Talk:Circumcision and law/Archive 2

The Bible for Historical Citations

 * $\infty$ questions whether it is NPOV policy to cite the Bible as the source for a historical claim as dramatic as this recent edit in the article: "King Antiochus IV, of Syria, the occupying power of Judea in 170 BC, outlawed circumcision on penalty of death, one of the grievances leading to the Maccabean Revolt.[citation needed]"
 * $\infty$ alleges it's an NPOV violation to cite a purported historical fact with such vague & unverified "evidence" from the Bible. In light of such questions, it's noteworthy that others seem determined to keep the statement in the article.


 * "The meaning of the term "history" is itself dependent on social and historical context. Paula McNutt, for instance, notes that the Old Testament narratives "do not record 'history' in the sense that history is understood in the twentieth century ... The past, for biblical writers as well as for twentieth-century readers of the Bible, has meaning only when it is considered in light of the present, and perhaps an idealized future."

$\infty$ $\infty$ $\infty$ POV Detective (talk) 18:38, 13 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't understand your point. If by Bible, you mean the five books of Moses, that was completed around 1000 years before the Maccabees. Doesn't Josephus discuss this? So a non-biblical source almost certainly exists that discusses the outlaw of circumcision. The Talmud would be acceptable for this as well. -- Avi (talk) 19:40, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * As far as I can tell, POV Detective doesn't post to discuss article content, so I'm not sure how useful it is to respond. Jayjg (talk) 19:53, 13 August 2010 (UTC)
 * $\infty$ If folks don't give a $h!* about inaccurate citations, keep the error for the time being. It's been noted for scholars & historians in this section. $\infty$

POV Detective (talk) 15:09, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

POV Detective (talk) 15:18, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * $\infty$ notes that I Maccabees citation does not support the last of the two broad statements in the article, so it has been qualified to cite the first clause with the appropriate ambiguity. As for the second clause about the rebellion, there needs to be a specific & authoritative citation with specific wording to support such a claim of fact. $\infty$

$\infty$ POV Detective (talk) 16:03, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * $\infty$ Why do some Users accept the Holy Bible as Gospel for their historical facts?

Hmmm... Re Antiochus IV and circumcision, see, , , , , , , , , , , , , , etc., etc. Re Antiochus IV, circumcision, and the Maccabean Revolt, see , , , , , , , , etc. Also see WP:V, "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth&mdash;whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true." Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:40, 16 August 2010 (UTC)


 * $\infty$ 1 Maccabees 1:60-61 may support the first assertion "1 Maccabees, 1:60–61 states that King Antiochus IV of Syria, the occupying power of Judea in 170 BC, outlawed circumcision on penalty of death," but certainly it does not support the second assertion, "one of the grievances leading to the Maccabean Revolt."


 * Re: 1 Maccabees, 1:60–61 -- (60) "Mothers who had allowed their babies to be circumcised were put to death in accordance with the king's decree. (61) Their babies were hung around their necks, and their families and those who had circumcised them were put to death."

$\infty$ POV Detective (talk) 15:34, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Those making the second assertion, i.e., "one of the grievances leading to the Maccabean Revolt," should be more precise about the origin of their purported fact.


 * $\infty$ The Maccabees article does not support the "circumcision causation" argument: "After Antiochus issued his decrees forbidding Jewish religious practice, a rural Jewish priest from Modiin, Mattathias the Hasmonean, sparked the Maccabees revolt against the Seleucid Empire by refusing to worship the Greek gods. Mattathias killed a Hellenistic Jew who stepped forward to offer a sacrifice to an idol in Mattathias' place. He and his five sons fled to the wilderness of Judah. After Mattathias' death about one year later in 166 BCE, his son Judah Maccabee led an army of Jewish dissidents to victory over the Seleucid dynasty in guerrilla warfare, which at first was directed against Jewish collaborators, of whom there were many. The Maccabees destroyed pagan altars in the villages, circumcised children and forced Jews into outlawry.[4] The term Maccabees as used to describe the Jewish army is taken from its actual use as Judah's surname."


