Politiken brings scathing attack on circumcision

“Blinkers are devices we put on horses to shield them from sights that would frighten or disturb them. As the old saying goes, some people are like horses: they work best if they can see in only one direction. The good thing about psychological blinkers is that they give peace of mind where in reality there is something disturbing. By wearing blinkers, people can focus on those parts of the world, and those pages from life, that they can relate to and tolerate.

This selective mode of perception was if anything elevated to an art form last week when the issue of female circumcision came up for debate.

The issue of male circumcision was deliberately hidden from sight, and I can’t see that this omission could be attributed to anything other than a fear of causing alarm and stepping on other people’s toes. It’s a well-known fact, however, that problems can’t be solved merely by hiding them from view…

Back in February 1999 the National Board of Health issued a report called “Prevention of female circumcision.” It is – at least as far as I can tell – a good, well-founded report, which addresses a task we would all like to see accomplished as soon as possible: namely, the abolition of female circumcision. However, the only fundamental difference between female and male circumcision is that in exceptional cases the latter is medically indicated (e.g. for a tight foreskin), while the former never is. Yet the National Board of Health issued no report on male circumcision, despite the fact that many Danish doctors carry knives and perform 300 operations of this type every year (as per the Physicians’ Weekly, 2001, No. 8).

On what basis is female circumcision completely prohibited, and what is the difference in the case of boys? Female circumcision is prohibited in Denmark, not because we have a special law against it as in Norway and Sweden, but because it is considered to be a mutilative operation prohibited under sections 245 and 246 of the Penal Code – sections that deal with “injury to body or health” and include provisions relating to “aggravated assault.”

Moreover female circumcision is considered to be a breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which stipulates that “States Parties shall take all effective and appropriate measures with a view to abolishing traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children” (Article 24), and requires States Parties to “protect the child from all forms of maltreatment while in the care of parent(s) or others” (Article 19). Female circumcision is also a violation of the Medical Law and, in particular cases, an infringement of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; however, it is the provisions of the Danish Penal Code that are most pertinent here.

From a medical perspective, male circumcision is fully comparable to female circumcision in its “mildest” form, in which only the outer labia are removed. This fact ought to generate some afterthought, for it is evident that both types of operations can be viewed as amputations.

In other words, circumcision of young boys infringes on that portion of the Convention on the Rights of the Child which prohibits “traditional practices” prejudicial to a child’s health, because male circumcision is a wounding and therefore an “assault” perpetrated by the parents. The state has a duty to protect children from such acts.

And as Katrine Søe pointed out a couple of years ago in a paper in the Physicians’ Weekly, all surgical operations are viewed in law as woundings and subject to punishment unless there is a medical indication. A parental request for surgery on a child can never constitute a medical indication. Therefore when female circumcision is covered under sections 245 and 246 of the Penal Code, which contain the strongest provisions against assault, it is due to the lack of medical need for the surgery.

When male circumcision is not prohibited, despite the legal parallels with female circumcision, it can only be because we as a society accept the right of certain religious groups to mutilate their children in accordance with religious requirements. We let the parents’ right to religious freedom trump the child’s right not to be exposed to ill-treatment. And what makes it even more absurd is that, as people like Katrine Søe have very aptly pointed out, it is only the parents’ religious freedom that we respect. We completely ignore the child’s right to freely choose his own religion. How can a human rights aware society compromise its own principles in this way?

There is a further dimension to the circumcision problem, which might be called “circumcision psychology.” By this I mean that the parents misuse their natural authority to inflict a physical and mental injustice on the child. That’s the really bad thing about circumcision of either sex.

It is important to keep in mind that circumcision involves the use of force. The child is made to submit to the will of the parents, and that is the case with both male and female circumcision.

So what’s wrong with a parent forcing a child to have surgery? Well, to begin with, it is of course an invasion of the child’s body.

The surgery also targets a very special part of the body: namely, the sex organs. Circumcision is nothing less than a physical intrusion into a child’s future sex life.

If the child grows up with a damaged self-image and sees circumcision as an unjust act that he or she did not choose freely, then he or she will have more difficulty coming to terms with his or her own sexuality.

an excised clitoris; and when the child has grown up, he/she will be silent about the matter in order to understand his/her own masculinity/femininity and complete his/her own identity as a parent.

Psychologically, therefore, circumcision is a sexual assault, a sexual affront, and I think that very few parents who have had their children circumcised really understand this.

Some people may think I’m exaggerating here, but I really think it’s an important point to bring into the discussion, because it underscores the need to assist and protect the child both psychologically and through legislation. It also directs attention to the parents’ liability. But viewed psychologically, circumcision has additional dimensions. It should be stated as clearly as possible that the child concerned is not a free agent; instead the child is a sacred link in the chain connecting the family or the culture to its past!

