Legally, I completely understand this ruling and have a degree of sympathy with it since there can be little doubt that it is technically mutilation and due to the age at which it is carried out the child's consent is not given, and of course the procedure is irreversible.
But a whole host of other issues appear to be getting grafted onto it as well, so I worry that it opens the gates for multiple other "rights of the child" issues. Where will it stop? Prosecuting parents for having their infants baptized?
Plus of course it increases the likelihood of the procedure being done by those who are medically unqualified and in non-sterile conditions.
But a whole host of other issues appear to be getting grafted onto it as well, so I worry that it opens the gates for multiple other "rights of the child" issues. Where will it stop? Prosecuting parents for having their infants baptized?
Plus of course it increases the likelihood of the procedure being done by those who are medically unqualified and in non-sterile conditions.
German circumcision ban: Is it a parent's right to choose?
By Stephen Evans, BBC News, Berlin
A ban on circumcision in Germany has shocked the nation's Jews and Muslims. The right of parents to make decisions for their children is now under the spotlight.
A court ruling in Germany effectively banning circumcision has united Jews and Muslims in anger - and they are backed by the country's main medical association.
Muslims have warned that the devout will take sons abroad to be circumcised.
Jews have pointed out that attacks on Jewish religious rituals have been an unfortunate part of European history since the Roman times, and say they are dismayed by the latest ban.
The ruling by the district court of Cologne says circumcision "for the purpose of religious upbringing constitutes a violation of physical integrity".
The judgement added: "The child's body is permanently and irreparably changed by the circumcision. This change conflicts with the child's interest of later being able to make his own decision on his religious affiliation."
The case stemmed from a circumcision on a four-year-old Muslim boy who had to be taken to hospital when complications developed. That, unusually, put the case into the legal system and the doctor was prosecuted.
As the charge put it, the doctor "physically mistreated another person and injured that person's health by means of a dangerous instrument".
In the end, he was cleared. The court decided that circumcision was illegal but that the doctor couldn't have been expected to have known this. It had been done for so long that it seemed legal when - according to the court - it wasn't.
Because the doctor was cleared, there will be no appeal to a higher court, which means the soundness of the rest of the judgement will not immediately be tested.
This puts the medical profession in a great dilemma. Dr Frank Montgomery, the president of the German Medical Association, told the BBC: "It leaves doctors in a legal quagmire. We are convinced that circumcision is best performed under medical conditions by physicians in a hospital.
"This is obviously no longer legally possible so therefore we have to advise our physicians not to perform these operations because they run the legal risk of being taken to court."
BBC News - German circumcision ban: Is it a parent's right to choose?