 * So this inaccurate passage in Circumcision and law, "one of the grievances leading to the Maccabean Revolt," should be deleted immediately.

$\infty$ POV Detective (talk) 16:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

POV Detective (talk) 16:43, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
 * $\infty$ All the circular logic refers back to one sentence in the Bible, which may support the first assertion "1 Maccabees, 1:60–61 states that King Antiochus IV of Syria, the occupying power of Judea in 170 BC, outlawed circumcision on penalty of death," but certainly it does not support the second assertion, "one of the grievances leading to the Maccabean Revolt." It would be very sloppy scholarship to keep insisting upon a fact nowhere cited in a reference. $\infty$

Just to be clear, the citation supporting this claim is as follows: Considering that this is from an academic publication, the title of the source is Circumcision: Cultural-Legal Analysis, and this article is Circumcision and law, I think that's about as good a source as one could imagine. Jayjg (talk) 20:18, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
 * It's unclear that "responded with" implies "one of the grievances leading to," but I'm just glad there are attempts to make it more neutral (WP:NPOV), and at least one modern reliable source is cited (~WP:RS). Thank you to the editors who made those changes.  Blackworm (talk) 06:09, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Half-cocked claim -- "one of the grievances leading to the Maccabean Revolt" -- marked for deletion from this article
$\infty$ The claimant should try this purported fact in the Maccabean Revolt article, nor is such a fabulous claim made in the Maccabean Revolt article. This statement went with a "citation needed" for over a year. The claimant has tried to support it with several failed sources in the last week.

POV Detective (talk) 16:24, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Conclusion: Half-cocked claim marked for permanent deletion. $\infty$

Just to be clear, the citation supporting this claim is as follows: Considering that this is from an academic publication, the title of the source is Circumcision: Cultural-Legal Analysis, and this article is Circumcision and law, I think that's about as good a source as one could imagine. Jayjg (talk) 20:18, 20 August 2010 (UTC)


 * In my opinion, POV Detective's argument here seems invalid. The Maccabean Revolt article says, with sources, "sabbaths and feasts were banned and circumcision was outlawed."  Then it says, with sources, "After Antiochus issued his decrees forbidding Jewish religious practice, a rural Jewish priest from Modiin, Mattathias the Hasmonean, sparked the revolt [...]."  Assuming that "after" is taken to mean "as a result of," and not merely "afterwards, coincidentally" (and I am assuming this is clear from the source), then the statement is sourced, as obviously male circumcision is part of Jewish religious practice.  Blackworm (talk) 06:15, 21 August 2010 (UTC)
 * However, I have a minor issue: the current version, reads as if Miller affirms that Maccabees states that it was one of the grievances leading to the revolt. Is this the case?  It is not evidenced in the quote (for which I thank Jayjg for helpfully providing).  If it is not the case, I suggest a sentence break before "one of the grievances," followed by After the banning of this and several other Jewish religious practices, the response was the Maccabean Revolt.  Or, alternately, we could source the first part of the sentence with a historical source, and remove the attribution to the religious text.  I don't think there's any evidence the first part is disputed either, so it doesn't seem to need attribution.  Blackworm (talk) 07:07, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Forced circumcision section
Regarding this section, much of the content has unclear relevance to the rest of the article. The trouble is, circumcision by force is not by itself relevant to the topic of circumcision and law unless the source comments on the legal status of such circumcisions. Can we try to remember the focus of this article, please? Jakew (talk) 08:33, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Not true at all. Or would you prefer this article be renamed "illegal male circumcisions?"  It's clearly preferable to discuss such matters here.  Blackworm (talk) 00:21, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Jake, could you be more specific about what examples in this section are not clearly relevant to an article about circumcision and law? Would you feel that these and other forced circumcisions would be better dealt with in a specific article about forced circumcision? Michael Glass (talk) 06:18, 5 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Certainly, Michael. The second sentence is a good example: "Forced circumcisions have occurred in Kenya in 2002,[67] 2006,[68] and in the ethnic conflicts that followed the election in Kenya on 27 December 2007.[69]"  This tells us that forced circumcisions have occurred, but says nothing about circumcision and law.  What is the relevance of the sentence to circumcision and law?  Were the forced circumcisions legal?  Were they illegal?  Does Kenyan law have anything to say about it?  None of these questions are answered, making the relevance unclear.  The same is true of the following sentence, and the following two paragraphs.  It is not true, however, of the final sentence (or possibly two sentences) of the first paragraph, and in particular the last paragraph of the section, which clearly indicate that these cases forced circumcisions constitute assault in their respective jurisdictions. Jakew (talk) 09:12, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Jake, if you look at the footnotes or follow the sources you will see that these cases did involve the local police (and therefore the law). I would like to put more information in the text, but heavy work commitments at the moment make that difficult. Michael Glass (talk) 11:35, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

