Suffer little children

[muckefuck]

Has anyone else been following the circumcision controversy in Germany? My immediate reaction was shock that a European court would make such a ruling. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered what was actually wrong with it.

What actually caused me to reevaluate my thinking was the headline Circumcision Ruling Called Threat to Religion. To which my reaction was "Good!" I'm much more comfortable with threats to religion than I was even a few years ago. I used to be more live-and-let-live. After all, what do I care what someone else believes? But I'm really fed up with the amount of harm I see being done out of ostensibly religious motives. Sure, secularists do plenty of harm as well. Penn State didn't need any religious justification to ignore the abuse of adolescents. But look at how it is now being held to account and think how differently things would look today if the Catholic Church were forced to undergo the same.

Of course, that headline is only shorthand--what they were actually reporting is that religious authorities were calling the ruling a threat to freedom of religion--and freedom of expression is something I take very seriously. But how well does this charge actually hold up? Contrary to the hysteria, it's not a "ban" on circumcision; it's a circumscription of the practice of circumcision by the right to consent. (Or, if you will, a ban on circumcision of minors.) A person's right to undergo unnecessary surgery for religious reasons is not being infringed; rather, their right to force that upon someone else is.

So far, the counterarguments I've seen to this have been (1) "It's tradition" and (2) "It's anti-Semitism". As you can imagine, I'm particularly annoyed by the later (and its insulting implication that Germany should forever be held to a higher standard in this respect than any other society in the world because Holocaust), not least of all because the case revolved around a Muslim family. But the first argument is pretty damn weak as well. What great vice in our history hasn't been defended with "We've always done it?" We've always owned slaves. We've always executed sodomites. We've always silenced women. (See, it says so right here in this ancient book we carry around!)

I understand that the consensus is still incomplete on the harm done by circumcision, but that does seem to be the direction we're moving. I'm not fond of comparisons between male circumcision and female genital mutilation, since I think they tend to trivialise the truly horrific nature of the latter, but it does seem rather apt when we're talking about specifically religious justifications for surgical modifications. If any rabbis have been willing to stand up and defend the right of pious Muslims to have their daughter's clitores cut out, I must've missed it. So what is so different in this case?

The BBC article I link to above closes with an argument that Christian baptism also "pre-construct[s] the religious position of little children". But who in the anti-circumcision camp is arguing that that is the primary harm being done here? Not to say there isn't a case to be made for that, but the concern of most people--the concern of the court, in this ruling--is with the physical harm being done to a non-consenting and defenceless human being. I'm finding it hard to understand why someone else's right to free expression should trump that.

Comments

[phillipalden.livejournal.com]

As an American I have to agree with you, (and the ruling.) A child should not go through unnecessary surgery to satisfy the parent's, (not the child's,) chosen religion.

I was raised in my parents Catholic Church but I was never a Catholic. (Today I'm a Taoist.)

And like yourself, I'm tired of the Radical Religious Right in this country. These people are loud, obnoxious, and think everyone should believe as they do. They even call America "a Christian nation" which drives me crazy. My country was founded on freedom FROM religion as well as freedom OF religion.

I know it's their last gasp, (the Christians and Catholics) because their churches are closing down, their kids are not following the parents into the church, and most young adults I know don't care about religion.

But they're so damn annoying!

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

I sometimes wonder if there would be any controversy at all if it were, say, earlobes being amputated.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

That's exactly the thought I had at lunch!

Although then it occurred to me that perhaps an even better analogy is "the tip of the tongue", since most people don't think of earlobes as a particularly sensitive part of the body.

[bitterlawngnome.livejournal.com]

I was trying to think of a nonsexualised part of the body - cause these amputations always seem to involve penis, scrotum, nipples, labia, clitoris. SEX BAD! PUNISH IT!

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Clitoridectomy is very plausibly (and I'm pretty sure, frequently openly stated to be) an attempt to suppress interest in sex on the part of its subject. A ritual performed on males of all statuses in philoprogenitive, patriarchal cultures, less so. The men on whom it was performed were traditionally supposed to go out and multiply and replenish the Earth. (Within marriages, but with generous allowances made for a plethora of wives and concubines early on, and in some places more recently.) And the one Abrahamic tradition that made a big deal of abstaining also abandoned circumcision.

