LOS ANGELES — The primary backer of an effort to get a ban on circumcision on the ballot in Santa Monica is abandoning her push, saying the proposed legislation had been misrepresented as an effort to impinge on religious freedom. A similar measure in San Francisco is scheduled for a fall vote.

The woman, Jena Troutman, a mother of two boys who began the process of trying to get a ban on the Santa Monica municipal ballot in 2012, said the news media had distorted the effort.

“The religious opposition really rose up, and I never intended it to be about that at all,” Ms. Troutman said. “Ninety-five percent of babies who are circumcised have nothing to do with religion — that’s what I was focused on. Once I discovered this bill was not going to open up the conversation but was closing it down, I wanted no part of it.”