I have now added more material to the text, which shows the reaction of police to instances of forced circumcision. However, other cases, such as what happened in Indonesia, Iraq or other places occurred during civil strife and beyond the rule of law. In the absence of a specific article on forced circumcision this would seem to be the most relevant place to include such information at the moment. Michael Glass (talk) 11:54, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Forced circumcision as a subject in its own right
As stated above, "circumcision by force is not by itself relevant to the topic of circumcision and law unless the source comments on the legal status of such circumcisions." The implication is that only a very limited number of aspects of forced circumcision can be dealt with in the present article. For this reason, forced circumcision should be addressed in full generality in a separate article. Relevant categories: Abuse; Violence; Circumcision debate; Men's rights. Baroque Trumpet (talk) 02:01, 30 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Congratulations to Baroque Trumpet for this article. It is interesting to compare what you wrote and what was almost immediately cut from it. Michael Glass (talk) 14:36, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

circumsision case in the UK
the article states "In 2005 a Muslim man had his son circumcised against the wishes of the child's mother who was the custodial parent. He was found not guilty of assault occasioning actual bodily harm by a majority verdict of the jury.[23]"

The link to the source for this is broken. also NORM uk told me via email that no prossecution for circumsision has ever reached court in the UK which means that the statement in the article cannot be correct. unfortunatly i only have NORMS statement as an email not as a public source.

in any case, since the statement has no source to back it up i feel that it should be deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.24.163.100 (talk • contribs)


 * The material was added in 2008, and unfortunately it seems that the cited source is no longer functional. I personally remember reading the article, and can confirm (albeit from memory) that it supported what was said in the article, so I think NORM-UK must be mistaken.  Anyway, the material isn't verifiable, so I've deleted it until I'm able to locate an alternative source. Jakew (talk) 21:27, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

I had an indepth discussion about circumsision with the norm representitive who I had email contact with. The contact was clearly legally trained and gave a long list of practical problems which have prevented any such lawsuit from occuring (such as clincs records being destroyed due to many years passing before a person circumsised as an infant came forward and prossecutors refusing to take a case to court out of fear of protest from religious groups) theirfore it is likely that what he told me (regarding no UK case ever being made) is acurate —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.24.163.100 (talk) 21:40, 5 April 2011 (UTC)


 * you said that you "deleted it until I'm able to locate an alternative source", yet the very next day undid your own delition and and gave the following reason "Do not delete factual information solely because the URL to the source does not work any longer"
 * why would you do this, you have deliberatly placed information on wikipedia which you know to have no source after acting on the fact that it has no source and as a result is not factual information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.10.108.234 (talk) 02:38, 13 April 2011 (UTC)
 * The edit you refer to was made by, not me. Do you seriously believe that we're the same person, or did you not notice? Jakew (talk) 07:42, 13 April 2011 (UTC)


 * IP editor, please read WP:DEADLINK regarding citations with URLs that no longer function. AV3000 (talk) 14:44, 16 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Don't delete a ref just because the info is no longer on the Internet; if it was published, then it counts as verifiable. Not sure if this applies in the current case. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 00:01, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

You have contiused to re-insert this point ever time i delete it in spite of it having no source. stop doing this! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.10.108.234 (talk) 16:45, 28 May 2011 (UTC)


