Deja vu all over again in Germany?
Last week, a German court ruled that parents may be prosecuted for circumcising their children. On Sunday, the Jewish hospital in Berlin announced that it will no longer perform circumcisions. Gerhard Nerlich, a spokesman for the hospital, announced that “we are suspending circumcisions until the legal situation is clarified”.I'm not a great believer in the effectiveness of online petitions, but there's one available for signing here.
The hospital performs approximately 100 religious circumcisions a year. Two surgeries scheduled to take place were cancelled by the hospital, with calls placed to the families explaining the reason.
In its ruling, the court found that performing the religious circumcisions impinged on a child’s “fundamental right to bodily integrity” and was “against the interests of a child to decide for himself later on to what religion he wishes to belong”. “Even when done properly by a doctor with the permission of the parents, [circumcision] should be considered as bodily harm if it is carried out on a boy unable to give his own consent”, the court said. It noted that once a boy reaches the age of consent, he will be permitted to have a religious circumcision performed on himself.
The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany condemned the ruling as “an unprecedented and dramatic intrusion on the self-determination of religious communities”, calling it “outrageous and insensitive”.
Rabbi Shimshon Nadel of Har Nof, Jerusalem, said the ruling was indicative of Germany’s sentiments toward Jews. “Throughout Jewish history, there have been many attempts to ban circumcision – this is nothing new, and unfortunately, anti-Semitism is once again rearing its ugly head in Germany,” he said. “The circumcision procedure is something that is safe when performed by a trained mohel [performer of ritual circumcisions], we’ve been doing it for thousands of years, so it really comes down to the training of the mohel.”
Labels: anti-Semitism, circumcision, Germany
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:14 PM
6 Comments:
this started with a MUSLIM circumcision, not a brith mila.
To look at the big picture, unrelated to specific religions, but related to ethics:
-Leftist countries have no issue with unlimited abortions. Millions. Which are not health effect free and are used to delete girls, causing warped populations.
-No death penalty for even the most heinous crimes.
-But euthanasia of inconvenient seniors or weak or unattended people is A-OK.
-And while even late term abortions, which are major medical procedures, are A-OK. We even hear about 4th trimester abortions and that even if the kid lives by accident, Obama says he doesn't want the "mother"'s abortion decision encumbered by a baby surviving and doesn't want his daughters "punished" with a baby.
-But circumcision is CRIMINAL.
And circumcision is one of those things like washing hands that the Jews scribed into the Torah. And it turns out to be a FABULOUS public health benefit.
Goes to show that a lot of the EURO leftist philosophy is death producing. Duh. Again.
Why are Jews having circumcisions by doctors in hospitals? Are models banned in Germania?
I was going to make a lengthy comment but Sunlight covered it all.
Murdering millions of unborn babies OK, or even born babies under some circumstances; putting down unwanted elderly people like an old, sick dog OK; circumcision, a thousands-of-years-old religious ritual NOT OK.
Good to see the Germans have such good moral clarity. /sarc
This sounds like the Germans have signed "the covention for the rights of the child" any country that's done so has to change its laws to line up with the convention one of the clauses in the above convention prohibits parents from bringing their children up in religiouse practises. It could get worse than this.
This decision only refers to "religious" circumcisions because the case involved a Muslim boy and non-therapeutic "medical" circumcision of babies is almost uknown in Germany. To raise the spectre of a new Holocaust on that basis is drawing a long bow.
"...so it really comes down to the training of the mohel."? A baby died of blood loss in London earlier this year after being circumcised by a mohel, described at the inquest as a "qualified practioner".
Unknown: "one of the clauses in the above convention prohibits parents from bringing their children up in religiouse practises."
I find that a little bit hard to believe. The only countries that have not ratified it are the USA and Somalia. Someone would have noticed. Chapter and verse please.
In any case, the German case was decided on the basis of the German Basic Law (~Constitution).
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