News articles on circumcision

Monday, February 12, 2001, pp. B1, B3

Circumcision is against the Charter, group says

Adrian Humphreys
National Post

A new Canadian group called the Association for Genital Integrity has applied for public funding to launch a court challenge aimed at banning the circumcision of baby boys.

The challenge relies on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to contest a section of the Criminal Code that prohibits female genital mutilation, a stance activists say discriminates against men by not providing equal protection under the law.

"Every day in this country a quarter of the boys that are born are having this procedure performed on them without their consent and without any medical need. We don't see why half of our society should be protected by a law and not the other half," said Dr. Arif Bhimji, a Newmarket emergency room physician.

"The intention [of the challenge] is to provide equal protection to all citizens," said Dr. Bhimji, who is a spokesman for the group.

Dr. Arif Bhimji says parents should not translate religious beliefs into a surgical procedure on a non-consenting child.

The association has applied to the Court Challenges Program, a federally funded agency that provides financial assistance for equality issues, for $46,639.50 to prepare the case.

The program is expected to assess applications next month.

Section 268 of the Criminal Code of Canada defines the offence of aggravated assault and specifically names only the components of the female genitalia in a subsection prohibiting genital excision.

"The use of such gender-specific anatomical terms implies that males are not protected equally under the law. Males, no less than females, are subject to an unnecessary surgical intervention on the genitals -- namely non-therapeutic circumcision," said Dr. Bhimji.

Section 15 of the Charter guarantees equality before and under the law and equal protection and benefit of the law. The group also views the practice of infant circumcision as a violation of a child's right to security of the person, which is Section 7 of the Charter.

Circumcision remains the most common surgery in North America. "Nobody wants to directly respond to the issue," said Dr. Bhimji.

"The only way we can have the people in power to address this is by challenging in the one area that we know the government must listen, the courts."

Frank Dimant, a spokesman for B'nai B'rith Canada, a Jewish advocacy organization, said such a move would be disastrous to the Jewish and Muslim communities that require male circumcision as part of their religious practice.

"It would be a tremendous hardship. It is unbelievable that a law would be enacted in Canada that would preclude Jews from circumcising sons at the time of birth," Mr. Dimant said.

"This is a religious prerequisite for us; one of the absolute critical tenets of our faith and we have complied with that commandment for thousands of years. Once this challenge to the charter moves forward, there will be many of us who will be in opposition."

Mr. Dimant said B'nai B'rith Canada, and likely many others, will seek intervenor status, allowing it to make arguments on the merits of the challenge to a judge, if the case makes it into court.

He would expect, in the least, an allowance for religious groups would be made in any new law.

Dr. Bhimji, a Muslim, said he expects the right of an individual to security to supersede the right of a parent to translate their religious belief into a surgical procedure on a non-consenting child.

"The courts consistently state that you cannot cause harm in the name of religion," he said.

Mr. Dimant said opposition evidence would be based on medical as well as religious information. "I think we will be able to call upon eminent individuals in the medical field that will certainly stand by the position we have held for thousands of years," Mr. Dimant said.

Circumcision was once routine in most North American hospitals, but a mounting body of medical evidence suggests the procedure is largely unnecessary and the practice is in decline.

In 1996, the Canadian Pediatric Society published an extensive report in the Canadian Medical Association Journal that concluded, as an official stance, that routine circumcision is not recommended.

The Association for Genital Integrity brings together a number of people and organizations opposed to the routine circumcision of infants, including the Circumcision Information Resource Centre, a Montreal-based organization led by John Antonopoulos, and Intact, led by Lawrence Barichello, which is organizing a class-action lawsuit on behalf of Canadian men circumcised as infants.

Thursday, April 12, 2001

Group denied public funding to fight circumcision

Charter equality for males sought

Adrian Humphreys
National Post

A Canadian group called the Association for Genital Integrity has been declined public funding to launch a court challenge aimed at banning the routine circumcision of baby boys.

The group's contention is the Criminal Code, which prohibits female genital mutilation, discriminates against men by not providing equal protection under the law.

The association sought $46,639.50 from the Court Challenges Program of Canada, a federally funded agency that provides money for equality-related test cases, to prepare a challenge based on the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

However, the program's Equality Rights Panel disagreed with the group's claim of discrimination, said Melina Buckley, acting executive director of the program.

"They are looking at it from a legal perspective in terms of whether or not this is a test case that is going to advance equality for a disadvantaged group and we're not convinced that this was the case," she said.

Ms. Buckley said the group's application did not show to the satisfaction of the panel that the Criminal Code could not already apply to infant male circumcision if circumstances warranted it.

The anti-circumcision lobbyists who propose the challenge are considering an appeal of the panel's decision, said Dr. Arif Bhimji, a Newmarket, Ont., physician and spokesman for group.

"The panel seems to be saying there is no discrimination against boys because the Criminal Code already protects males from aggravated assault such as circumcision, but the panel may have made factual errors in other areas of its response," Dr. Bhimji said.

B'nai B'rith Canada, a Jewish advocacy organization, and the Canadian branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, attacked the group's proposal, saying that such a ban would impose undue harm on both the Muslim and Jewish communities in Canada.

The funding program received several letters of protest against the application.

"Circumcision, as an age-old practice of both Canadian Muslims and Jews, is supported by mainstream medical evidence," the Council on American-Islamic Relations argued in its letter to the Court Challenges Program.

Ms. Buckley said the panel was aware of the letters but could not say what impact they had on the decision. Neither would she say which applications for funding were successful. There were 30 applications evaluated and nine were refused funding.

The Association for Genital Integrity points to Section 268 of the Criminal Code of Canada, where the offence of aggravated assault is defined. It specifically names only the components of the female genitalia in a subsection prohibiting genital excision.

The group contends that distinction violates Section 15 of the Charter, which guarantees equality before and under the law and equal protection and benefit of the law.

Circumcision remains North America's most common surgery.