On the impermissibility of infant male circumcision: a response to Mazor

This is a response to Dr Joseph Mazor’s paper ‘The child’s interests and the case for the permissibility of male infant circumcision.’ I argue that Dr Mazor fails to prove that bodily integrity and self-determination are mere interests as opposed to genuine rights in the case of infant male circumcision. Moreover, I cast doubt on the interest calculus that Dr Mazor employs to arrive at his conclusions about circumcision. Prompted by last year’s court ruling in Germany that sought to make the circum-cision of minors illegal,1 Joseph Mazor, a political philosopher at the London Schoo