URGENT: Boy of 12 to be forcibly circumcised

[TLCTugger]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/26/103213/567

John Geisheker of DoctorsOpposingCircumcision.org has appealed for monetary help in the case of Misha (a pseudonym, since he is a minor). Mish'a father intends to have him cut for religious reasons. The boy and his mother oppose the plan. The case has lost at various levels and is on its way to the Oregon Supreme court, and if need be, the US Supreme Court. Unpaid legal costs are already in excess of $20,000.

I urge you to donate to D.O.C. TLC Tugger will contribute half of gross proceeds this Sunday (actually for the 24-hour period commencing midnight Saturday, Chicago time), so if you need any spare gear or have a friend you can talk into restoring, now's the time. If you want to send a contributing order by mail, send me a note Sunday so I can figure your amount in.

If you know anyone in the press, please ask them to contact John. I'm sure he'll be happy to help the mother to dialog about the case with the press, to the extent she can do so while maintaining the boy's privacy.

This case may recognize the precedent set in Chicago last fall, when a judge ordered that a 9-year-old boy be left intact until he could make his own choice at 18. They're going to need our help to mount a worthy case. The judges at the earlier stages made rulings that failed to weigh the case on ethical grounds or even issue an opinion, but merely affirmed the father's right to compel his son to have cosmetic surgery for religious reasons.

Regards,
-Ron Low
http://TLCTugger.com

[admin]

http://tinyurl.com/3e46ap

The link takes you to the brief filed by the Anti-Defamation League in the "Misha" matter before the Supreme Court of Oregon.

Not surprisingly, they assert a parent's right to amputate normal healthy body parts for superstitious reasons.

[z726]

Notice how the attorneys acknowledge the right of a parent to act in a child's best interest, and subsequently ignore the mother's attempt to do so?

It seems to me that one of their main arguments is that circumcision is inextricably linked to their religion. Have there not been other court cases in which it was decided that physical abuse of another was not permissible for free religious exercise under the first amendment?

In their rebuttal to the argument concerning equal protection, they forget one thing about the current law on female genital mutilation. The text of this law does include the word "circumcision," which is practiced on both males and females (and is not defined as being completely different between the sexes).

I, for one, would be interested in seeing the latter two issues made public for debate. They seriously need to be addressed by our culture.