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Though it is, in some respects, very unusual, this case nonetheless highlights a somewhat hidden and more widespread assumption embedded in our laws - that if a couple's mainstream religion requires them to inflict harm upon their child, then the law will not interfere with that prerogative. … In the ''Boldt'' case, the boy at issue is not a newborn but an adolescent, a 12-year-old, who not only has the self-evident capacity to feel pain but who could also offer his own opinion on the question of whether he should have his foreskin amputated. So far, we do not know from press accounts what the boy thinks about his father's plans, although his mother claims that he is opposed yet reluctant to say so. Even assuming, however, that the 12-year-old is neutral on the question, the notion of subjecting a child his age to such a surgery would likely seem barbaric to many people. There is, after all, no medical need to circumcise the boy. His foreskin is, so far as we know, not plagued with any disease or other malignancy. No doctor has offered the medical opinion that the family really ought to circumcise the boy. The only reason to do it is that his father has found religion and wishes to bring his son into the faith. … It is when parents disagree with each other and ask the courts to step in that we are uniquely able to consider some of the harm to which people expose their offspring. The ''Boldt '' case thus may, in this way, help us focus on what is otherwise "routine" in parenting and perhaps become more sensitive to the sorts of harm that we might otherwise continue to take for granted.<ref name="colb2007">{{REFweb

On two occasions the Court of Appeal in England has addressed the legality of non-therapeutic circumcision performed on a minor unable to provide consent. Both cases involved disputes in post-separation families where one parent sought a male child’s circumcision against the wishes of the other parent. In January 2008, the Supreme Court of Oregon was faced with a similar factual situation in the case of ''Boldt v Boldt''. However, the boy at the center of the dispute in ''Boldt '' was significantly older than in the English cases. The Supreme Court therefore concluded that the testimony of the boy himself, who is now 13, was required and remanded the case for a re-hearing in order that the trial court could specifically address his wishes with regard to circumcision. In this paper, we offer a critique of the Oregon Court’s somewhat elliptical reasoning in the Boldt case. We argue that cases involving male circumcision of older children raise important ethico-legal issues, which the ''Boldt '' judgments gloss over, and which English courts have yet to confront in the context of circumcision. Consequently, our aim in this paper is to use ''Boldt '' as a lens through which to explore and inform UK practice. We argue that this case fits into a characteristic pattern according to which judges, law makers, and professional bodies shy away from confronting key ethico-legal questions raised by the tolerance in Anglo-American society of non-therapeutic genital cutting of male infants. In raising explicitly for the first time the position of older minors, the factual situation in ''Boldt '' affords us an opportunity to begin to address the limits of parents’ rights to determine the future religious identity of their children. In seeking to analyze how ''Boldt '' and the questions to which it gives rise might inform UK law we focus on three issues. The first is the right of the boy at the center of the dispute to determine which medical treatments or interventions to his body are permissible. The father’s subsequent petitions for reconsideration and for certiorari mean that, when the boy’s testimony is finally heard by a court, it is likely that he will be 14 or 15 years of age. We aim to assess how a UK court might respond if faced with the task of determining whether a minor could choose circumcision for himself in such a scenario. A subsidiary question here is the extent to which circumcision procedures are appropriately categorized as “medical treatment.” Finally, we offer some more tentative thoughts on what limits may legitimately be placed on parental rights to make choices for their children when their choices are motivated by religious belief.<ref name="fox2010">{{REFweb

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