Denmark Party Wants To Ban Circumcision
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
A left-wing Danish political party is seeking to outlaw ritual circumcision in Denmark.
The Social Liberal Party, a small coalition partner of Denmark’s ruling Social Democrats party, adopted the anti-circumcision stance this week following an internal vote by delegates during a party congress in Nyborg, 75 miles west of Copenhagen, according to the news site etik.dk.
A large majority of hundreds of delegates from the party — Denmark’s 6th largest with 17 out of 179 seats in parliament — passed the motion to oppose all non-medical circumcision of underage boys, the website reported.
The ban was necessary “because we do not protect those who cannot protect themselves, namely children,” said Christian Holm Donatzky, a local politician for the party from Helsingor, a city located 25 miles north of Copenhagen.
The left-leaning Social Liberal Party is one of several anti-circumcision parties in Scandinavia, where the custom has come under attack from left-wing secularists as well as supporters from the right-wing who fear the influence of massive immigration from Muslim countries.
Last year, Norway’s Centre Party also announced it opposed circumcision as did Finland’s third largest party, True Finns. The announcements last year followed a ruling by a German court in Cologne that ritual circumcision amounted to a criminal act. The ruling was overturned, but triggered temporary bans in Austria and Switzerland.
Lene Rachel Andersen, a well-known Danish Jewish author and journalist, wrote an Op-Ed following the vote August 15, warning that a ban would mean the demise of Danish Jewry.
“Within two to three years, religious Jews will move away move from Denmark.” This, she wrote in her Op-Ed for the website religion.dk, will mean “the heart of religious life would disappear.”
In 2003, Denmark’s Children’s Ombudsman, a government body, classified circumcision as a children’s rights violation — a position shared by its counterpart organizations in Finland and Norway.
The World Jewish Congress estimates that there are about 6,400 Jews living in Denmark.
"Why I became the Forward’s Editor-in-Chief"
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