It's obviously of sexual significance, but it's not clear to me that punishing sex was an intent, even by implication.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

You're apparently at odds with Maimonides on this:

As regards circumcision, I think that one of its objects is to limit sexual intercourse, and to weaken the organ of generation as far as possible, and thus cause man to be moderate. Some people believe that circumcision is to remove a defect in man's formation; but every one can easily reply: How can products of nature be deficient so as to require external completion, especially as the use of the fore-skin to that organ is evident. This commandment has not been enjoined as a complement to a deficient physical creation, but as a means for perfecting man's moral shortcomings. The bodily injury caused to that organ is exactly that which is desired; it does not interrupt any vital function, nor does it destroy the power of generation. Circumcision simply counteracts excessive lust; for there is no doubt that circumcision weakens the power of sexual excitement, and sometimes lessens the natural enjoyment: the organ necessarily becomes weak when it loses blood and is deprived of its covering from the beginning. (Guide to the perplexed Pt. 3, Ch. XLIX "Fourteenth Class, Marriage Laws")

[lhn.livejournal.com]

I know when I'm beat.

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Because imposing restrictions on minority religions (and in practice, that's the only sort that will ever have to worry about this sort of measure) has a long, bad history all over the world. It really is talking about making it functionally impossible to practice Judaism. In practice, probably Islam as well; it looks like it's not as deeply-rooted scripturally, but it's probably pretty close culturally.

Obviously, we're willing to draw the line somewhere (human sacrifice, clitoridectomy), but making that a high bar historically seems to be the only option that works out well. What's so different in this case is the degree, which is pretty much true of all parental rights. (Parents are allowed to do all sorts of things with respect to their children that would be kidnapping, false imprisonment, assault, etc. if done to unrelated adults.)

And of course the degree is what's in dispute. (And something I'm in no direct position to judge.) If the consensus becomes that the degree of harm caused by circumcision is great enough, then that's probably not a culture that can coexist well with certain religious traditions. I'd submit that the harm done in the course of suppressing those traditions would likely be far greater than the harm done by circumcision. But YMMV.

I am really suspicious of a facially neutral law to protect children that just happens to also function as a stick to beat unpopular minorities with.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

I hear what you're saying, but I'm suspicious in turn of the "functionally impossible" claim given that--as I pointed out--the ruling does not amount to a blanket ban on circumcision. As Matthias Ruch of the Financial Times Deutschland has said (as quoted by the BBC article), "Muslims and Jews should decide themselves - but not before the age of 14". If adult circumcision suffices for converts to these faiths, why would that not also suffice for members who happen to be born to existing members?

[lhn.livejournal.com]

I can't speak to Muslims, but within Judaism circumcision at eight days is a bedrock commandment-- it basically is the covenant of Abraham. It wouldn't stop the child from joining later, of course. But at least as I understand it, the parents would be in violation of a fundamental duty. The boy wouldn't be able to become a Bar Mitzvah: he can't be a legal Jewish adult at 13 without having joined the community, and he therefore can't be called to the Torah to celebrate that fact.

People will of course react variously. But while lots of things are negotiable as you get towards the more secular side of the Jewish spectrum, I think it's telling that circumcision survives as an artifact of Judaism far further out than kashrut or observance of holidays. There's certainly a fraction that'll give it up if pressed. But the observant core (which has the highest birthrate) simply won't, and that will extend to some unknown (but probably signficant) degree outward into more assimilated communities. They'll endure fines or imprisonment, or pursue legal appeals as long as that's possible, or they'll move, none of which would be unprecedented in European Jewish history.

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

Honestly, in the European context, even in Germany, this ruling strikes me as much more likely to be motivated by anti-Muslim than anti-Semitic sentiment. It reminds me a great deal of the headscarf ban in France. (FWIW, I think the notion of a requirement of hijab is a teaching of misogynist theology even if individual Muslim women think it's empowering/freely chosen/whatever, and I also think it's absolutely a violation of religious freedom to outlaw it).

But anyway, here's the thing: Judaism is not merely a religion, it is an ethnic and cultural identity. Jews feel that circumcision is an expression of that identity, and that Jewish identity is threatened by deferring it to adulthood. To talk about Judaism/Jewishness as a "choice" for children to make at the age of 14 rather than something that they just have/are is indeed a very fraught notion. The Holocaust is inevitably part of the context in which they are thinking about threats to their identity; how can it not be? (I don't think acknowledging that is about holding Germany to higher standard; anti-Semitism persists everywhere, so far as I can tell.)

