German court rules circumcision is 'bodily harm'

[Lapsed Lurker]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18604664

A court in Germany has ruled that circumcising young boys for religious reasons amounts to bodily harm.

In a decision that has caused outrage among Jewish and Muslim groups, the court said that a child's right to physical integrity trumps religious and parental rights.

The case involved a doctor who carried out a circumcision on a four year-old that led to medical complications.

Thousands of Muslim and Jewish boys are circumcised in Germany every year.

Although male circumcision - unlike female circumcision - is not illegal in Germany, the court's judgement said the "fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweighed the fundamental rights of the parents".

Circumcision, it decided, contravenes "interests of the child to decide later in life on his religious beliefs".

[Big Rob]

[Lapsed Lurker]

It'll probably get overturned if it hasn't already. The Dutch caved when religious pressure groups objected to an animal welfare law regarding slaughtering of animals which made the Jewish and Islamic religious rituals illegal (where the animal has to be conscious according to Jewish and Islamic religious code, or something), and started lobbying against 'religious persecution'. The same noises are being made by Jewish and Islamic groups in Germany, lobbying parliament to protect 'religious freedom'.

[Lapsed Lurker]

Follow up report in todays NY Times-

[...]
Jewish and Muslim organizations convened this past week in Berlin and Brussels to protest the ruling vigorously and said they had been inundated with calls from confused parents. The German Medical Association condemned the ruling for potentially putting children at risk by taking the procedure out of the hands of doctors, but it also warned surgeons not to perform circumcisions for religious reasons until legal clarity was established.

On Friday, as the outcry intensified, the issue reached the highest levels of the German government. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman said that discussions were underway between the chancellor’s aides and the justice and other ministries to find a legal solution that would protect the right to perform ritual circumcisions.

“It is urgently necessary that we establish legal certainty,” the spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said. “It is clear this cannot be put on the back burner. Freedom to practice religion is a cherished legal principle.”
[...]

[Bug Snot]

So, I'm not really that up on European news, but is Angela Merkel the new Margaret Thatcher?

[Mak2]

Thatcher's policy was basically Reaganomics, Merkel's is more in the German austerity tradition of Helmut Kohl. Right wing as well (although not necessarily far to the right of the Democratic Party), but more moderate than Thatcher.