I’ve covered the proposed SF circumcision ban pretty extensively. And now, unless an appeals court reverses–it’s over. A judge has thrown it off the ballot. From the LA Times story:
San Francisco residents will not be voting in November on whether to prohibit circumcision after all, according to a tentative ruling by a Superior Court judge made public Wednesday. Judge Loretta M. Giorgi ordered the city’s director of elections to strike the measure from the ballot because she said it was “expressly preempted” by the California Business and Professions Code. Under that statute, only the state is allowed to regulate medical procedures, and “the evidence presented is overwhelmingly persuasive that circumcision is a widely practiced medical procedure,” the ruling said…Giorgi ruled that “it serves no legitimate purpose to allow a measure whose invalidity can be determined as a matter of law to remain on the ballot after such a ruling has been made.”
“Legitimate medical procedure:” That was always the key. Circumcision is not a purposeless “mutilation,” but rather, an elective and legitimate medical procedure. With that evidence in from the medical community, the court didn’t need to reach any constitutional issues.
This proposal was wrong from every angle. Persuade parents not to circumcise, fine. There are good and valid arguments on that side of the controversy. But outlaw it–especially when there are modest medical benefits and with no religious exemptions for faiths that call for all males to be circumcised, particularly at a local level? No way.
July 28th, 2011 | 6:06 am
Agreed. The City of San Francisco can’t preempt the state government in defining the appropriateness of a medical procedure. However, the equal protection issue remains to be resolved.
HW
July 28th, 2011 | 6:27 am
Certainly this proposed ban on circumcision is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve heard. Some have even tried to compare male circumcision, with so called female “circumcision.”
The latter is a barbaric, cruel, evil act of torture. (let me know if you want me to tell you how I really feel about it).
It in no way has any medical benefits to it, in fact, young girls and women (who usually are forced to have it done without pain control) who are forced to have it done, can bleed to death, and suffer other health problems.
Male circumscision, on the other hand, as you point out Wesley, has medical benefits.
HistoryWriter Reply:
July 28th, 2011 at 11:53 am
@Bret Lythgoe,
Re: females, we’re not talking about the Third World version here; only the so-called “ritual nick” — which accommodates religious beliefs without pain or mutilation, but which happens to have been declared illegal in numerous jurisdictions. This is what I’m referring to when I mention “equal protection issues.” It makes absolutely no sense to encourage one practice while making the other illegal.
HW
Bret Lythgoe Reply:
July 29th, 2011 at 3:00 am
@HistoryWriter, It’s good to talk with you again. You make thought provoking, important points. i also hope all is great with you.
I think that the male circumscision is entirely appropriate, if the baby is given anesthesia, and it is just the traditional form, where no harm or dysfunction, to the genital region results. And, as Wesley, and others have said (maybe you have as well), there are medical benefits, derived from the procedure.
But, if I understand your point, equal religious protection would require us to allow the female version, since it’s often motivated religiously, as well as the male version, since it’s often religiously motivated? and if the government allows one, and not the other, isn’t it showing discrimination against the religious views that motivate the one it doesn’t allow?
If I’m understanding your point correctly, it’s a fair one. But, it might be resolved in the following way. Perhaps, the female circumscision, could be considered, since the objective evidence shows that it is, a physically, and perhaps psychologically abusive procedure. Clearly, religious freedom, as i know you agree, does not allow parents to do whatever they wish with their children. If part of what constitutes one’s religious practice, involves what objective criteria deems abuse, the government has a legitimate right to ban such a practice, since the well being of the child, takes a higher priority over the parents religious freedom.
I hope I’m interpreting your point, correctly, here, History Writer. If not, I apologize, and please correct my points.
When are you and Wesley going to have that beer, while discussing the latest controversies? :-)
Take Care!
HistoryWriter Reply:
July 29th, 2011 at 8:42 pm
@Bret Lythgoe,
You’ve got the idea pretty well. Naturally I oppose the version in which female genitalia are actually mutilated. The token “nick” is quite another matter. Male circumcision is a much more complicated procedure than the “token circumcision” of the female, which requires nothing more serious than making a scratch and extracting a drop of blood; yet one is a permitted religious accommodation while the other is forbidden. It may be that the underlying rationale has more to do with anti-Muslim sentiment than with concern for the well-being of female children.