 * 82.10.108.234, you say the point has "no source". Would you please state in more detail here on the talk page what exactly you mean by "no source" in this situation and how exactly your argument about "no source" is supported by Wikipedia policy (e.g. WP:V and WP:RS).  Apparently there was a news article which was on the web although we may not have its exact title, author etc.  Or maybe we do have the title, as part of the link, and a date (at least the year).  Jakew, hi. Would you please state clearly here on the talk page your grounds for re-inserting the point.  When I commented above, I hadn't had time to investigate.  I now see that we don't have the title etc.  It's not necessary to have a working link, but without title, page number etc. we don't really have a bibliographic reference.  On the other hand I'm not completely sure such is required.  I would have to study WP:V more carefully.  I'm not taking a position one way or the other on this point, but I'm asking both of you to please discuss it with each other on the talk page, instead of reverting the article.  I encourage each of you to quote specific parts of WP:V to support your arguments. If necessary you might want to consult a noticeboard such as WP:RSN. Thanks! ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 19:55, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I previously removed this material, but was correctly reverted by AV3000. As AV3000 pointed out above, WP:DEADLINK states: "Do not delete factual information solely because the URL to the source does not work any longer."  Jakew (talk) 20:38, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Please develop your argument more completely. You're not convincing me.  82.10.108.234 is apparently deleting the material not solely because a link doesn't work, but because there is "no source".  I'd like to see more complete arguments on both sides to help me maybe be able to form an opinion on this. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 21:30, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, there clearly is a source; it's a URL (http://icsurreyonline.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0400crawley/tm_objectid=15505735&method=full&siteid=50101&headline=father-cleared-of-assault-name_page.html). It's not a full citation, unfortunately, and the link no longer works.  These are certainly real problems, but a source is cited.  So the questions are: a) is the fact that the link no longer functions sufficient cause to delete the information, and b) is the absence of a full citation sufficient reason to delete it?  In the case of (a), the answer is provided by WP:DEADLINK, quoted above.  In the case of (b), I think most editors would judge the harm of deleting verifiable information to outweigh the benefit of enforcing citation formatting conventions.  Jakew (talk) 22:59, 28 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your explanation, and I acknowledge that you've read the article and that you've seen that it supports what's said. I'm still neutral on including it.  This is a reminder to all of us to take the opportunity, when we see a working url as a source, to collect the bibliographic information from it so that if/when it stops working, we'll still have as full a citation as possible. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 14:23, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Is there enough in the link to create a proper citation, which would require at a minimum article name, publication, and date? Jayjg (talk) 19:07, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * There's no date, but I think it's reasonable to deduce that the article was entitled "Father cleared of assault", and the site is named "icNetwork". CIRP have a reprint of an article of the same title (and subject matter) here; however I am not certain that it is the same article.  Jakew (talk) 19:31, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * What is "icnetwork"? What is "Surrey OnLine, County Surrey, England, May 11, 2005"? This doesn't seem like a strong source to me. Jayjg (talk) 20:10, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

The fact that the link no longer functions means that can not ammount to a source because even if we assume that the link once functioned and pointed to a source we have no way to know what that source contained. Since there is no way to know what it contained it is absurd to claim that it amounts to evidence of the truth of the statement which is disputed.

You state that "I think most editors would judge the harm of deleting verifiable information to outweigh the benefit of enforcing citation formatting conventions". If a link has been dead for a short period of time then I agree that the information should stay while someone verifys the information. However the more time that passes without a correct source being found the more likely it is that the information is not verifyable and there has to come a time when it can be said that in all probiblity the information is not verifyable and theirfore should not be on wikipedia. In this case i think that time has passed because the link has been dead for a very very long time.

in this case the information is not verifyable, the link has been dead for a long time and there is no reason to believe that a working link or alternative copy of the article which you claim it to point to will be found and a full citation of the written materiel or other informaiton which a person could use to find it such as a books ISBN number is not given.

