Secular Medical Forum

Ritual circumcision in the courts, the dock and the lab When covered by the mainstream press, the forced genital cutting of (male) children, aka ritual circumcision, is more often than not considered from the perspective of angst-ridden parents debating whether or not to continue the ritual. Not so this week. On Monday 18th April it was widely repo... rted that the High Court had refused permission to the Muslim father of two young boys aged 4 and 6 who had wanted to perform the ritual on his sons against the wishes of his estranged wife, the boys mother. The following day it was reported in the Mirror http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/family-doctor-repeatedly-bungled-babys-7785711 that Dr Muhammad Chaudhary, a GP, was being investigated by the GMC after allegedly performing a botched circumcision on a child and bungling 2 or 3 further repair attempts. It is alleged that the GP even attempted to cover his tracks by offering the family bribes and by pretending to be the boys relative and his usual GP which he was not. The same week, a press release from Queens University in Canada about recent research on adult penile sensitivity was widely reported as showing that infant circumcision does not reduce penile sensitivity. In fact, the research did not demonstrate this at all and even several of the authors own comments indicated quite the contrary conclusion. Speaking about these three related stories, SMF chair, Dr Antony Lempert, made the following comments. About the High Court judgment he said: This judgement is a welcome small step towards safeguarding children from forced genital cutting. Ritual circumcision is an irreversible surgical procedure as Mrs Justice Roberts so rightly said. More than that, it is a procedure that permanently removes healthy, erogenous and functional tissue from the most intimate part of a persons body without that persons consent and for no medical reason. That it should take a parental disagreement in court for a child to be protected from forced genital cutting remains a serious ...Read More