Is medicalization secular? Regulating circumcision in Germany, Türkiye, and Israel

Liberal bioethics, as practised in Europe, assumes that male circumcision is a violation of the child’s bodily integrity and causes unnecessary suffering to a child who is unable to assert his own autonomy. In contrast, Jewish and Muslim traditions, which inform Israeli and Turkish law, respectively, view the circumcised body as more wholesome than the uncircumcised body and give secondary importance to the question of autonomy when it comes to religious practices. This chapter explores the legal regulation of male circumcision in Germany, Türkiye, and Israel. The comparison sheds light on the role of medicalization in processes of secularization and sacralization in three different societies. Specifically, it asks under what social and cultural conditions is circumcision medicalized, i.e., subjected to professional medical standards that limit traditional religious practice; when and why is it left non-medicalized and unregulated; and when is it medicalized not to limit religious practice but – quite to the contrary – to advance the presence of religion in the public sphere.