In short there is no citation information which can be used to track the source and the link has been dead for so long that there is no reason to believe that it is verifyable.

finally copperwig states that "I acknowledge that you've read the article and that you've seen that it supports what's said" when he said this jakew was making two statements. 1) he is claiming that he read the article 2) he is making a stement about what the article said. the first statement is effectivly a jakew using his own word as verification for that which he is saying - is this really acceptable on wikipedia? my guess is that it is not, if it was citations would not be needed at all. The second statement (which is the statement which needs to be verifyable in order for a valid source to exist) is hearsay since he is not directly saying that the fact is true but instead saying that he witnessed another source stateing that the fact is true, this is certainly not a valid source of information because it puts a 3rd party inbetween the reader and the actual source meaning that the source itself cannot be verified by the reader.

however in case you dissagree with my point about editors vouching for their own edits and the problem of such evidence being hearsay i would like to vouch for the inacuracy of the information.

I myself have discussed the issue of circumsision with a representitive or NORM uk, one of the things he said was that there has never been a criminal case prossecuted in the UK due to various practical barriers which have prevented it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.10.108.234 (talk) 18:52, 29 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I've restored the text yet again, with an additional citation that demonstrates that your unpublished source - an excellent example of WP:OR - is incorrect. (For the record, there's a copy of the originally-cited article at .) AV3000 (talk) 02:27, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I support keeping the material, although there are still some weak links in the arguments. We now have such citation as can be reconstructed from the URL, plus the copy of the article at cirp, plus this additional article which supports the fact that a prosecution took place, and for which we have a full citation.  It could be rather weakly argued that the title plus year plus "icnetwork" as publisher constitutes a citation, although "icnetwork" seems to be more of a distributor of news and for someone to look it up in archives somewhere they would probably need the name of the more specific news source (which, however, is probably that given on the cirp website).  It could possibly be argued that cirp is a reliable source. The Scotsman article has a full citation and supports part of the story, and contradicts the information  82.10.108.234 got from the representative of NORM UK.
 * I was going to weakly support including the material even without the Scotsman article. Wikipedia is based on published sources, not unpublished statements such as the NORM UK one.   Anyway, a statement that something has never happened doesn't seem convincing at all when there is a news report describing it happening.  Besides the need for the statement to be published, to make it convincing the person would have to mention the news article and state why they think it's wrong; otherwise it just looks as if the person has never heard of that news report and doesn't know that actually the event has happened.  I would also like to see a statement from the person as to how they know that something has never happened:  have they carried out a search of a database of court cases, and if so what time periods and jurisdictions were covered by the search.
 * Thanks for finding the additional citation, AV3000. ☺ Coppertwig (talk) 20:48, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Finland
I have reverted Jake's revert of MurasakiSunshine latest addition to the article because I disagree with his reason in the edit summary. Jake instead of edit warring and using the exact same edit summary, why not discuss on the talk page your concerns? Your edit summary said "article is about the law, not what people think it ought to be" and my edit summary countered with "this is a court case not conjecture, properly sourced and in the correct section". This was a case of Finnish law regarding circumsion in the Finnish section of the article Circumcision and law. Garycompugeek (talk) 19:56, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually, Gary, the edit affected two sections, not one. The sections were Finland and Sweden.  Neither addition was about a court case, so your claim that "this is a court case" is mystifying, to say the least.  Both additions were about what people think the law ought to be; they weren't about what the law actually is or what courts have ruled about circumcision.
 * The addition to the Finland section is about a Finnish politician (Vesa-Matti Saarakkala), who "is calling for the criminalisation of male circumcision". In other words, he's saying that circumcision ought to be illegal.
 * The addition to the Sweden section is about a Swedish medical organisation arguing that circumcision "ought to be banned in Sweden".
 * Neither of these are statements about what the law is; they're statements about what people would like it to be. Maybe the law will change to reflect their wishes; if it does, the article can and should be changed to reflect that.  But until then this material doesn't belong in this article. Jakew (talk) 20:20, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
 * My apologies Jake. My cache got stuck and was pulling the wrong ref but I have cleared it and you are correct. Garycompugeek (talk) 16:18, 14 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay Gary, glad you've solved the problem! Jakew (talk) 16:38, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Map?
Hello. Is there any appetite for a map, like the one we have at Prostitution laws? I think it would give the reader a nice bird's eye view on global status about it, obviously with no pretense to be completely accurate. Also would be nice to have uniform titles for this kind of articles. Thanks. 219.78.114.187 (talk) 23:22, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Landgericht Köln
In the recent case it was the appellate court (second instance). See Landgericht Köln and Judiciary of Germany, there are about 119 Landgericht's for the roughly 80 million inhabitants. Richiez (talk) 12:10, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Germany again
The title of this article suggests that it is about legal issues, I believe the extensive quotation of opinions of the various political and religious groups is totally irrelevant with the exception of legal views. Richiez (talk) 16:15, 21 July 2012 (UTC)

