Regardless of what religion you are or what your religious leaders tell you to do with your children, the fact that is glaringly over looked by the vast majority of those debating male circumcision from a religious point of view is:
The original Judaic practice of male circumcision was a blood letting ritual! A very small cut was made at the end of the infant male's foreskin to allow a drop of blood to seal the blood covenant. That is it! The practice of modern circumcision that removes the ENTIRE foreskin is something that was invented just in the past 100 years!!!! Seriously people!
Even the tiniest cut for a blood ritual is personally barbaric to me, but regardless, people really need to stop equating Circumcision = Religion, because the inhumane crimes that are being perpetuated on infant boys has NOTHING to do with Religion!
Circumcision divide between Denmark and Israel
Denmark may soon be the first country in the world to issue a ban on non-therapeutic circumcision of boys. Meanwhile, Israel tries hard to block changes that are broadly perceived in Europe as a clear step forward in children's human rights.
A new resolution on circumcision will be discussed at the Council of Europe on Monday (Photo: Colourbox)
In two fresh statements, Danish doctors express deep concern over ritual circumcision of boys. The Danish Society of Family Physicians, whose 3,000 members include two thirds of all general practitioners in Denmark, announced in December that circumcision of underage boys with no proper medical indication is nothing short of mutilation. In a separate statement, the overarching Danish Medical Association recommended earlier this week that non-therapeutic male circumcision should wait until the boy or young man is old enough to provide informed consent. An editorial in Jyllands-Posten, the second largest national newspaper in Denmark, urged the Danish government yesterday to ban ritual circumcision of underage boys, and a result poll among readers of BT, another large national newspaper, showed that 87 percent of well over 26,000 votes were in favour of such a ban.Not surprisingly, Israel has a quite different view on this matter. In December 2013, an Israeli delegation of Knesset politicians travelled to Paris in an attempt to overturn a visionary, human rights-based resolution that was passed by a comfortable majority of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on 1 October 2013. The PACE resolution 1952 recommends that member states start moving towards abolishing all kinds of physical assaults on children, including non-therapeutic circumcision of boys and girls. The Council of Europe is the continent’s leading human rights organization with a current total of 47 member states, each of which has signed the European Convention of Human Rights. Israel is neither a member, nor has it signed the European Convention of Human Rights but, since 1957, Israel has held observer status in the Council of Europe.
In the Israeli media, readers have repeatedly been told that the widely-held European stance against ritual circumcision is rooted partly in anti-Semitism, and partly in fear of an expanding Muslim population in Europe. Such anti-religious rhetoric is unjustified. The vast majority of Europe’s opponents of ritual circumcision are religiously tolerant, but consider cutting off an important part of a non-consenting, healthy child’s genitals to be contrary to modern ethics. This view was clearly expressed in September 2013 in a common statement of the ombudsmen and spokespersons for children in Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Greenland and Denmark. To most Europeans circumcision is an ethically problematic ritual that is intrinsically harmful to children: every child has the right to protection of his or her bodily integrity and the right to explore and enjoy his or her undiminished sexual capacity later in life.
Infant circumcision’s negative long-term impact on human sexuality has been recognized by Jewish authorities for ages. Scholars like Philo of Alexandria (appr. 20 BC - 50 AD) and Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) knew well that reduced penile sensitivity was not an unfortunate side effect of the brit milah; rather it was part of the point: to diminish the animalistic sexuality of men. It takes more than a strongly media-promoted literature review by the world’s leading circumcision advocate, Brian Morris of Sydney University, to eradicate the bulk of scientific evidence and several thousands of years of knowledge. Circumcision ablates the most sensitive part of a boy’s penis and thereby diminishes his sexual sensitivity for the rest of his life. In October 2013, the Nordic Association of Clinical Sexologists stated that the bodily injury associated with circumcision is a violation of the boy’s sexual autonomy.
The head of the Israeli circumcision delegation, Reuven Rivlin (Likud Beytenu), has repeatedly referred to a series of highly questionable benefits from circumcision. His source of information is a 2012 policy paper on the topic by the American Academy of Pediatrics. However, Rivlin has unfailingly forgotten to inform readers that this policy paper has been seriously criticized for cultural bias by pediatric societies, general medical associations and 38 medical professors, doctors and researchers from 17 countries across Europe and Canada. Unlike their US colleagues, European doctors do not accept the postulated health benefits of circumcision as being well-documented, including the claimed reduction in risks of urinary tract infections, sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS and penile cancer. And, importantly, even if the claims were valid, they would still not constitute a compelling argument for circumcising boys before an age at which they can make the decision themselves. Moreover, while parents are generally told that circumcision is a safe and painless procedure, the truth is that no available local anesthetic is able to provide pain relief, but only some level of pain reduction, and even the most efficient method has a failure rate of six to eight percent. Additionally, a non-trivial proportion of boys – five percent according to a recent Danish study - will experience significant procedural or post-operative complications, even when the operation is carried out by experienced pediatric surgeons in a university hospital. In rare instances, complications can be fatal. This little-heard of, but well-known fact is the humane Talmudic reason for permitting Jewish parents to forgo circumcision of their son if two older brothers died as a result of the procedure.
On January 27, a motion for a new resolution, conceived by the Knesset’s circumcision delegation to marginalize the recently passed PACE resolution, will be discussed in the Bureau of the Council of Europe. If successful, it will lead to a new debate and a new vote in the Parliamentary Assembly during the spring of 2014. Hopefully, the Bureau of the Council of Europe will have the resolve to stand up for children’s rights, despite this pressure.....
European Council Condemns Male Circumcision as Human Rights Violation
A report by the Council said male circumcision for religious reasons was "particularly worrisome", with the procedure being "increasingly questioned".
"Even within religious communities, an increasing number of people have started questioning traditional but harmful practices and looking for alternatives," lead author Marlene Rupprecht wrote.
"Having explored this issue in detail during the recent legislative debate in my own country, Germany, I would like to show why circumcision applied to young boys clearly is a human rights violation against children, although it is so widely performed both in the medical and in the religious context."
The report notes that there is some evidence supporting circumcision, such as a reduction on HIV transmission. However, it goes on to highlight the dangers of the practice.
"There is evidence that unprofessional circumcisions may cause infections, organ curvatures, perforated urethra and, finally, additional operations, whilst even wrongly applied bandages can have severe consequences such as necrotic tissue and other irreversible damage. Some of the complications are regularly fatal.
"I wish to conclude that - according to the current state of medical knowledge - the operation is not as innocuous as many used to or continue to believe, but may have serious short-term and long-term consequences for the health and well-being of boys and men.
Dismiss religious freedom
"Although it has been practised for thousands of years, it should therefore be strongly questioned today, both in the medical and the religious context. Alternatives do exist and should be promoted wherever possible: if circumcision seems to be indicated for medical reasons, its necessity should be closely examined on a case-by-case basis; in the religious context, families should be systematically made aware of the risks of the procedure and be provided with full information on the alternatives."
The council debated the report and overwhelmingly determined that non-medical circumcision is "a violation of the physical integrity of children".
It called for all 47 member states to "initiate a public debate, including intercultural and interreligious dialogue, aimed at reaching a large consensus on the rights of children to protection against violations of their physical integrity according to human rights standards".
However, religious groups have questioned the Council's decision to condemn circumcision for faith-based reasons.
Jewish campaign group Milah UK told JTA: "Although the adoption of this report is non-binding and does not represent any direct threat to milah, we are troubled at the readiness of the Parliamentary Assembly to dismiss the points made during the debate about religious freedom."
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