Ending the non-therapeutic circumcision of male minors – Male Genital Mutilation, MGM – in the UK has been the leading campaign of J4MB over the past two years. We have considerably increased public awareness that MGM is illegal, being at least Actual Bodily Harm under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, and probably Grievous Bodily Harm. It would require a parliamentary override for MGM to be legal, and that has never existed. No exemptions to the law in England and Wales are permissible on religious or cultural grounds.

Mike Buchanan will tomorrow present a ‘written information’ – a document outlining the details of a private prosecution, here – at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court, charging Joseph Spitzer, a prominent London-based doctor and mohel (Jewish ritual circumciser), with inflicting Actual Bodily Harm, a criminal offence under the OAPA 1861. Spitzer claims to have circumcised thousands of boys over his 35-year ‘career’, presumably most of them at just eight days of age, in line with Jewish tradition.

Last December I confronted Dr Spitzer at his workplace – here (video, 3:00). A Voice for Men then added him to its Known Genital Mutilators directory – here.

In a press release to be emailed shortly to leading journalists, Mike Buchanan states:

Male Genital Mutilation is illegal in the UK, it’s a human rights violation under UN and EU conventions, and it’s equally as unethical as Female Genital Mutilation (Brian D Earp, University of Oxford ethicist). It results in physical and sometimes psychological harm, and it has no place in modern Britain.

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