German court rules religious circumcision on boys an assault

[toro]

So is a lot of plastic surgery. Should that be outlawed, as well?

It seems like you're coming close to imposing your own personal decisions about elective medical procedures onto others.

...

Your reasoning seems to be, "If an adolescent doesn't have a choice in the matter, the medical procedure shouldn't be performed." But it seems that there are counterexamples to this principle: a young child who is knocked unconscious by some physical trauma (say, being hit by a car) might require medical attention. Should surgery not be performed because the adolescent doesn't have a choice in the matter?

So it seems to me that "If an adolescent doesn't have a choice in the matter, the medical procedure shouldn't be performed" is a bad principle to argue.

Instead, I'd argue something like, "Only medically necessary procedures should be performed without the consent of the patient undergoing the procedure," where 'medically necessary' would be defined in terms of the likelihood of a good outcome should the procedure not be performed--the higher the chance of a good outcome without the procedure, the less medically necessary it is.

But that's just my two cents.

I agree with the last part - especially given that the medical community sees it as a largely useless process.

However, If we don't allow parents to tattoo their children (not allowed), I see no reason to allow them to give their children plastic surgery (allowed following psychological examination of the children and consent) or circumcision (allowed following a shrug from the parents). Both are permanent changes to their body that have no purpose other than cultural norms. Either we start telling parents they can't make unnecessary and permanent physical changes to their children's bodies or we tell them they can. We shouldn't simply be picking the changes based on cultural norms.