Circumcision classed as potentially harmful practice in new CPS guidance

[alsanch11]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/mar/05/circumcision-classed-potentially-harmful-practice-new-cps-guidance

"Since 2001, circumcision has been a factor in the deaths of seven boys, including three babies who bled to death. Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS trust admitted 29 babies between 2022 and 2024 with serious complications from circumcision, including sepsis and haemorrhage, according to figures obtained under freedom of information laws."

There is no ethical dilemma here. There's no need to cut bits of skin off the genitals of tiny children who can't consent.

It is something that should be regulated very strictly and in a medical setting. It's not something that should be done in a back room somewhere.

It shouldn't be done at all unless for medical reasons. Routine circumcision at birth should be illegal.

What's the dilemma? Whose it it? - yours?

There is no dilemma - mutilating babies is fundamentally wrong - no need for debate or agonizing.

If it is you who is debating this on behalf of your child then just do not do it.

Genital mutilation of babies and children is wrong for both boys and girls. It should be banned.

Unless medically needed and performed by a medical doctor

Circumcision without medical need is abuse

But that's a bit like saying that men beating their wives has to be tightly regulated, so that not any old bloke is allowed to do it without care, rather than a blanket affirmation that it is 100% unacceptable in any circumstances.

If there are genuine medical reasons, then of course it's different - the same as if a man gave his wife a firm shove, not to hurt or abuse her but because a huge boulder was about to fall on her head and she was wearing headphones and oblivious to any warnings.

That said, it's extremely easy for certain medical people without integrity and with various other agendas to fraudulently claim 'medical need' when there is nothing of the sort. A common one is the insistence that a baby urgently needs a circumcision purely because his foreskin doesn't retract - when any medic knows full well that it isn't meant to retract until the boy is older; and it's as ludicrous as it would be to insist that a baby girl needs urgent abusive and pointlessly invasive surgery because she isn't having periods.