Thinking about it I will probably move all the opinions to circumcision controversies. Richiez (talk) 12:37, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm unhappy with the recent changes regarding Germany. I don't want to revert them either, firstly because I believe my English is not good enough and secondly because I don't want to start an edit war.

First of all, it should be reminded that Germany has a civil law system. German courts can't establish a legal precedent as courts in Anglo-Saxon countries can because, in a civil law system, court rulings are generally non binding except for the parties involved in the case. The only effect that this ruling might have that, in the next case, the defendant might not be able to excuse himself with a mistake of law. I personally do not believe that the judgement of a lower court (a "Landgericht" is only a lower court) could have such an effect whilst higher courts have previously, as cited in the Cologne judgement, decided otherwise.

It is probably misleading to characterize the Kleine Strafkammer at the Landgericht Cologne as a court of appeals. it is more accurate to describe it as a second trial court. German court proceeding laws know two forms of "appeal": Berufung and Revision. Upon Berufung, the appealing party gets a second trial. That's what happened in this case.

I agree with Richiez that large parts of the article are not about the legal situation in Germany but about the circumcision controversy in general. I suggest that the part dealing with the judgement in Cologne should be completely rewritten. The academic service (Wissenschaftlicher Dienst) of the Bundestag has published a paper titled "Beschneidung und Strafrecht" (Circumcision and criminal law) that could serve as a blueprint. --Logischabbaubar (talk) 08:07, 25 July 2012 (UTC)


 * First, Logischabbaubar, I totally disagree with you--Your English is excellent! :)
 * Logischabbaubar, I agree with you and Richie that this section needs to be rewritten.  I understand that in Germany the way the law works is different, and it's great you have personal expertise in this area, but your analysis is original research and we can't use it directly.  What you can be very helpful with is finding reliable sources that we can cite that say what you are describing.  The German-language references are difficult for the many non-German-speaking editors here to use.  (Wikipedia policy does not forbid their use but I can't confirm what they say or verify that you are paraphrasing them properly.)  Can you find good English-language references that cover this?  That would be very helpful.  Thanks...   13:52, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Distinction between law as it applies to adults vs. children
This article fails to make this distinction. Clearly law is, and ought to be, applied differently to consenting adults and children.

In fact, the circumcision of infants is the main point of this article because no one contests the right of an adult to genital alterations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DavidHGrateful (talk • contribs) 20:24, 18 November 2013 (UTC)


 * Actually the article does cover this in several places.  02:43, 19 November 2013 (UTC)


 * That's just it. It does mention it in several places, but it is not a clear distinction from the beginning.DavidHGrateful (talk) 05:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Inconsistent Terminology
This article does not refer to make circumcision as mutilation even once whereas the article on female circumcision refers to it as female genital mutilation throughout. Although the procedures differ, both result in mutilated, less functional genitals (http://www.circumstitions.com/Functions.html).

Perhaps, the source of this is cultural acceptance of one and not the other? 184.76.115.0 (talk) 17:51, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Map.
Can we get a color coded map of where it is illegal, where it is discouraged, and where it is common? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.201.194.191 (talk) 22:37, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * +1. The prose makes it very hard to understand what's the standing in a given country.  As I understood, male children are not currently protected from mutilation in any country, but in at least Australia and South Africa cosmetic MGM is banned (as opposed to one on religious basis).  In a few countries, there's a ban on mutilation done by a non-certified person. KiloByte (talk) 06:43, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20101110072012/http://www.dispatch.co.za:80/1997/10/09/page%2015.htm to http://www.dispatch.co.za/1997/10/09/page%2015.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20140110003538/http://icsurreyonline.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0400crawley/tm_objectid=15505735&method=full&siteid=50101&headline=father-cleared-of-assault-name_page.html to http://icsurreyonline.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0400crawley/tm_objectid=15505735&method=full&siteid=50101&headline=father-cleared-of-assault-name_page.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120911010141/http://www.msnbc.msn.com:80/id/48914968/ns/world_news-europe to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48914968/ns/world_news-europe/#.UEjj5FLfu5k
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120222063038/http://www.socialstyrelsen.se/publikationer2007/2007-107-7 to http://www.socialstyrelsen.se/publikationer2007/2007-107-7

