circumcision

Opinion: Laws, even if they’re ethical, have to be enforceable in a civilized society, and should not divide. Iceland’s potential ban fails on both

Barbara Amiel on religious ritual or ritual torture?

Muslims and Jews in Germany were united in anger last week over a Cologne court ruling banning circumcision on boys not old enough to consent to it. Because both Muslim and Jewish boys are circumcised as infants, members of the two faiths argue that their religious freedoms have been trampled on. The verdict came after a controversial 2010 incident, in which a four-year Muslim boy suffered profuse bleeding two days after undergoing a botched circumcision at a Cologne clinic. Ever since, the city has been immersed in a heated debate over the practice. But the court ruled that a child’s “well-being” trumps his parents’ religious freedoms.

In San Francisco, bans are a way of life