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→Early Development of circumcision law
''Gillick'' affirmed the right and duty of parents to protect their child.
Sebastian Poulter, a legal witerwriter, in a book entitled ''English Criminal Law and Ethnic Minority Customs'', stated:
<blockquote>
"The basic right to bodily integrity which everyone possesses under the English common law means that any unlawful interference in this right amounts to an assault or battery, at the very least, and might in appropriate circumstances entail the statutory offence of grievous bodily harm. The question raised in cases of circumcision, excision or infibulation is whether the operation can be justified as constituting lawful as opposed to unlawful interference with this right."
|last=Poulter
|first=Sebastian
|year=19881986
|title=English Criminal Law and Ethnic Minority Customs
|url=http://www.cirp.org/library/legal/poulter/
}}</ref>
</blockquote>
Poulter's claims are controversial. Recent court decisions cast further doubt on their legitmacy.
The [https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/ Law Commission of England and Wales] had proposed to recommend that circumcision of male children be made lawful. The late [[Christopher P. Price]], solicitor, submitted a brief to the Law Commission,<ref name="price1996">{{REFdocument
|title=Male Circumcision: A Legal Affront
|url=http://www.cirp.org/library/legal/price-uklc/
|contribution=
|last=Price
|first=Christopher P
|author-link=Christopher P. Price
|publisher=Circumcision Reference Library
|format=
|date=1996-12
|accessdate=2021-09-07
}}</ref> after which the proposal was dropped.
===Human Rights Act 1998===