Free Republic

AFP - Botched circumcisions killed 30 young men and landed almost 300 more in hospital during traditional initiation rites in a South African province, the health department said Sunday. The 30 deaths in rural Eastern Cape province occurred during the annual season when young males undergo a rite of passage into manhood. Ten other youths were hospitalised after being rescued from a forest on Sunday, said provincial health department spokesman Sizwe Kupelo in a statement. "The ten initiates' private parts are rotten. They are badly damaged. Their condition is scary," he said. A further 293 young men were undergoing hospital...

Over the last few years there have been a number of studies suggesting that male circumcision may protect against HIV infection. Several possible reasons have been offered by experts as to why circumcision offers protection against HIV infection. Now here's one more reason... A study led by Lance Price of the Translational Genomics Research Institute suggests that a significant shift in the bacterial community or microbiome of the penis as a result of circumcision could explain HIV protection. The researchers found that in men who were circumcised, the total bacterial load under the foreskin was 33.3 percent less than those...

One of Germany’s 16 states has declared circumcision legal, but only if performed by doctors — not, as required by Jewish law, by mohels. Berlin, Germany’s capital and itself a state, is the first to declare the practice legal following a Cologne court ruling in June that non-medical circumcisions on children amounted to a criminal offense, according to DPA, a German news wire. National legislation is pending to legalize circumcision. State Justice Minister Thomas Heilmann made the announcement Wednesday, saying he felt it necessary to allay fears in this “difficult transitional period,” the Associated Press reported.

The nation's most influential pediatricians group says the health benefits of circumcision in newborn boys outweigh any risks and insurance companies should pay for it. In its latest policy statement on circumcision, a procedure that has been declining nationwide, the American Academy of Pediatrics moves closer to an endorsement but says the decision should be up to parents. "It's not a verdict from on high," said policy co-author Dr. Andrew Freedman. "There's not a one-size-fits-all-answer." But from a medical standpoint, circumcision's benefits in reducing risk of disease outweigh its small risks, said Freedman, a pediatric urologist in Los Angeles.

The nation's most influential pediatricians group says the health benefits of circumcision in newborn boys outweigh any risks and insurance companies should pay for it. In its latest policy statement on circumcision, a procedure that has been declining nationwide, the American Academy of Pediatrics moves closer to an endorsement but says the decision should be up to parents. "It's not a verdict from on high," said policy co-author Dr. Andrew Freedman. "There's not a one-size-fits-all-answer." But from a medical standpoint, circumcision's benefits in reducing risk of disease outweigh its small risks, said Freedman, a pediatric urologist in Los Angeles. Recent...

Jewish groups and Israeli politicians on Wednesday lashed out at German authorities after Bavarian prosecutors filed criminal charges against Rabbi David Goldberg for performing a circumcision. The rabbi has been slapped with charges of committing bodily harm, in the first known case to arise from an anti-circumcision ruling in May. "The charges laid against a Jewish religious leader for performing a fully legal action is outrageous and a very troubling escalation sending a deeply problematic message to the Jewish community,” European Jewish Congress (EJC) President Dr. Moshe Kantor said. “It has been many decades since a Jew was charged for...

A German rabbi has been criminally charged for performing a circumcision, committing what the indictment calls "bodily harm," media outlets reported on Tuesday. The charges against David Goldberg, who is a mohel and the Rabbi of the city of Hof Saale in Bavaria, is the first known case following the anti-circumcision ruling issued by a German court in May.According to media reports, the charges were filed by a physician from the city of Hessen, and was based on the court ruling which stated that performing a religious circumcision ritual can be considered a crime. A Bavarian radio station reported that...

Ombudsman for children's rights proposes that Jews and Muslims replace male circumcision with a symbolic, nonsurgical ritual. THE HAGUE - Norway’s ombudsman for children's rights has proposed that Jews and Muslim replace male circumcision with a symbolic, nonsurgical ritual. Dr. Anne Lindboe told the newspaper Vart Land last month that circumcision in boys was a violation of a person’s right to decide over his own body. “Muslim and Jewish children are entitled to the same protection as all other children,“ she said. She added that the practice caused unnecessary pain and was medically unbeneficial. Lindboe, a pediatrician, was appointed ombudsman...

A furore over circumcision in Germany reached neighbouring Austria on Tuesday as a state governor advised doctors against performing the procedure, even when it is on religious grounds. Markus Wallner, centre-right state premier of Vorarlberg, said the instructions followed a controversial June ruling by a court in the German city of Cologne that equated circumcision of young boys with grievous bodily harm. That verdict provoked uproar from religious and political leaders in Israel as well as Muslim countries, with Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly saying it risked making Germany a "laughing stock".

Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman promised Germany's Jewish and Muslim communities on Friday they would be free to carry out circumcision on young boys despite a court ban which has provoked concerns about religious freedom. In a country that is especially sensitive to allegations of intolerance because of the Nazis' slaughter of 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, the government said it would find a way around the Cologne court ban in June as a matter of urgency. "For everyone in the government it is absolutely clear that we want to have Jewish and Muslim religious life in Germany," said Merkel's...

Orthodox rabbis from across Europe urged Jews in Germany Thursday to continue circumcising baby boys, at an "emergency" meeting called over a court ruling branding the religious rite a criminal act. "We call on the Jewish community and on parents to continuing practising brit milah (the Jewish circumcision ritual) and not to wait for a change to the judicial ruling," Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, told a meeting in Berlin of around 40 Orthodox Jewish clerics. Goldschmidt said circumcision of boys on the eighth day after birth was a crucial tenet of Jewish law and that...

Sometimes today you encounter stories that are truly jaw-dropping, like this one being reported by the Washington Post. Headlined, "The Crime of Circumcision," it deals with a ruling issued by a judge in Germany that prohibits Jews from circumcizing their baby boys: A district judge in Cologne, Germany, recently ruled that ritual circumcision is a crime, violating “the fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity,” which outweighs other parental and religious rights. “This change runs counter to the interests of the child,” the court concluded, “who can decide his religious affiliation himself later in life.” Circumcision is a rite...

Those who think socialized medicine is just an “all good” program that keeps you healthy while somebody else pays your medical bills ought to think again. Socialized medicine takes whatever you have; whatever it can get from you. If you have financial means it will take your money and your rights. If you have no money socialized medicine will take your rights – even your religious rights. Recently a German court, no doubt encouraged by the European system of socialized medicine, ruled that circumcision even for (especially for?) religious reasons amounts to a bodily assault. In doing so the Cologne...

In a previous post, I stressed the importance of standing up for the religious freedom of people of every faith, not just those who share our own convictions. In view of a recent development in Germany, I here wish to say that Christians, especially those of us who are Catholics, should be particularly outspoken in defending the rights of Jews and the Jewish people. It is not simply the memory of past crimes committed by Christians, including leaders of the Church, against Jews—crimes sometimes committed in the very name of Christian faith. It is the fact that we are taught...

I will not address the scientific grounds for circumcision (which among other things drastically reduces the transmission of infections including AIDS), because your decree has nothing to do with science. Rather, as Heinrich Heine wrote in 1844 of your city of Cologne, Dummheit und Bosheitbuhltenhier GleichHunden auf freierGasse; Die Enkelbruterkennt man nochheut An ihremJudenhasse. (Stupidity and evil mated here / Like dogs in the open gutter / You still can recognize their descendants today / By their Jew-hatred).

The European Jewish Congress has called on the German government to stand against a regional court decision to criminalize circumcision, known as "brit mila" in Hebrew, sealing of the Biblical Covenant with G-d in the flesh. The ritual is a practice that exists at the very bedrock of the Jewish and Muslim faiths. The court, located in Cologne, ruled last Tuesday that non-medical circumcision as practiced by most Jews and Muslims causes “bodily harm” and therefore is a crime. This has led to hospitals in Germany canceling planned circumcisions, causing great distress in the Jewish community, said EJC President Moshe...

<p>A JEWISH ritual in which a circumciser sucks blood from a newborn's penis has killed two babies in the past decade, US authorities said overnight.</p> <p>The cases of herpes simplex virus (HSV-1) infection were all documented in New York City from 2000 to 2011 and several were within the same neighbourhood.</p>

Circumcising young boys on religious grounds amounts to grievous bodily harm, a German court ruled Tuesday in a landmark decision that the Jewish community said trampled on parents' religious rights. The regional court in Cologne, western Germany, ruled that the "fundamental right of the child to bodily integrity outweighed the fundamental rights of the parents", a judgement that is expected to set a legal precedent. "The religious freedom of the parents and their right to educate their child would not be unacceptably compromised, if they were obliged to wait until the child could himself decide to be circumcised," the court...

A German court has ruled that circumcising male infants for religious reasons, as Jews in particular have done for thousands of years, constitutes grievous bodily harm and is a crime, regardless of parental consent. A public health specialist who is also a traditional Jewish circumciser called the ruling “stupid,” suggesting Wednesday that while “politically-correct modern liberal thinkers” would not be open to persuasion about Jewish values, they should at least consider studies finding wide-ranging health benefits from the procedure. In a ruling bound to fuel a long-running debate over circumcision, a regional court in Cologne said Tuesday that the “fundamental...