One of the things I’m wondering about is how could a person become a better Jew or a better Muslim – or a better human being – through circumcision? As far as I can see, male circumcision is no guarantee that a person is a good human being, or that a person is a good Jew or a good Muslim.

The severed skin becomes a kind of mortgage held by the family or the tradition.

And if, upon leaving home, the child has really gotten the message, then he psychologically deposits a part of his original identity with his parents and his family, thereby in principle giving up full ownership of himself. The danger in this is that the person gets bound so tightly in childhood to a certain tradition, a certain way of doing things, that possibly for the rest of his life he struggles with the broader community’s “certainty” about who he is; the desire to know his innermost feelings, and the wish to live his own life, constantly bump into the permanent branding he has received, which proclaims his identity as a Jew or a Muslim.

I think that having one’s children circumcised is equivalent psychologically to asserting that a child is a piece of property which parents can (obviously) treat as they see fit. In essence the parents have compromised their own understanding of what it means to be a father or a mother or a child. It’s basically an unfortunate situation for everyone involved.

But if the practice is so odious, why does it continue?

As I see it, one explanation comes from within, from the tradition itself, and a second explanation comes from outside, from the broader community.

The parent/child bond is one of the strongest relationships in the world. There is practically nothing more loyal than a small child. It can be difficult at times for adults to realize that a child’s universe begins and ends with the child itself. Children see their parents as gods; a child will literally go through hell and high water for a parent, and will do so willingly, even if it means death. It is appalling but true that children will blame themselves for terrible crimes, e.g. a parent’s sexual assaults, because they cannot comprehend how the parents could be capable of such evil.

These features can be clearly identified in the circumcision problem. As psychologists have noted, when the parents of a child who is supposed to be circumcised look over their shoulder, they see their own parents, and possibly their grandparents, standing there and breathing down their necks. And if the young couple try to protect their child from circumcision, then they are essentially showing that their own parents exposed them to a physical assault.

If the grandparents get involved, then the whole family and the whole tradition get involved, and pretty soon an ancient community is turned into a slaughterhouse. It takes courage to expose one’s own parents and culture as being primitive; very few people have such courage, and that is one of the reasons the practice continues.

The external explanation has an important historical or sociological component. In part there is a general reluctance to criticize Jewish interests. The Holocaust has left a trail of guilt through modern European history which has often given Jewish arguments an excessive amount of elbow room, which Jews themselves have realized can be turned to advantage (they have admitted as much themselves – some of them!). And partly there are historical differences, e.g. with respect to Jewish and Somali relations with Denmark.

The problem of female circumcision first came to light in Denmark in connection with immigration from Somalia, where circumcision is widespread.

We have therefore developed a certain tolerance for male circumcision, and that tolerance is being extended to the Muslim tradition. We have become accustomed to Jewish circumcision, but Somalis and their girls are another matter. We’re not familiar with them, so in their case we don’t want to accept a long-standing cultural practice before we can see what it actually involves.

We have no difficulty seeing that the ritual undergone by girls and women as part of Somali tradition is a mutilation of a thoroughly impermissible character, and that we must use all available means, including the law, to protect people against it. We have an immediate instinctive abhorrence of female circumcision, and in my opinion we ought to view male circumcision in the same light, because it is equally impermissible and equally punishable by law, even though we have come to accept it.

However, it does not seem so easy now to prohibit certain cultural practices or place limits on the religious freedom of certain groups.

Religious freedom is guaranteed under UN treaties, and naturally it should be respected. As I see it, however, it is important to distinguish between physical acts on the one hand, and the culture that supports them on the other. People cannot legitimate assaults on others by invoking religious freedom. The religious argument should therefore be dropped and replaced with a ban against all forms of circumcision.

Here we Danes as a people or a nation have a kind of hangup, because for a long time we have been worried about being accused of religious or cultural intolerance. Possibly this is due to an unhealthy mix of our famous “Law of Jante” and our equally famous open-mindedness: to call others barbaric is to draw attention to yourself; and to insinuate that you have gained an insight that has eluded others is neither particularly social democratic nor consistent with good Danish manners.

If we went ahead and did it anyway, we would be “moralizers,” which would hardly suit a nation that has bound its cultural identity to things like freely available pornography, abortion on demand, and widespread nudity. But perhaps it’s time the media and politicians, indeed all of us, took off our blinkers and assumed our responsibilities towards each other. Perhaps it’s time we grew up and started to take life a bit more seriously. Perhaps it’s time we tackled this issue, first and foremost for the sake of the children.