(CNN) A proposed bill to ban non-medically required male circumcision on babies and children in Iceland is receiving backlash from religious communities.

"Those procedures are unnecessary, done without their informed consent, non-reversible and can cause all kinds of severe complications, disfigurations and even death," Icelandic Progressive Party MP Silja Dögg Gunnarsdottir said.

She said a child should be old enough to give "informed consent" for the procedure and defended the proposed ban as being about protecting children's rights, adding that it would "not go against the religious right of their parents."

The European Jewish Congress condemned the bill, saying the ban would be an "effective deterrent" that would "guarantee that no Jewish community will be established" in the country.

"Iceland would be the only country to ban one of the most central, if not the most central rite in the Jewish tradition in modern times," the group's statement said, adding that this would "attack Judaism in a way that concerns Jews all over the world."

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