Cologne Court Circumscribes Circumcision

ABC News (HT: Michael Bird) and the AFP (HT: Jim Davila) are reporting that the regional court in Cologne, Germany, has rendered a verdict that makes involuntary circumcision on religious grounds illegal, although the practice remains permissible if done for medical reasons. The decision follows on the treatment of a four-year-old Muslim boy for post-operative bleeding and the prosecution of the doctor who had performed the procedure.

Jim Davila comments that “banning circumcision didn’t work out very well for Antiochus Epiphanes.” In addition, the court commented that:

The body of the child is irreparably and permanently changed by a circumcision. . . . This change contravenes the interests of the child to decide later on his religious beliefs. (via AFP)

Here, 1 Macc 1:10–15 is also an interesting counterpoint. One wonders too, whether, the language of the court’s decision might not be logically extensible to things like infant ear piercings.