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David Nickol
July 13th, 2012 | 9:38 am

The head of the German Medical Association this week recommended that doctors cease performing circumcisions for religious reasons until the law can be clarified.

The Jewish Hospital in Berlin has also stopped performing circumcisions. Isn’t this exactly the wrong approach, or at least wouldn’t it be in the United States? In the case that started this all, circumcision was declared a criminal act, but the doctor on trial was acquitted because the judge said he could not have known what he was doing was wrong. This means the case cannot be appealed to a higher court, so everything remains in limbo. In the United States, at least, I have a feeling that all interested parties would continue to perform circumcisions, and if anyone was prosecuted, the case would be used to challenge the ban in the courts, with religious and medical groups joining together in lawsuits, up to the Supreme Court if necessary.

I see that the President of the Conference of European Rabbis has called on German Jews to defy the ruling.