German court rules religious circumcision on boys an assault

[Thor]

Why should the standard be what you personally would consent to?

I didn't say that it should. The standard should be that the individual should consent when body parts are being cut off. Unless, of course, there is a valid medical reason.

But surely with age comes greater capacity for self-determination and informed choice, yes?

Absolutely! But what "choice" does an adolescent have? The parents can certainly tell an adolescent that he's having this done and that's all there is to it. Also, parents can certainly exert considerable pressure on an adolescent. The only way someone can truly make their own choice and consent to something like this is if they are at least 18.

Generally, the older a patient who undergoes the procedure is, the less the "they can't consent to it" argument applies.

Generally true. So why not wait until the kid is 18 and can make that choice for himself?

Every medical procedure will have failed examples. That doesn't mean they shouldn't ever be performed.

Crappy argument. A circumcision is very rarely a necessary procedure. Why perform an unnecessary procedure when there is a real risk that a vital part of someone's body can be damaged? What if there was a religious ritual where some sort of substance was poured into your eyes. And what if this substance was usually harmless, but there was a 1 in 10,000 chance that it could make you go blind? Would you take that chance? I wouldn't.

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

Another crappy argument. Plastic surgery is done with a person's informed consent! And we don't do facelifts or tummy tucks on kids.

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

Hardly. Adults can have all the elective medical procedures they want. I have no problem with that at all. But when you want to take sharp objects to the privates of children....

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?

More crappy arguments. Of course, if a medical procedure is NECESSARY the parents have a right to act in the child's best interests. Where is the child's "best interests" when it comes to circumcision?

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.

And that's not what I've argued.

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.

Sounds like a pretty good argument against circumcising infants and children.