Never mind any religious or legal reasons.
Nature has given us all those bits for a reason.
Why remove them?

Why not let the adult male decide to observe the requirements of his religion when he understands them and can make an informed choice? Imposing such a thing on a child (other than for genuine health reasons) seems wrong.

It is a deeply cruel and painful thing to needlessly inflict on a child. I was once invited to a ‘ceremony’ where this was to take place. Politely declined.

Stray, not everything on the human body is necessary in today’s world, appendix, tonsils, even dated functionality in the brain regarding fear and ego.
We’ve basically put a stop to evolution and natural selection.

But maybe not the Germans!!

I agree but there are often overwhelming family and cultural pressures to circumcise these defenceless small boys.

Don’t forget that millions of American baby boys are circumcised a day or two after birth.. as are the majority of African boys, irrespective of religion! Enormous demand for circumcisions for Muslim boys here in France…as well as quite a few adults wishing to convert to Islam.Just an observation . Maybe the Irish Mickey is in the minority ?

Paul – there are many medical benefits to circumcision. It can help prevent the spread of disease and reduce the risk of cervical cancer in women to name a few. Given the average Irishman’s poor hygiene habits and the rise in STDs it’s probably something that should be enforced in Ireland.

WTF? Seriously you troll,please desist.

You’re advocating Muslims and Jews cutting off the head of the penis and you call me a troll. Go and learn what circumcision is before you comment you ignorant person.

Did you read my comment you horrible vile waste of air?

Now, now boys….cut it out….whoops!

Hey Mujaahid

How’s the weather in glu-sniffing Wahhabi land?

Smooth things over eh!

In fairness the Germans can hardly spearhead something that could be cast in the media as anti- Jewish now could they?

Actually, Germans did find a practical use for circumcision during WW2: to confirm that someone they caught was a Jew. Ask any East-European around, everyone heard old people’s WW2 stories of Nazi German patrols having men drop their pants at gunpoint to pluck out a Jew.

Terrifying.

Which the country subsequently abandoned ;)

Why stop at circumcision when it comes to choice? Why not ban everything that a child might consider harmful? You’re terribly selective!

Mujaahid your judgement is obviously clouded by religious BS!
But that’s your option and i respect it ;-)

And yours by an anti-religious sentiment no doubt Ronan.

@Mujaahid Be gone Troll.

Liam from Wicklow isn’t it or as you prefer Islamic Vanguards or Admin al Islam, after converting from Christianity to Islam, and in doing so becoming a heretic who in both books should be punished and cast out. Where do you see your self going with your little online war? Trolling sensible comments is doing nothing for your so called cause and maybe you should just pack it in and get a real job!

This is “Mujaahid” site
http://islamicvanguards.com/

Worth a look at to see his view point and dangerous mentality.

I just checked out that website, it was the worst kind of nonsense I have ever read. Thanks for posting it. I’m not a religious person but that was so full of hate it was disturbing. Words at this moment fail me.

There is nothing strange about it. Pork is banned in both Islamic and Jewish laws because the pig competed with man for the same food and caused serious disease due to poor basic hygiene and a lack of refrigeration. Better to make it a religious rule to ensure it was kept. The foreskin on the male was also a cause of infection and sometimes death and thus the rule that became a rite over thousands of years. Ok?

Not true, Mick, I’m afraid. There is no health or hygiene aspect to these matters. Issues to do with pork, foreskins, menstruation, ritual killing of animals and blood, in general, amongst Near Eastern religions are all wrapped up in questions of purity. The “logic”, for want of a better word, of these religious rites and rules is pretty tortured and collapses when viewed form a rational, secular perspective, but Jews and Muslims consider circumcision an act of purification. That purification is essential for full membership of the particular religious community that practises this barbaric rite. Questions of bodily integrity or consent, especially of children and women, inevitably come a long way behind bronze-age superstition for some.

@Desmond O’Toole,

Actually there is good reason to believe that banning pork was a logical response to a very nasty parasitic disease in pork called trichinosis.

Likewise circumcision is promoted in certain parts of the world to reduce HIV transmission. There are studies to support that it has at least some protective effect. No personally I wouldn’t advocate it but lets not throw facts out the window.

Hi Robert … I’ll provide the authority from my Anthropology course days (*wink*) that deals with the claims about trichinosis. Such claims for circumcision arose only in the last century or so when knowledge of disease pathology became available. The claims about trichinosis are a backdated justification for the pork prohibition, I’m afraid. The actual reason lies in religious ideas about purity.

As for the stuff about HIV, a government minister in South Africa a few years back claimed that eating grapefruits would cure AIDS and HIV. The claim that circumcisoin has any affect on any medical condition, least of all AIDS/HIV, is entirely bogus.

Not *circumcision* but *pork prohibition* … D’oh!

Well just last week a large number of African and US Aids Organisations came together to advocate making Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision a priority in the fight against the disease in Africa http://www.edgeboston.com/news/aids/news/135118/africans_urged_to_make_circumcision_priority_to_fight_aids

A World Health Organisation panel found the “research evidence compelling” for circumcision leading to lower rates of transmission of HIV. An article in Scientific American ( http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=circumcision-penis-microbiome-hiv-infection ) reports on a study which MAY provide reason why.

