Well great. No need to worry about all the poor sad tragic parents in Germany frustrated in their desire to snip off the end of their infant boy’s penis. They can haz circumcision. Yay!
The Cologne court ruling in June outraged Germany’s Muslims and Jews, and triggered an anguished national debate, by stating that ritual circumcision of under-aged boys amounted to “bodily harm” and parents should wait for their son to make his own decision.
Omigod I know, right? Wait for their son to make his own decision! How crazy is that?! If they wait, he’ll decide no! And that won’t do, because. So obviously they absolutely have to do it when he’s too small and altricial to refuse. That’s absolutely the only fair thing! If you know it’s something a person with a mature-ish brain would refuse to do, you totally have to do it to them when they are infants. This is God’s wish. God could have just issued the infants without the foreskin, but that would be too easy.
Jewish and Muslim groups branded the court order an attack on their religious freedom and an embarrassed German government — particularly sensitive to charges of intolerance because of the Nazi past — vowed to bring in legislation swiftly to protect ritual circumcisions.
Germany is home to about 4 million Muslims, mostly of Turkish origin, and 120,000 Jews. Chancellor Angela Merkel said if it failed to take action it risked becoming a laughing stock.
And there was just absolutely no need to think about the competing rights of the infants to keep their bodies intact until they were old enough to make their own decisions. Hell no! Fall all over yourselves to appease religious ”groups” as if nothing else mattered.
The Justice Ministry has now issued the outlines of the new legislation that will protect a family’s right to circumcise their child, provided they have been fully informed about the procedure and use the “most effective pain relief possible.”
Completion and approval of the new law, which gives any family the right to have their child circumcised, regardless of religion, may be just weeks away. Some lawmakers are pressing for a vote of conscience freed from party discipline.
The right, the right, the right – as if the only right that mattered were the right of parents to have something done to their child. As if the right of the child – the infant – not to have a bit snipped off for no real reason had never even been thought of.
Muslim and Jewish groups have cautiously welcomed the outline proposal, but the months of uncertainty and debate that followed the Cologne ruling — which triggered rare joint demonstrations — have shaken the communities.
“This whole row has been very damaging to the integration process,” said Cologne doctor Omar Kezze.
Kezze, originally from Aleppo in Syria, is the doctor whose trial sparked the Cologne court ruling. A boy he circumcised was taken to hospital after his wounds continued to bleed and the hospital informed the police and local prosecutors. The court cleared Kezze of all charges but created a legal minefield when it classified circumcision as “bodily harm”.
“We have a financial crisis, we have extremists on the left and the right, many, many attacks,” Kezze said, speaking in his busy surgery where pictures of his native city adorn the wall.
“There are many things for our prosecutors to fight; they really shouldn’t be questioning a tradition dating back to Abraham.”
Bollocks. Evil bollocks. A tradition dating back to Abraham is just the kind of thing that everyone should be questioning.
Not all in Germany want to allow religious circumcisions. An opinion poll by TNS Emnid shortly after the Cologne ruling found 56% opposed to the practice.
Some doctors and children’s rights associations submitted a petition in September calling for a two-year moratorium and a round-table of medical, religious and legal experts to study circumcision fully.
“In the clear opinion of experts, the amputation of the foreskin is a grave interference in the bodily integrity of a child,” Georg Ehrmann, chairman of the child protection group Deutsche Kinderhilfe, told a news conference.
Oh well who cares what they think. It’s only what “the communities” think that counts.