Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by BuddhaInside (talk | contribs) at 06:40, 23 September 2003. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Laws pertaining to circumcision are ancient. The Bible commands the Jews to perform the operation on their male child’s eighth day of life. Genesis 17:11. During the Ottoman Empire, it was relatively routine that even non-Muslim servants of the state, including Janissaries were required to be circumcised.

Ancient, too, are laws banning circumcision; many of these laws were passed for an anti-Jewish purpose. King Antiochus IV, of Syria, the occupying power of the Holy Land in 170 B.C. decreed that circumcision was unlawful and punishable by death. Emperor Hadrian, when the Holy Land was part of the Roman Empire decreed laws that prohibited circumcision in 132 A.D. Emperor Constantine, in 320 A.D. forbade Jews from circumcising non-Jews for any purpose. Genesis 17:12 commands that Jews must circumcise their slaves; Constantine's law prohibited that practice.

Circumcision has traditionally been presumed legal under British law, although no case has ever decided this issue. One recent case, Re J (child's religious upbringing and circumcision) (see ) found that circumcision was illegal without the consent of either both the child's parents, or the permission of the court. In recent years many have argued that male circumcision may be illegal under international human rights law. Article 24.3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child provides that State Parties must "take all effective and appropriate measures with a view to abolishing traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children..." Although some argue that male circumcision may fall under "traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children," the procedural debate in connection with the Convention indicates its exclusion.

In the United States, the parents' right to raise their child in their religious faith is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Although no case has addressed the point precisely, the relative commonness of the procedure for medical, cultural, and hygenic reasons would indicate that preventing circumcision in the context of a religious practice would not pass constitutional muster in the United States. Although parents are given wide latitude in child rearing, parental discretion is not unlimited in religious matters. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that, "arents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children before they have reached the age of full and legal discretion when they can make that choice for themselves." (Prince v. Massachusetts, 321 U.S. 158 (1944).

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 Queensland 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.

Action groups have focused legislative action in various jurisdictions to obtain either court or legislatures to ban circumcision, including in Sweden, Denmark, and North Dakota. In no instance has a total ban been enacted, but the circumcision of minors in Sweden has been restricted to only be performed under anaesthesia.