John V. Geisheker is the executive director of Doctors Opposing Circumcision.

The recent court decision in Cologne that found ritual, medically unnecessary male circumcision to be a violation of the child's rights should not surprise scholars of American constitutional law. Two landmark cases have long held that U.S. law protects religious belief, but will not condone potentially harmful religious practice.

In 1878, in Reynolds v. U.S., the Supreme Court held that “laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices.”

In the absence of a clear and present need for circumcision, parents lack power to grant surrogate consent.

Likewise, in 1944 in Prince v Massachusetts, the justices ruled: “The right to practice religion freely does not include liberty to expose the … child to ill health or death. … Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But they may not make martyrs of their children before they have reached the age of full and legal discretion when they can make that choice for themselves.”

Male circumcision has escaped legal scrutiny in Anglo-American law simply because the child lacks an effective champion. American law is awaiting a chance to defend male children from unnecessary genital cutting — as it has already protected females.

All varieties of nontherapeutic, unnecessary, religious, ritual or cosmetic genital cutting imposed on children, regardless of motive, are legally indistinguishable. Each poses inarguable physical injury and psychological harm for the child. Moreover, the child, with rights to religious choice of his or her own, and an ethical right to an “open future,” has not yet expressed any personal religious beliefs or preferences whatsoever.

A long-standing principle of the common law is that parental powers are based on the child’s need. In the absence of a clear and present need for circumcision, parents lack power to grant surrogate consent. In Canada and the U.S., some parents who injured children in the name of religion have already been charged and convicted.

Irrevocable genital amputations must, legally, be postponed until the child is able to consent freely at age 18.