I'm completely fascinated by
this case.
Quote:
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The regional court in Cologne said that circumcision went against the "fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweighed the fundamental rights of the parents." They added that religious freedom would not be curtailed because the child would be able to choose later whether he wanted to have a circumcision. However, if the parents decided for the boy, it changed the body of the child "irreparably and permanently" and went against that child's rights to choose his religious beliefs.
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(Kindly ignore the horrific grammatical nonsense in that quote.)
I have an 11 week old boy, a bachelor's in German, and am one semester away from a JD. Hence my fascination with this case.
It's making the rounds a bit in the online mom community, with a lot of backlash about religious freedom. Since there isn't an absolute right (in the US) to freedom of religious
practice, only to religious
belief, I think the bigger news here is that a court has decided that circumcision for non-medical reasons is harmful. But that's not the discussion that I'm seeing.
Circumcision has long been a hot button issue in the "mom community" as I like to call it. But this is something very different. I'm also seeing a lot of unfortunate commentary about this because of Germany's history with the Jewish faith. If you don't read the article (or any of the many others about the ruling) I'll point out that the case went to court initially because of a circumcision on a Muslim boy, not a Jewish boy.
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