Dutch Bris Ban Sparks Row

BBC

Religious groups in the Netherlands have opposed a call from the Royal Dutch Medical Association (RDMA) for male circumcision to be discouraged.

Male circumcision is legal in the Netherlands but the body representing the country’s doctors wants to end the practice.

The association is urging politicians to put it on the political agenda.

It is asking parents to think twice before having their sons circumcised because it regards the procedure as dangerous and unnecessary.

Yet others see it as the latest reflection of a political shift in a country that is increasingly pressuring religious groups to stop practising what they preach.

Growing opposition
The figures vary but it is estimated that globally 30% of men are circumcised, with about 15,000 boys undergoing the procedure here in the Netherlands every year.

In the United States, it is still a relatively common procedure. However, there is a growing lobby opposing it in many parts of the US.

In some states, support for the practice remains strong – protesters in San Francisco have just lost their battle to have it banned.

Jews, too, fear these anti-circumcision discussions are a serious threat to their faith.

“It’s written in the Torah, in the Bible, that we should circumcise the child when the child is 8 days old. What God tells us to do, we must do,” said Rabbi Jacobs, one of the Netherlands’ most senior religious leaders.

He said that being advised not to circumcise babies would have a dramatic impact on the estimated 30,000 Jews living in the Netherlands. For him, it is worse than being told they cannot cultivate kosher meat.

‘I can import (kosher meat) or choose to not eat it, but with circumcision I’m stuck. Even if I take my child to a different country to do it, once I come back the doctor will see that there has been a circumcision and put me in jail.

“If you interfere with this practice, it will totally end the Dutch Jewry in the Netherlands.”

Read more here