Trauma from circumcision in childhood can also have a long lasting and significant effect on a person's mental health. ... No authoritative health policy maker in any jurisdiction with a frequency of relevant health conditions as low as that in Australia recommends circumcision as an individual or public health measure. ... [T]he law ought to condemn the waning tradition of circumcising ... boys for secular non-ethnicity related social reasons.

Circumcision [JURIST news archive] remains controversial throughout the world. In July the Bundestag [official website, in German], the lower house of the German parliament, was expected [JURIST report] to vote on a bill [text, PDF, in German] that would protect religious circumcision in Germany. The session came a week after the German government announced [JURIST report] its plan to act swiftly to lift criminal sanctions imposed on circumcision. In October California Governor Jerry Brown [official website] signed into law a bill that prevents local governments from banning [JURIST report] male circumcision. The law was written in response to a ballot measure proposed in San Francisco that would have made male circumcision illegal if the recipient was under the age of 18, with perpetrators penalized by a fine of $1,000 or imprisonment.