Where Human Rights Collide: Circumcision Debate Has Berlin Searching for Answers

[sysop]

A fierce debate over circumcision has been raging in Germany for weeks and has caught Chancellor Merkel's government off guard. Berlin is now hoping to introduce a law regulating the practice, but it is a delicate issue due to the religious passions involved. It could take years before it is resolved. <i>By SPIEGEL Staff</i>

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...846144,00.html

[awareadams]

Germans should listen to the doctors and entitites concerned with AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases. If they do, circumcision will become an absolute requirement for males, and no respectable woman would want to have sex with a man who is not circumcised.
Sometimes statistics do NOT lie. The statistics of males with sexually transmitted diseases versus those Uncut are overwhelming: all that ugly foreskin is not only unnecessary, but a health hazard. That ugly foreskin has lots and lots of pores or holes which pick up and carry diseases, viruses, and germs.
For safe sex, hetero or homo, for goodness sakes, get smart: get circumcised.

[fxe1200]

...and there is no space within our constitution to allow rites which date back 4000 years. The invulnerability or physical integrity of our minors is NOT at our disposal. And there is no problem for the Jewish community to wait with the circumcision until the kids have reached the legal age, and then can decide by themselves, if they want to be circumcised or not. Therefore there is no need for another law. Back in the 19th century Johann Wolfgang von Goethe pointed out: "Wer sich den Gesetzen nicht beugen will, muss die Gegend verlassen, in denen diese Gesetze gelten.", in English: Who does not want to obey the laws, has to leave the region, where these laws apply.

Why is Berlin searching for answers?

[Olympias]

Suppose that there was a religious sect which required the ears of its children to be cut off. Would such mutilation for “religious reasons” be allowed? And why not, if the law is to permit genital mutilation (of both boys and girls) for “religious reasons”.

[Olympias]

Suppose that there was a religious sect which required the ears of its children to be cut off. Would such mutilation for “religious reasons” be allowed? And why not, if the law is to permit genital mutilation (of both boys and girls) for “religious reasons”.

Circumcision was banned in the Soviet Union but Jewishness still survived.

[fxe1200]

...to publish a readers letter, you won't get any.

[michaela6]

It is time that societies, governments, medical and legal systems step forward and protect the rights of all its members from bodily harm whether done in the name of religion, culture, parental request or greedy physicians/hospitals soliciting unnecessary surgeries. Morality and ethics are not up for compromise or a 'reinterpretation' of the constitutional law that was originally set up to protect basic human rights. This is not meant as an affront to any religion; it is an appropriate response to an outdated ritual that disrespects a child's right to health, freedom and bodily integrity. As a physician expected to perform infant circumcisions in the past, I concluded long ago that this procedure falls outside the realm of true medicine and into the realm of the macabre. It constitutes unnecessary mutilation of another's genitals while those babies scream and tug against restraints thus clearly not giving consent. To allow this barbarism to persist is truly unacceptable, unethical, unprofessional and illegal. I applaud the German court who called it out for what it is. Females and males deserve our protection not special laws excluding one group from protection. Religious groups can certainly come up with an alternative until that child becomes a man and can make his own decision. They have done this with many other "Biblical mandates". Let us have respect for our children.