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External links modified
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Made edit to article to remove bias. Reasons why are stated below.
I am not a regular editor for Wikipedia. Bearing this, a number of Wikipedia sites have major inaccuracies and biases. A major bias was in this article, hence the edit. Male genital cutting (circumcision) is not technically legal in the United States, but is tolerated. Take a look at the site (www.arclaw.org). You will find sound legal arguments for why this is the case. Unfortunately, the law is ignored in this case. Recall that the attempted ban on male genital cutting in San Francisco was not dismissed due to religious rights - the US can make no law respecting the establishment of religion (1st Amendment), which protects people from others trying to force their religion on them. thus the court was unable to use this argument for the aforementioned reasons. The judge dismissed the case on the basis that the State, and not a city, can only regulate a medical procedure (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/san-francisco-circumcision-ban-striken/story?id=14179024). Thus, she completely side-stepped the real issue. Obviously performing circumcision on normal-functioning, healthy genitals is not a medical procedure because nothing is malfunctioning.

Thus, circumcision of healthy children is not defensible by a religious argument, as babies don't have a religion. This directly follows from the 1st Amendment, which de facto allows religious rituals to be practiced by the individual themselves, but prohibits them from forcing their religion on another person (this is accomplished by not allowing laws to be made that respect religious practices). In the eyes of the law, each person is an individual, so the concept of "religious freedom" only pertains to the individual, not their neighbors, their spouse, nor their children. There also exists numerous precedents where religious practices forced upon children are banned - can't legally tattoo a child in the US, for example. Female genital cutting is also banned, even though it is a religious practice in many groups. Thus, to not ban male genital cutting is a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.

Furthermore, for a parent or guardian to legally give informed consent for a medical procedure, there must be an impending medical justification for the procedure (Svoboda JS, Van Howe RS, Dwyer JG. Informed consent for neonatal circumcision: an ethical and legal conundrum. J Contemp Health Law Policy 2000;17:61–133.). None exists in healthy, normal boys with regard to the foreskin. Surgery is never justified as preventative medicine, not to mention the studies claiming that circumcision reduces AIDS are complete crap. For anyone who doubts this, I encourage them to perform a Google search for the various other ailments that circumcision was touted to "cure", not to mention all of the AIDS studies have an either a religious bias, or a large potential for monetary gain! No research body in Europe has been able to confirm these (largely American) studies. Furthermore, it is also interesting to note that Europe (genital cutting rare) has a lower AIDS rate than the US (genital cutting common). Thus, it is clear that circumcision again violates US Law in this instance as well! Thus, circumcision of healthy, normal boys is already illegal according to US Law! This is a fact, circumcision is in complete conflict with medical, religious, and human rights laws in the US. Unfortunately, the law is ignored, which happens a lot these days! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.65.254.12 (talk) 01:52, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

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Do any countries currently ban non-therapeutic male infant circumcision?
It seems unclear to me whether there are any countries at the present time in which male infant circumcision (for non-theurapeutic reasons) is plainly illegal when authorised by the parents? Is this the case? And wouldn't it be a good idea to have a sentence in the beginning of the article stating if it is or isn't the case? —Pinnerup (talk) 13:16, 13 May 2018 (UTC)
 * No examples have been offered, and I've been unable to find any myself. I think it's reasonable to say, that there is no state that currently unequivocally bans male infant circumcision (for non-therapeutic reasons). Examples are of course still more than welcome. —Pinnerup (talk) 13:06, 3 June 2018 (UTC)