Hi Richard … thanks for those links. We need to be very careful about these claims. Circumcision has been touted as a cure or prevention for pretty much the entire list of sexually-transmitted diseases at one time or another. This has been particularly evident within the American medical establishment. I’m not ruling out the reports you link to, but would need more than assertions based on non-cited research by advocacy groups to be persuaded.

In the US, where circumcision takes place for largely cultural reasons, there has always been pressure to provide some scientific or objective reason for genital mutilation of young boys. So far, every attempt to demonstrate a causal link between circumcision and incidence of STDs has failed. I’m willing to be persuaded on this, but this is not the first time the US medical establishment has gotten behind a claim about the health benefits of circumcision only to later resile from it.

Simple solution Richard. When the boy/man hits the age of consent they are allowed to choose whether or not to be circumcised, having access to the studies on the benefits in relation to transmissions of aids/stds.

Have you heard an infant complain?

Please stop this Mujaahid. Idiotic comment, but alas typical

He’s a converted irish religious nut, give him no time

Perfectly put

It wasn’t the invisible man who advocated circumcision, he founded Christianity which practises Baptism

@ Mary King

In that case – its a further sick and twisted mind that advocates this practise – after all if a god wanted us to be without foreskin, he would have made us that way.

As it is, to further interfere with gods creation then the way he designed it, might be flying in the face of his wishes?

No infant gives consent full stop. But that won’t stop you sticking a dirty big needle in its arm or thigh in the interests of health. Nor will it stop you piercing ears, undergoing operations etc. I suspect that this is just another way for people to voice their Islamohobia and anti-Semitic hate without being too overt!

@Mujahid do you not see a difference between something that is medically needed and something that is not? Ear piercings close over naturally with time, no one’s foreskin has ever grown back

Nor the childs, unfortunately for them!

You denounce as foolish what you don’t know or perhaps don’t want to know. It is foolish of you to argue against circumcision on the grounds of consent when you neither ask nor seek the same when you inflict your children with painful inoculations, etc. you do this in the child’s best interests (it isn’t always of course). The same is true of Muslim and Jewish parents, the act of circumcision is done in the child’s best interests and in obedience to objective tenets that have lasted and will outlast your petty objections.

Inoculations have been clearly proven to lower chances of child mortality and permanent damage from disease ( think on polio ). The good outweighs the bad.

Sorry Feeds, but that’s nonsense …. Old Testament Jews (and subsequently Muslims) lived alongside other religious and ethnic groups who did not practise this barbaric ritual. The claim that it was done because of difficulties washing a micky in the desert is just about the most comic explanation I’ve heard so far. If that was the case then other contemporaneous religious and ethnic groups, other than Jews and then Muslims, would have practised circumcision. The reasoning for circumcision is entirely religious and relates to beliefs in purity designed to set the genital-mutilating group apart from other population groups.

Many practical advice made its way to the Old Testament, some say it’s a “how to survive in the desert” manual passed on by generations.

Hygiene and infection-prevention is a pretense under which this rite has been performed on majority of males in the US in the last century or so.

True, but when I read the comments on this Website it is clear that people are very quick to being up the nazi era, when it is relevant or not. It is a terrible pity that this law has been removed only weeks after it was passed, and it has only been removed because of the Nazi references, not because people believe the rule to be wrong. Any non-necessary body modification should be illegal until adulthood.

Woops, his comment is at the top.

I think he is looking at it from the point of view of the Jewish religion.

No, because making “female circumcision” will not affect voting preferences in Germany in the way “male circumcision” will. There are very many Muslims in Germany, and Merkel is already worried about her reelection next year.

Absolutely Louise, if I used the mutilation earlier it was meant as a choice thing. As a proud parent myself I think it’s barbaric that people let their children endure such ritual surgery, without pain relief for no good medical reason. Hope your son is doing better now.

It’s nearly 3 years ago now and it was the best decision I ever made. My older son is now nearly 7 and I see some of the same issues just not as severely. If I had noticed sooner I would possible have done something but at his age it would want to be a majorly serious issue to do anything about it.

Louise. As a mother you made your decision in the best interests of the health of your child. However, we are talking about ritual circumcision here.

Done!

I don’t agree. It puts religious tradition before the safety of children. But even as the ban was originally passed in Germany, no one here believed it would remain in law. As for this being against the Jewish people, there are far more Islamic people here in Germany, they are more affected. But possible anti-semitism always takes headlines.

Did you even read this article?

You didn’t read the article.

Up with the ant eaters , down with German helmets!!

And that dear friends is one of the many failures and lies of your democracy.

There are places where you could be stoned to death for making a comment like that. I’m glad I don’t live in one of them places.

Or Muslims for that matter.

It is not an attack against Jewish people. It is to stop untrained religious figures from performing medical procedures in non-sterile environments.

Derek – I have attempted to deal with the issue at hand without resort to character assassination. That you find the same difficult perhaps speaks more of your character than mine. To my knowledge no comments have been removed.

So we should not force our beliefs on people who are forcing their beliefs on children who have no say in the matter?

How about nobody forces their belief on anybody and we let the kids decide themselves when they are at the age where society considers them responsible for their person and actions?

How is it that jewish women hate giving their men oral sex .The jewish women I have met are very interested with they intact peins.So Im not so sure where your getting info from…If its for vanities sake,how sad would that be.