Bioethics

More (or less) on Male Circumcision

Thanks to Pablo de Lora for pointing us to a new article from Bijan Fateh-Moghadam on the Cologne decision regarding male circumcision. From the article’s conclusion: Summing up, the Cologne Judgment misjudges the constitutional framework of the criminal law defense of proxy consent. Male circumcision in children, if performed lege artis and with the consent of the parents,…

Thanks to Pablo de Lora for pointing us to a new article from Bijan Fateh-Moghadam on the Cologne decision regarding male circumcision.

From the article’s conclusion:

Summing up, the Cologne Judgment misjudges the constitutional framework of the criminal law defense of proxy consent. Male circumcision in children, if performed lege artis and with the consent of the parents, is lawful, because it does not exceed the general legal limits of parental consent. Parents who circumcise their sons following Jewish or Muslim tradition do not claim for a legal privilege or “reasonable accommodation”, they rather utilize the parental right to the care and custody of the child and freedom of religion as guaranteed by the general law. The justification of male circumcision therefore does not follow from a religious or cultural defense but from the well-established principles of parental proxy consent. Hence, also the – circular – argument of the Cologne Judgment with reference to Art. 140 GG in conjunction with Art. 136(1) of the Weimar Constitution is misleading, because male circumcision does not exceed the limits of the general law in the first place.