Netherlands – Religious groups in the Netherlands have opposed a call from the Royal Dutch Medical Association (RDMA) for male circumcision to be banned.
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Male circumcision is legal in the Netherlands but the body representing the country’s doctors want 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.
The RDMA are fighting against what is a deeply entrenched religious practice.
Jews 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.
Muslims see the proposed ban on circumcision as an attack on religious freedom
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.
“If you interfere with this practice, it will totally end the Dutch Jewry in the Netherlands.”
Ban abortion- just banning circumsision for health reasons while abortion kills is quite hypocritical
They also practice euthanasia in the Netherlands.
Perhaps it is time for us to leave those countries where we need to fight for acceptance? Let them suffer the lack of our contributions. Countless times in history, nations have made the mistake of hostility toward us and countless times they have regretted it, recanted it and asked us to return.
Country by country, HaSh-m is tapping us on the shoulder, and saying “Lech Lecha!”
If circumcision is child abuse, then the xian rite of baptism is arguably an act of attempted drowning.
Why don’t they ban high school sports? Did you know that 100 teenagers die every year in sports-related accidents? Or ban ballet lessons for little girls–ballet can cause crippling toe and foot injuries, not to mention life-threatening eating disorders.