Is circumcision a right?

Article here. Excerpt:

'For the past two months, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has been vilified as “anti-Semitic,” “anti-religious” and “insane” and has been accused of promoting “hate and racist trends in Europe ” for adopting, by overwhelming majority, a resolution on children’s right to physical integrity. As the head of the committee that unanimously approved the draft texts in June — after two parliamentary hearings and several committee discussions — I have been saddened by this reaction, much of which has been characterized by bad faith or ignorance about what we said. So I want to set the record straight.
...
The assembly has been criticized for including the circumcision of young boys for religious reasons in a list of violations of the physical integrity of children. Our resolution noted that “supporters of the procedures tend to present [it] as beneficial to the children themselves, despite clear evidence to the contrary.” This list also included female genital mutilation, early childhood medical interventions in the case of intersex children, and the submission to or coercion of children into piercings, tattoos or plastic surgery. All of these interventions permanently alter a child’s body in some form or another, only to very different degrees.
...
It is a basic tenet of human rights law that one right may well conflict with another. The classic case is the right to privacy vs. the right to free speech. Regarding the circumcision of young boys for religious reasons, children’s right to physical integrity conflicts with parents’ right to freedom of religion. As many of its resolutions show, the assembly has been a strong supporter of religious rights. But in this case, when considering the relative weight of the human rights in question, the assembly gave precedence to the rights of children.
...
There is not, and cannot be, a “right” to circumcise young boys. Children are not mini-beings with mini-human rights. By contrast, in an accompanying recommendation, our assembly invited European governments to consider making “children’s right to physical integrity” a continent-wide standard.
...
Religious practices deserve the most profound respect — but not when they result in irreversible harm to children.'

Like0 Dislike0