Circumcision: Immigration, Religion, History, and Constitutional Identity in Germany and the U.S.

Author:

Abraham David

Abstract

A four-year-old Muslim boy was brought to a local Cologne emergency room by his mother, who was concerned about minor bleeding around the site of a circumcision. A District Court there found that circumcision, notwithstanding parental consent or religious motivation, constituted a criminal bodily injury and child abuse. Ultimately, on July 19, 2012 the Bundestag resolved that “Jewish and Muslim religious life be viable in Germany,” and in December a bill was passed that legislatively overrode the ruling of the District Court and recognized circumcision as a non-punishable undertaking when undertaken for religious reasons by someone professionally trained. Two years of rancorous debate revealed a whole range of historical and contemporary fissures. This essay examines the dynamics of the debate and its various outcomes. In particular it asks whether the conflicts generated by practices like male circumcision can in immigrant societies be assimilated to prevailing religious freedom models. The key questions aired were: (1) Germany's relations with its Muslim immigrants; (2) Germany's relations with its fragile Jewish minority; (3) proper weightings of the relationship among parents, child, and state; and (4) the deference owed medical thinking. Immigrant integration, religious freedom, group rights, and the meaning of “enlightenment” all remain sharply contested.

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Subject

Law

Reference44 articles.

1. In the U.S. this is particularly popular in communities of Hispanic background. For an account on tattooing, see Caplan Jane , Written on the Body: The Tattoo in European and American History (2000).

2. See Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925) (requiring public schooling of children violated parental liberty to direct education of their children); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923) (noting that public interest in younger children being educated in English does not outweigh parental discretion); Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974) (concluding that the state did not have authority to bus children out of their school district in order to desegregate); Yoder v. Wisconsin, 406 U.S. 205 (1972) (requiring that parents send their children to school to age 16 violated religious freedom of Mennonite parents).

3. The case of the Romeikes, supported by Christian home schooling lobbies (such as the Home Schooling Legal Defense Fund) in the U.S., drew worldwide attention. See, e.g., German Home-School Family Will Not Be Deported from US, BBC News (Mar. 5, 2014), http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-26454988 (last visited Oct. 31, 2017); Friday's ‘Hot Topics: Cool Talk’ Forum Asks: Should German Home-Schoolers be Granted Asylum in U.S.?, Univ. of St. Thomas (Nov. 23, 202), http://www.stthomas.edu/news/hot-topics-cool-talk-german-home-schoolers; Jane O'Brien, German Home-School Families Face US Deportation, BBC News (Nov. 6, 2013), http://www.bbc.com/news/business-24804804 (last visited Oct. 31, 2017).

4. See Walzer Michael , Comment, in Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition 99–101 (1994). Walzer is one of the more sovereigntist and communitarian of liberals.

5. For the Resolution of Parliament, see Deutsche Bundestag Drucksache 17/10332. The law is codified at §1631(d) of the Civil Code (BGB) among the sections dealing with parental authority and near to §1626(1), which states that “parental custody includes care of the person of the child.” The if-under-six-months clause enables Jewish circumcisers (mohelim) to continue to pursue their trade.

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