The official viewpoint of KNMG and other related medical/scientific organisations is that non-therapeutic circumcision of male minors is a violation of children’s rights to autonomy and physical integrity. Contrary to popular belief, circumcision can cause complications – bleeding, infection, urethral stricture and panic attacks are particularly common. KNMG is therefore urging a strong policy of deterrence. KNMG is calling upon doctors to actively and insistently inform parents who are considering the procedure of the absence of medical benefits and the danger of complications.

The British Jewish philosopher Jenny Goodman consciously opted against NTC for her son because she regards the intervention as a violation of the integrity of the body. Upon the birth of her son she wrote a poem, of which the final stanzas are as follows:

All of us pray for rest
For Sabbath
We shall not rest
Until every child on earth
Is as cherished as you are, my love
And no one, no one shall raise a knife to a child
Ever again

The practice of FGM has been prohibited by law in the Netherlands since 1993 in both adult and minor women and girls. In various viewpoints, the KNMG and NVOG have rejected all forms of FGM, including the most mild form, in adult women, as well as reinfibulation following childbirth. The form which most closely resembles NTC, circumcision, is also unanimously rejected in virtually all the literature. In spite of this, the practice of FGM still occurs regularly, particularly among girls from North Africa. This led the internist Jannes Mulder to call in Medisch Contact for the mildest form
of FGM, ‘sunna light’, to be tolerated. This intervention proposed by Mulder consists of a small prick in the foreskin of the clitoris, causing a drop of blood to be released.

No tissue is removed, and the girl suffers no damage to her body, and there is no effect on sexual function. According to Mulder, the practice of FGM could in this way eventually be redirected into innocent, symbolic forms. His proposal attracted purely negative reactions, generally based on the principled position that any form of FGM, including a symbolic one, must be treated as child abuse. “When it comes to the integrity of the girl’s body, no single compromise must be made�, states Pharos, knowledge centre for the prevention and tacklingof
female circumcision. The Netherlands Municipal Health Services (GGD) stated: “A girl is fine as she is.� Even so, this ‘sunna light’ is far less intrusive than NTC, in which part of the
erotogenic tissue of the penis is removed.

In a response to the criticism of his article, Jannes Mulder points to the difference in how NTC and FGM are judged: ‘No one says a word about the Jewish practice of circumcising boys. This traditional ‘abuse’ involves more than my single drop of blood. Some see the circumcision of Muslim boys as a hygienic intervention. That argument conceals a deeper motive. After all, there is no culture that preventatively deals with dirty ears by cutting them off.’

In an article in Medisch Contact, Karim and Hage (former board members of the Netherlands Association for Plastic Surgery, NVPC) similarly point to what they see as the discriminating fact that circumcision in girls is categorically rejected (even in its nonmutilating form) but that it is permitted in boys.43 However, in the authors’ view, there are no reasons why FGM and NTC should be judged differently in moral or legal terms.

(...)

The WHO also rejects all forms of FGM: ‘Female genital mutilation of any type has been recognized as a harmful practice and a violation of the human rights of girls and women’. The WHO
explicitly includes in this the mild forms of FGM, in which no tissue is removed. So the argument for rejecting FGM is not that FGM interferes with female sexuality, but that it is a violation of the rights of the woman.

ich persönlich sehe im westen des 21 jhd. auch keine notwendigkeit der beschneidung mehr. nur wird das so nix.

(...)

Ronald Goldman, a Boston psychologist and author of Questioning Circumcision: A Jewish Perspective, argues that "Judaism values ethics above doctrine and reason."

He claims that a high percentage of Jews circumcise their sons for social rather than religious reasons.

He points out that both Moses and Theodor Herzl, the leader of the movement to establish a Jewish state, did not circumcise their sons. He also says that circumcision was totally neglected during the 40 year period in the Wilderness. (Joshua 5:5)

In an article in the Jewish Spectator (1997), he wrote: "Because most Jews are non-traditional and are not aware of the religious meaning of circumcision, most Jewish circumcisions are done for cultural not religious reasons. These cultural reasons often tend to be related to beliefs, attitudes, and feelings about Jewish survival and identity."

He adds: "Many Jews believe that males must be circumcised to be Jewish. This is not true. As stated in the Encyclopedia Judaica: 'Any child born of a Jewish mother is a Jew, whether circumcised or not.'"