Opposition erupts as Iceland eyes banning most circumcisions

Icelandic MPS are considering a law that would ban the circumcision of boys for non-medical reasons, making it the first European country to do so.

Some religious leaders in Iceland and across Europe have called the bill an attack on religious freedom.

It is seen as a particular threat by Jews and Muslims who traditionally embrace the practice.

Under the proposed law, the circumcision of boys – usually when the child is a newborn – would be viewed as equal to female genital mutilation and punishable by up to six years in prison.

Silja Dogg Gunnarsdottir, of the centrist Progressive Party, who introduced the bill this month, said: “This is fundamentally about not causingunnecessaryharm to a child.”

The proposed law calls circumcision a violation of human rights “since boys are not able to give an informed consent of an irreversible physical intervention”.

Circumcision is not common in Iceland, a nation of 340,000 people that is overwhelmingly Lutheran or atheist, with an estimated 100 to 200 Jews and about 1,100 practising Muslims.

The bill has eight co-sponsors but is considered unlikely to get a majority in the 63-seat Iceland parliament.

It does not have the formal backing of any government ministers but has drawn the support of 422 Icelandic doctors who favour outlawing it.

They issued a joint statement on Wednesday saying circumcision violates the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the physicians’ Hippocratic Oath that says: “First, do no harm.”

“In Western societies, circumcision of healthy boys has no significant health benefits,” the doctors’ statement read, citing a 2013 paper in the American Academy of Paediatrics journal.

The American academy itself says the health benefits of the practice outweigh the risks but not by enough to recommend universal male circumcision.

Dr Eyjolfur Thorkelsson said the 422 signatures were collected in just 48 hours.

Since 2006, only 21 boys under the age of 18 have been circumcised at Icelandic hospitals or private clinics, according to Iceland’s Directorate of Health.

The agency could not say how many were for religious reasons.

Mr Thorkelsson said that the surgical procedure was painful, and its possible complications were well known to Icelandic doctors since most went abroad for training at hospitals in northern Europe or the United States, where circumcision is more common.