(JTA) Sweden’s largest church is supporting a parent’s right to have nonmedical circumcision performed on boys for religious reasons.
The Swedish Church in a document titled “view on male circumcision” asserted that the practice, which is performed by Jews, Muslims and some Christians, “does not in itself contravene the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child” and “is a significant identity creation act from a religious, ethnic and cultural perspective” enshrined by religious freedoms.
The subject of nonmedical circumcision of boys, or milah, is controversial in Europe, and especially in Scandinavia, where it is under attack both by liberals citing children’s welfare issues and anti-immigration activists who oppose it as a foreign import.
