father. On 25 January 2008, the Court returned the case to the trial court with instructions to determine whether the child agrees or objects to the proposed circumcision. The father appealed to the US Supreme Court to allow him to have his son circumcised but his appeal was rejected. The case now returns to the trial court.
Other disputes
In September 2004 the North Dakota Supreme Court
North Dakota Supreme Court
The North Dakota Supreme Court is the highest court of law in the state of North Dakota. The Court rules on questions of law in appeals from the state's district courts....
rejected a mother's attempt to prosecute her doctor for circumcising her child without fully informing her of the consequences of the procedure. The judge and jury found that the defendants were adequately informed of possible complications, and the jury further found that it is not incumbent on the doctors to describe every "insignificant" risk.
In February 2004 in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, a man argued that he was Hebrew and circumcised his son out of religious duty. The judge ruled "it is only illegal if one mutilates a female -- there is nothing in the penal code about a male child.". However, in December 2004 in Vancouver, Washington
Vancouver, Washington
Vancouver is a city on the north bank of the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington. Incorporated in 1857, it is the fourth largest city in the state with a 2010 census population of 161,791 as of April 1, 2010...
, a man was convicted of second degree child assault after he attempted to circumcise his son with a hunting knife and was sentenced to serve three years in jail.
In March 2009 a Fulton County, Ga.
Fulton County, Georgia
Fulton County is a county located in the U.S. state of Georgia. Its county seat is Atlanta, the state capital since 1868 and the principal county of the Atlanta metropolitan area...
, State Court jury awarded $2.3 million in damages to a 4-year-old boy and his mother for a botched circumcision in which too much tissue was removed causing permanent disfigurement.
In August 2010 an eight day old boy was circumcised in a Florida hospital against the stated wishes of the parents. The hospital admitted that the boy was circumcised by mistake, but the mother has sued the hospital and the doctor involved in the case.
USSR
Before glasnostGlasnost
Glasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...
, according to an article in The Jewish Press
The Jewish Press
The Jewish Press is an American weekly newspaper, geared toward the Modern Orthodox Jewish community. It describes itself as "America's Largest Independent Jewish Weekly." The newspaper has a politically conservative viewpoint and editorial policy....
, Jewish ritual circumcision was forbidden in the USSR. However, David E. Fishman, professor of Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America
Jewish Theological Seminary of America
The Jewish Theological Seminary of America is one of the academic and spiritual centers of Conservative Judaism, and a major center for academic scholarship in Jewish studies.JTS operates five schools: Albert A...
, states that, whereas the heder
Cheder
A Cheder is a traditional elementary school teaching the basics of Judaism and the Hebrew language.-History:...
and yeshiva
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...
, the organs of Jewish education, "were banned by virtue of the law separating church and school, and subjected to tough police and administrative actions," circumcision was not proscribed by law or suppressed by executive measures.
Jehoshua A. Gilboa writes that while circumcision was not officially or explicitly banned, pressure was exerted to make it difficult. Mohel
Mohel
A mohel is a Jewish person trained in the practice of brit milah "covenant of circumcision."-Etymology of the Hebrew and Aramaic term:...
s in particular were concerned that they could be punished for any health issue that might develop, even if it arose some time after the circumcision.
External links
- William E. Brigman. Circumcision as Child Abuse: The Legal and Constitutional Issues. 23 J Fam Law 337 (1985).
- Rich Winkel. Male Circumcision in the USA: A Human Rights Primer
- Ross Povenmire. Do Parents Have the Legal Authority to Consent to the Surgical Amputation of Normal, Healthy Tissue From Their Infant Children?: The Practice of Circumcision in the United States. 7 Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law 87 (1998–1999).
- Gregory J Boyle, J. Steven Svoboda, Christopher P Price, J Neville Turner. Circumcision of Healthy Boys: Criminal Assault? 7 Journal of Law and Medicine 301 (2000). The authors are leading anti-circumcision campaigners.
- Amicus curiae briefs filed in Oregon circumcision case: