Boldt v. Boldt: Difference between revisions

On Sunday, May 30, 2004, the mother, Russian-born Mrs. Lia Nikolaevna Boldt, learned from her son, nine-year-old Mikhail James Boldt, known as Misha/Jimmy, that the custodial father, James Harlan Boldt, was planning on having him circumcised as part of the father's plan to convert the child from the Russian Orthodox faith to the Jewish faith.<ref>{{REFdocument

The case started in 2004 when James Boldt, a divorced father, who had custody of his nine-year-old son, decided to convert from Russian Orthodox to Judaism and wanted to have his son circumcised in accordance with the [[Abrahamic covenant]].  The son, however, had not converted and did not want to be circumcised. He was supported by his mother in his desire for [[genital integrity]].<ref name="svoboda2010">{{REFweb

She then appealed to the [https://www.courts.oregon.gov/courts/appellate/supreme/Pages/default.aspx Oregon Supreme Court] (OSC) in 2007. It was at this point that [[Doctors Opposing Circumcision]] entered the case. Doctors Opposing Circumcision realized that the OSC needed information about circumcision and about the child's rights under Constitutional and international human rights law, so it filed an ''amicus curaie'' brief to help the Court understand why it should accept the case. The brief stated in part:

  |publisher=Doctors Opposing Circumcision

  |publisher=Doctors Opposing Circumcision

The Court then issued a verbal order from the bench that the boy was not to be circumcised.  The court then followed that with a written order on 2 June 2009, in which the court found that a substantial change of circumstances had occurred and ordered an investigation by an independent child custody evaluator for a future evidentiary hearing.<ref name="geisheker2009" />

Thus ended in victory a five-year legal battle to save a boy's [[foreskin]]. The boy's legal, constitutional, and human rights prevailed over the father's claimed religious right to excise a [[Foreskin#Physiological_functions| functional body part]] from his son's body. The father's supporters, the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America were also on the losing side.

To date, with one known exception, all awards and settlements have occurred in cases involving either a “botched” procedure or a lack of informed consent. At least three times, courts have avoided squarely addressing the legality of male circumcision by diverting the discussion into such peripheral, procedural issues as standing. Judicial views of standing are politically and culturally shaped in response to social mandates. Although MGC is currently illegal under existing laws and human rights treaties, if properly and objectively interpreted free of cultural bias, American cultural blindness has prevented recognition of this. Elsewhere in the world, Tasmania’s Law Review Commission recently released a lengthy issues paper questioning the legality of male circumcision. Sweden has regulated circumcision and the practice was recently made illegal in South Africa, with religious and medical exceptions included that threaten to swallow the rule. While the practice is not otherwise explicitly prohibited anywhere in the world, it is of course illegal worldwide under a broad range of prohibitions imposed by statute, common or civil law, human rights treaties, and customary law.<ref name="svoboda2010" />