Changes

The recent [[Cologne circumcision court judgment| German court case ]] regarding circumcision upheld a child's human and legal rights to bodily integrity. The ensuing arguments claiming that the decision violated religious rights evidence a misplaced understanding of the proper scope of options available based on a parent's religion with respect to procedures that may infringe on a child's rights. Chronic issues are evident in the frequent slippage in the public debate between religious and secular, between male genital cutting and female genital cutting, between ancient history and current medical knowledge and norms, and in the dialectic between an appropriately foregrounded child and other frequently foregrounded entities, such as parents and society. These chronic issues—at this point strange yet familiar bedfellows that [[intactivists ]] must effectively address—played a role in several recent events: protections of [[circumcision ]] instituted in the wake of the German court case through a German parliamentary resolution and a letter from the Austrian Justice Ministry; the legal case that puzzlingly pre-empted the San Francisco ballot initiative without a vote taking place; and the ultimately unsuccessful attempts to reverse the Colorado Medicaid victory.

J. Steven Svoboda, JD, focuses on civil litigation and human rights and is the founder and Executive Director of [[ARC – Attorneys for the Rights of the Child| Attorneys for the Rights of the Child (ARC)]], a non-profit organization addressing the illegality of involuntary genital surgery. Berkeley, California, USA.