  
Canadians debate validity of circumcision
Last Updated: 2001-02-27 12:38:40 EST (Reuters Health)
TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian anticircumcision activists are challenging a law that protects women against genital mutilation to draw attention to the practice of male circumcision.
The court challenge, led by Dr. Arif Bhimji, has sparked a heated debate that pits subscribers to modern human rights tenets against followers of age-old religious traditions.
"We are saying that this section is discriminatory because it provides protection to females but it does not provide the same protection to males," said Dr. Bhimji, an emergency room physician and a Muslim who heads the anticircumcision Association for Genital Integrity.
He argues that the section of the criminal code concerning aggravated assault violates the Canadian Charter on Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees equality between the sexes.
Male circumcision is common in North America and elsewhere for religious and cultural reasons, and to prevent disease. Circumcision can help prevent urinary tract infections, sexually transmitted diseases and penile cancer.
More is at risk with this procedure than most people think, said John Antonopoulos of the Montreal-based Information Center on Circumcision. "It is not a small, useless piece of skin. There is a whole world of sensations in the foreskin," he said.
"There are potential complications and it's not medically necessary," said Dr. Debra Davis, a member of the Canadian Pediatric Society. In 2% to 10% of circumcisions, minor complications such as bleeding, infection and inflammation can occur and, more rarely, damage to the penis can lead to amputation, she said.
Given those concerns, she said there was a "real push" from the medical community in the mid-1980s to decrease the rate of circumcision, which fell to 60% from almost 90% in the US and to 20% from 50% in Canada.
Dr. Davis said no new medical evidence has arisen that would justify recommending a return to circumcision.
The view of most human rights, children's aid and religious groups is that, unlike female genital mutilation, male circumcision is not a deliberate attempt to injure the child.
"Male circumcision does have recognized medical benefits," said Carole Morency of Justice Canada. Female genital mutilation, in contrast, was never medically accepted and all colleges [of physicians and surgeons] have banned the practice."
Male circumcision cannot be compared to female genital mutilation, often mistakenly called female circumcision, which generally involves the complete removal of female genitalia and poses serious health risks, Morency added.
"We amended the code in 1997 to avoid any uncertainty that the criminal law in Canada does clearly prohibit the practice of female genital mutilation," she said, rejecting Dr. Bhimji's argument that the section violates the Charter's requirement of equality of treatment.
The Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) immediately said it would oppose any court challenge to the law.
"Circumcision is a divine commandment. It's not an optional kind of thing and it doesn't depend on logic," CJC communications director Rubin Friedman said. If a child is not healthy, the only exception would be delaying the rite, usually performed on the eighth day following birth, he said.
If the court challenge were accepted, he said, "I think it would be a huge issue."
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