GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: BioEdge: UK judge sceptical of circumcision for boys

BioEdge: UK judge sceptical of circumcision for boys

UK judge sceptical of circumcision for boys

by Michael Cook | 30 Apr 2016 |

Boys should not be circumcised until they are old enough to choose for themselves, a British judge has suggested in ruling on custody of two sons of a Muslim man and his estranged wife.

Mrs Justice Roberts, of the Family Division, agreed with the British-born mother of the boys, aged 4 and 6. The Algerian-born husband argued that "circumcision had both a religious and a social importance which overrode any slight risk which the procedure carried." He would feel devastated if his sons were not circumcised. (The names of the people involved were not released.)

The judge’s reasoning echoes arguments made by some bioethicists that circumcision is an unjustifiable violation of a boy’s bodily integrity:

"First and foremost, this is a once and for all, irreversible procedure. There is no guarantee that these boys will wish to continue to observe the Muslim faith with the devotion demonstrated by their father although that may very well be their choice.

"They are still very young and there is no way of anticipating at this stage how the different influences in their respective parental homes will shape and guide their development over the coming years. There are risks, albeit small, associated with the surgery regardless of the expertise with which the operation is performed.

"There must be clear benefits which outweigh these risks which point towards circumcision at this point in time being in their best interests before I can sanction it as an appropriate course at this stage of their young lives."

The judge stated that she was not setting down a principle about whether Muslims should circumcise their children.

"I am simply deferring that decision to the point where each of the boys themselves will make their individual choices once they have the maturity and insight to appreciate the consequences and longer term effects of the decisions which they reach.

"Part of that consideration will be any increase in the risks of surgery by the time they have reached puberty. I do not regard the delay between now and that point in time significantly to increase those risks. The safest point in time to have carried out the procedure has long since passed."

- See more at: http://www.bioedge.org/bioethics/uk-judge-sceptical-of-circumcision-for-boys/11855#sthash.h2qlhbm2.dpuf

Although it has been called the world’s most dangerous idea, transhumanism probably provokes more ridicule than fear. Uploading one’s brain onto the internet or talk of thousand-year life spans seems to defy common sense.

Nonetheless, my theory is that transhumanism is the logical outcome of a lot of contemporary bioethical theory. So developments in transhumanism are worth paying attention to.

The biggest story at the moment is the quixotic campaign of the head of the Transhumanist Party, Zoltan Istvan, for president of the United States. He is a philosophy and religious studies graduate of Columbia University and has worked as a journalist for the National Geographic Channel.

Mr Istvan has been running a blog on the Huffington Post for a while about his campaign which aims to make the platform of his party more plausible. In the latest post he defines transhumanism as “the radical field of science that aims to turn humans into, for lack of a better word, gods”. So while transhumanism is resolutely atheistic, it has religious aspirations.

And unlike Richard Dawkins and other militant atheists, Istvan argues that our responsibility is to transcend evolution. He writes: “the human body is a mediocre vessel for our actual possibilities in this material universe. Our biology severely limits us. As a species we are far from finished and therefore unacceptable… Biology is for beasts, not future transhumanists.”

It’s a curious development. While many prominent scientific thinkers want to abolish God and treat man as one beast amongst many, transhumanists want to abolish evolution and recreate God (or gods).