Circumcision on the Chopping Block in the Netherlands
Religious groups in the Netherlands have opposed a call from the Royal Dutch Medical Association (RDMA) for male circumcision to be discouraged.
Male circumcision is legal in the Netherlands but the body representing the country’s doctors wants to end the practice.
The association is urging politicians to put it on the political agenda.
It is asking parents to think twice before having their sons circumcised because it regards the procedure as dangerous and unnecessary.
Yet others see it as the latest reflection of a political shift in a country that is increasingly pressuring religious groups to stop practising what they preach.
Growing opposition
The figures vary but it is estimated that globally 30% of men are circumcised, with about 15,000 boys undergoing the procedure here in the Netherlands every year.
Religious freedom
The RDMA are fighting against what is a deeply entrenched religious practice.It is written in the Islamic text the Hadith that Muslim men should “cut the things that grow”.
Ibrahim Wijbenga is a Muslim member of the Christian Democratic Appeal in the city of Eindhoven. He was circumcised as a child and, following the family tradition, he had his son circumcised too.
Ibrahim thinks claims that these discussions are medically motivated are nonsense and is campaigning to save the practice.
“It’s not that we do something illegal or that we use a rusty knife. The boys in question are anaesthetised so they are looked after by the doctors.
“The motivation is plain Islamophobia. It’s not a discussion about medical ethics, it’s to make a lot of bad propaganda against Muslims and about our way of life and our religion,” Mr Wijbenga said. “Basically, it’s an effort to stop Muslims from entering Holland.”
Jews, too, fear these anti-circumcision discussions are a serious threat to their faith.
“It’s written in the Torah, in the Bible, that we should circumcise the child when the child is 8 days old. What God tells us to do, we must do,” said Rabbi Jacobs, one of the Netherlands’ most senior religious leaders.
He said that being advised not to circumcise babies would have a dramatic impact on the estimated 30,000 Jews living in the Netherlands. For him, it is worse than being told they cannot cultivate kosher meat.
‘I can import (kosher meat) or choose to not eat it, but with circumcision I’m stuck. Even if I take my child to a different country to do it, once I come back the doctor will see that there has been a circumcision and put me in jail.
Nobody alive can remember something that happened to him when he was eight days old. Yes, an older child might be traumatized by dread and fear, but an infant has no sense of anticipation, just a discomfort which is relieved in moments.
6 Forms of Socially Accepted Child Abuse More Agonizing than Circumcision.