HW
Tabs Fine Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 4:53 pm
@HistoryWriter,
Now, I’m not a scholar of Islam, so I can’t give any definitive information, but all the websites I’ve seen concerning Islam and female “circumcision” pretty well say that female circumcision isn’t part of the religion. Here’s a good link to a good pamphlet:
http://www.minaret.org/fgm-pamphlet.htm
Here’s a Wikipedia article on religion and FGM:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_on_female_genital_cutting
From the above-quoted link: “Amnesty International says that the prevalence of the practice of FGM is unknown, and that the procedure is now only practiced by some Muslims and Animists.” I don’t know how accurate that is, but almost everybody speaking about Islam and FGM says the two don’t go together.
From the above-quoted Wikipedia article: “Sheikh Ali Gomaa has stated that “[t]he traditional form of excision is a practice totally banned by Islam because of the compelling evidence of the extensive damage it causes to women’s bodies and minds.” [24] However, Sheikh Musa Mohammed Omer, a member of the Executive Committee of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs in Ethiopia has said: “there is no evidence from Islamic sources prohibiting female circumcision,” unless it is infibulation.[25] Pharaonic circumcision refers to infibulation, or WHO Type III FGM.”
For more about the different types of FGM, here’s a Wiki link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_genital_cutting
Most of what I’ve seen about FGM is cultural, rather than religious. In those cases, a woman gets “circumcised” because the removal of the clitoris and/or surrounding tissue makes it harder for a woman to masturbate or engage in illicit sexual behavior outside of marriage. Or the culture has cleanliness beliefs about female genitalia that require FGM.
But female circumcision is so up-in-the-air in Islam that I doubt it could ever be considered a real Islamic tradition in the sense of male circumcision. Again, it seems to be mostly culturally driven, not religiously. So I don’t know that even the token “nick” qualifies as a legitimate religious requirement, so I don’t know that it could be protected the same way as male circumcision.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
July 30th, 2011 at 5:59 pm
Fewer links please. This was in Spam
Tabs Fine Reply:
August 2nd, 2011 at 4:24 pm
@Wesley J. Smith,
Fewer links? Aww, the first thing I learned in college was to make sure you cite your source! (cue me moping)
Doofy computers. Anyway, thanks for letting me know – I’ll try to cite without sending as many links, so that I don’t get considered spam again.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
August 2nd, 2011 at 5:33 pm
Tabs: Yes. I find that when commenters get thrown into spam, it is usually when either they write very long or put in more than one or two links. I don’t like that anyway because I don’t have time to check all the links and I can’t verify they are suitable for the standards I set here. I don’t worry about you in that regard, of course.
July 28th, 2011 | 5:06 pm
Finally some sanity in our CA courts.
July 29th, 2011 | 12:27 pm
Here is to hoping that if they bring the circumcision thing to the state level, they make a law that affects all “mutilations” below the age of consent.
I’m sick of seeing “age of consent” laws used to trap conservatives in a “gotcha”. If it is unacceptable to alter a child’s body when the child is below the age of 18, let’s see that applied to all “mutilations” – including piercings, tattoos, cosmetic surgeries, and so on.
And I hope we drop all this talk of “child abuse”. You can’t honestly call it child abuse unless you can demonstrate harm. Child abuse means trauma with long-term effects.
I also hope they would allow for a religious exemption. I hate the idea of a law pretending to be about protecting children from harmful amputations that is really there for the express purpose of causing harmful amputation – that is, “amputating” the child from his Bar Mitzvah, from his identity and his peoples’ traditions. Extreme individualism is just one ideology among many; it should not enjoy a privileged status.
Too many “child welfare” laws are really not there to protect children, but are only there to enable cultural imperialists to impose their views/beliefs/values on populations that don’t want it. If we are going to have an “age of consent” – whether it is for body changes or for sex or for anything else – then it needs to be applied consistently, and exceptions need to be based on careful consideration of a child’s best interests – not just extremist individualists pushing their ideologies onto people, using deception and manipulation and force because their ideology isn’t persuasive enough on its own merits.
July 29th, 2011 | 1:51 pm
Blake, you do understand, do you not, that minors often choose to have their ears (or other parts) pierced?
July 29th, 2011 | 2:35 pm
[...] Wesley J. Smith reports a judge has disallowed a vote on banning circumcision in liberal, pro-abortion San Francisco. [...]
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