On 7 May 2012 the regional court in Cologne decided an appeal in a case involving a four-year-old Muslim boy who had suffered bleeding after a circumcision performed by a doctor. The doctor was acquitted, because the legal position had been too unclear for him to have known he was doing anything wrong. But the court reached that acquittal by holding that a religiously motivated circumcision of a boy unable to consent is bodily harm within the meaning of the criminal code, and that parental consent cannot authorise it, because the child's rights to bodily integrity and to his own future religious self-determination outweigh the parents' right to raise him in their faith.
The decision bound no court outside Cologne and settled nothing as precedent. Its effect was nonetheless immediate. German hospitals suspended the procedure. Jewish and Muslim organisations described the ruling as making religious life in Germany impossible, and the historical resonance of a German court restricting Jewish practice was raised at once and by nearly everyone, including by German politicians.
The Bundestag responded within seven months. On 12 December 2012 it passed a law adding section 1631d to the civil code, which permits parents to consent to the circumcision of a male child where it is performed according to the rules of medical practice, requires anaesthesia and permits a religious practitioner rather than a physician only in the first six months of life. The vote was 434 in favour, 100 against, with 46 abstentions. It took effect at the end of that month.
Related legislative attempts elsewhere have not succeeded. A 2018 bill in the Icelandic parliament would have criminalised non-therapeutic circumcision of boys and did not become law, after objections from Jewish and Muslim organisations across Europe and from Nordic religious leaders. The children's ombudsmen of the Nordic countries had issued a joint statement in 2013 calling for the practice to be deferred until a boy can consent, which carried no legal force.
The medical position that most commentary leans on is the 2012 statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which concluded that the health benefits of newborn male circumcision outweigh the risks but are not great enough to recommend it universally, and that the decision should rest with parents, including on religious grounds. It was received as a vindication by both sides of the argument, which is a fair indication of how carefully it was worded.
Sources Section 1631d of the German Civil Code (Buergerliches Gesetzbuch), on circumcision of a male childDeutscher Bundestag with Circumcision Policy Statement, Pediatrics 130(3)American Academy of Pediatrics Task Force on Circumcision