Berlin’s Jewish Hospital will suspend circumcisions after a German court ruled this week that performing the procedure on religious grounds is unlawful, a hospital spokesman said Friday.
“We are suspending circumcisions until the legal position is clear,” Gerhard Nerlich told AFP, citing head of internal medicine Kirstof Graf.
The hospital performs 300 circumcisions a year, a third of which are for religious reasons and the remainder due to medical concerns.
“We regularly performed circumcisions before this ruling but we don’t have the legal freedom to do so any more,” said Nerlich, adding that two procedures had already been cancelled.
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3 Responses
Doesn’t the idiot judge realize that performing circumcisions at a later age actually causes more pain and more harm to the child? Anesthesia and sutures are needed in older boys and men. Babies, on the other hand, don’t require sutures or local anesthetics and they usually have little or no post-procedure discomfort. That said, this is an attack on bris milah and should be treated as such.
Good grief. A bit of backbone! A bit of yiddisher shtoltz! What a disgrace to all those who were literally moser nefesh for milah, those who risked and lost their lives rather than obey such laws, and what are these worms worried about? A fine?!
You should NOT Suspend until the legal position is clarified!