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→Legal proceedings: Wikify.
'''Boldt v. Boldt''', framed as a child-custody case originating in the state of Oregon, actually concerns the proposed non-therapeutic [[circumcision]] of a boy, intended to indulge his father's religious urges.
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
|title= Appelant's Brief and Excerpt of Record
|url=
==Legal proceedings==
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
|url=https://arclaw.org.customers.tigertech.net/wp-content/uploads/Svoboda-Three-Fourths-Were-Abnormal-Mishas-Case-Sick-Societies-and-the-Law-Denniston-Milos-Hodges-Genital-Autonomy-Protecting-Personal-Choice-2010.pdf
|archived=
The court did not think that the father's desire to cut off part of his son's [[penis]] was grounds for a change of custody, however the court granted the injunction against the proposed circumcision. Lia Boldt then filed an appeal of the circuit court's decision with the [https://www.courts.oregon.gov/courts/appellate/coa/Pages/default.aspx Oregon Court of Appeals] (OCA).<ref name="svoboda2010" /> The OCA rejected Lia Boldt's appeal.
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(D.O.C.)]] entered the case. [[Doctors Opposing Circumcision (D.O.C.)]] 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:
<blockquote>
Mikhail (Misha/Jimmy) James Boldt, (hereinafter ‘Misha/Jimmy’) is a minor who is legally incompetent. Nevertheless, Misha/Jimmy is a person with rights of his own. As a minor he deserves special protection under Oregon, and international law. Misha/Jimmy has an unalienable right to protection and security of his person, and the Courts of the State of Oregon have a corresponding obligation to protect his rights independent from and even despite the wishes of a parent who might endanger the child unnecessarily.<ref name="docbrief1">{{REFdocument
|last=Geisheker
|first=John V.
|publisher=[[Doctors Opposing Circumcision(D.O.C.)]]
|format=PDF
|date=2007-04
|last=Geisheker
|first=John
|publisher=[[Doctors Opposing Circumcision(D.O.C.)]]
|format=PDF
|date=2007-07
"Misha went home with his father the day of the final appearance before Judge Greif on April 22. No one knows what transpired later between the father and the son who had bravely defied him -at age 14- in the Judge's chambers, and before the many attendees at the hearing."
</blockquote>
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" />
In September 2009, facing a custody hearing he was likely to lose, the father voluntarily agreed to give up physical custody of Misha (now 14-years-old) to his mother with court approval. The stipulated custody order provides:
Geisheker notes that the Court mentioned only the child’s right to be heard, but did not recognize its paramount duty to protect him. Misha’s case is a sad commentary upon American life and constitutional principles. ''Boldt v. Boldt'' eloquently demonstrates that in the US, at least, the law to date has not been able to effectively grapple with such a heavily contextual and cultural practice as male circumcision.
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" />
</blockquote>
* [[Human rights]]
* [[Cologne circumcision court judgment]] (7 May 2012)
* [[United States of America]]
{{LINKS}}
* {{REFweb