I don't think there's much very good evidence that circumcision is very harmful either; it's much more like, say, ritual scarification in some cultures than clitoridectomy, which is intended to prevent female sexual pleasure, whereas circumcision is pretty much a cosmetic thing.

I must say there is something perverse about your final analogies to slavery, misogyny, etc. as traditions. Where are the hordes of Jewish and Muslim men, longing to be liberated from this horrible practice? Nearly all of the critiques of circumcision I've seen come from gentiles. But what has always happened in the context of gentiles making laws about Jews and Muslims is what you're asking me not to think about.

clipped or not

[darkphuque.livejournal.com]

The Law to circumcise is one of the Strongest in the OT. It defined the Israelites from all their neighbors.... although circumcision can be traced back to the ancient Egyptians. The Greeks forbade Jewish circumcision when they ruled Israel, and it caused the the uprising that gave birth to Hanukah. It was originally a mark that set people aside, it had little to do with ritual cleanliness.

Maybe be it will come down to taking one's children to Jerusalem or Riyadh for the ritual and then returning to Germany.

In my generation most boys were circumcised at birth. My father was not circumcised, but had very little foreskin and I never thought of him being different from me. I didn't see a lot of uncut dicks til I went to Greece for the first time. All my older cousins, called me their "Little Jew".

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

*Steps up on soapbox*

This is something that hits very close to home for me on so very many levels. A) I was born to Jewish parents and was circumcised as an infant. B) I'm a practicing physician who was trained to do circumcisions. C) I have personally gone through foreskin restoration.

I went to medical school in Brooklyn during the mid-1970s. During this era a huge number of Jews from the former Soviet Union succeeded in getting out of the country and many landed in Brooklyn's "little Moscow". We saw large numbers of these men, from late childhood up into their 60s and beyond presenting to our healthcare system for circumcision, because they had been banned from doing so in the USSR by the Kremlin. Please keep in mind, for their community, this wasn't a medical procedure done in a healthcare setting, but a religious ceremony carried out in the home by someone who does ritual circumcision (a.k.a. a mohel). For these men, not allowing infant circumcision really was religious oppression. Having seen both infant and adult circumcision, as well as the healing period thereafter, in my personal opinion, adult circumcision is a hell of a lot more traumatic. It certainly is a lot more costly.

On the professional level, I stopped doing circumcision almost 30 years ago, in large part as I don't believe the procedure to be medically necessary, and I have tremendous difficulty justifying a plastic surgery procedure on someone who is unable to consent to the surgery. However, do I think parents have the right to decide that what faith they will raise their child in? I do, and if that faith requires circumcision, then I think it's their right to have the ritual circumcision, which at least within the Jewish tradition is done not by a medical provider, but by a religious practitioner. (And yes, mohels do go through training to do what they do.)

Personally, as a doctor delivering babies, I actively discourage parents from doing circumcision, but then the majority of the patients I see are neither Jewish nor Muslim (I think the last Jewish child I delivered just turned 18), and probably three quarters of the parents who had initially planned to circumcise have opted not to, after our discussions. This is how I think the whole practice should be addressed, not by banning it's pracitce.

[danthered.livejournal.com]

I think parents have the right to decide that what faith they will raise their child in (…) and if that faith requires circumcision, then I think it's their right to have the ritual circumcision

I could not possibly disagree with you more strenuously. "Faith" is a nice, warm, fuzzy, comfy word that elides the reality that we're talking about baseless superstition.

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

Slippery slope time, eh?

Faith, religion, belief systems, philosophies, what ever you choose to call them, do you have a right to have one for yourself? I think you do. Do you have the right to expect me to follow them? Absolutely not. Do you have the right to teach/impart them to your children? I think you do, even if I think they're wrong. Where do things cross the line?

Denying your children medical care?
Refusing to vaccinate them?
Refusing to vaccinate children, but sending them to public school?
Refusing them sex education?
Not allowing them to be taught evolution?
Home schooling?

