California governor signs bill prohibiting circumcision bans

California Governor Jerry Brown on Sunday announced that he has signed into law a bill that will prevent local governments from banning male circumcision. The legislation, AB 768, "preclude[s] a city, county, or city and county ordinance, regulation, or administrative action from prohibiting or restricting the practice of male circumcision, or the exercise of a parent's authority to have a child circumcised." It also provides that laws "affecting male circumcision must have uniform application throughout the state." Supporters of outlawing male circumcision have pressed forward elsewhere in the US. MGMBill.org is devoted to submitting legislation to ban the practice and currently has bills pending in the federal government as well as 46 states.

The law was written in response to a ballot measure proposed in San Francisco, the Male Genital Mutilation bill. The proposed measure would have made male circumcision illegal in San Francisco if the recipient is under the age of 18, with perpetrators penalized by a fine of $1,000 or imprisonment. In July, a judge for the Superior Court of San Francisco ruled in Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco v. Arntz that the public referendum to ban circumcision could not appear on the ballot. Male circumcision is a religious practice in both Judaism and Islam, so there was an immediate protest to the initiative. Advocates for ending male circumcision believe it is a painful and archaic procedure that nets no benefits to the circumcised male. They frequently compare the practice to female genital mutilation, which is illegal under Title 18 of the US Code.

(Published by Jurist.org - October 3, 2011)