While I personally disapprove of circumcision, will not preform one, and believe I would be unwilling to have a child of mine have one, do I think they constitute child abuse? No, I don't.

What ends are we as a society willing to go to, to limit what parents are allowed to do with/for/to their children based on our own value judgements of those parents? It's a difficult dance/balance and before any of us cast the first stone, how many of us who are same-sex coupled and are also parenting children, find ourselves in difficult situations because of the larger society telling us what we may or may not do, in the raising our kids. (This one hits damn close to home in my household; the oldest of our godchildren has been living with us full time for the past year, and it has really solidified my identity as not just a gay man, but as a parent.)

[danthered.livejournal.com]

Slippery slope indeed. Take a look at the link in my comment below.

There is a great deal of real estate between what parents teach their children and what parents physically do to their children. The medically unnecessary, consequential removal or mutilation of a body part does not count as "teaching"; the difference is stark and simple and from where I sit those who claim to have difficulty perceiving it as a complicated difference appear to be willfully creating that difficulty and complication all by themselves.

[iberianbear.livejournal.com]

Where do things cross the line?

You obviously cross the line at 'permanent body modification'. Emphasis on permanent.

While obviously people are brought up in the context of their parents faiths, morality and beliefs there isn't a clearer line not to cross at neonatal body modification. Everybody has an intrinsic right to their body integrity that trumps anything else you could bring up in these discussions.

[danthered.livejournal.com]

Amen. »clink«

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this, osodecanela; you've clearly dealt with this issue from a lot of different directions.

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

You're welcome.

Incidentally, there are situations within Jewish practice in which a circumcision is not permitted. If a child is born to a woman who's brother or maternal uncle was a 'bleeder' (think hemophilia), the circumcision is not to be done. Further, if a child has a medical condition when the foreskin may be needed for medical reasons, the story is the same. A child was born in my extended family some years ago who had a hypospadias and the foreskin was going to be needed for the surgical correction of the defect. So, the circumcision on the 8th day didn't happen.

[danthered.livejournal.com]

Yep, you can do whatever nonconsensual damage you want to your children as long as you claim to do it out of sincerely held religious belief. Mutilation and murder* of defenceless children is of much less consequence than even considering constraints on the farcical "right" to pretend there's relevance and wisdom in made-up bullshit and dimly-understood fairytales and scarytales borne of Bronze Age ignorance, and to inflict them on others. With libertee and justice frall!

* "Oh, you killed your child with your bullshit religious fairytale? Well, see that you don't do it again with your other child," says His Honor.

[sandor-baci.livejournal.com]

And ear-piercings in kids under fourteen, OK? As long as we're making rules.

Circumcising newborn infants often means forcibly separating adhesions -- tissue bridges, with blood vessels and nerves and everything -- between the inside of the prepuce and the glans penis. There is blood, there is pain. Ow.

If a circumcised male converts to Judaism, he is re-circumcised. Symbolically. With a needle -- just enough injury to spill one drop of blood. The precedent can be adapted / adopted. Why not at age 8 days bring out the needle and at the bar mitzvah bring out the knife?

[danthered.livejournal.com]

This is an eminently sensible solution that should(!) satisfy everyone, but of course will not because, y'know, people.

An(other) argument that holds no water with me is any variant of "Oh, they don't feel it" (they don't remember it, there's only brief pain, it does no lasting emotional damage, etc.). Um…not only does evidence suggest they sure as hell do feel pain, but what kind of pompous, arrogant, knownothing bulk wrap is "it does no lasting emotional damage"? How the hell do we know that? Of course we know no such thing, it's just something we tell ourselves to dismiss any pesky guilt. This is right down there with telling a kid watching a hooked fish flop around "They don't feel any pain".

[wiped.livejournal.com]

If any rabbis have been willing to stand up and defend the right of pious Muslims to have their daughter's clitores cut out, I must've missed it.

for the sake of clarity: female genital mutilation has absolutely nothing to do with islam. it's a pre-islamic practice that exists in some societies where today the majority of the population is muslim, and in many of those societies it is the very 'pious muslims', often the `ulama themselves, who have been on the frontlines of campaigning against the practice as un-islamic. numerous islamic religious leaders and scholars have issued fatawa declaring the practice forbidden, including al-azhar, perhaps the most highly regarded religious institution for sunni muslims worldwide.