Applying the best interests of the child test in unprecedented circumstances, a Chicago judge has ruled that a father can bar his ex-wife from having their nine-year-old son circumcised.

Anti-circumcision advocates, known as “intactivists,” hailed the decision as a victory for their cause. But Cook County Circuit Court Judge Jordan Kaplan did not make any general pronouncements about the procedure, limiting himself to whether it was medically necessary for the child involved in the case.

“[T]he medical evidence ... is inconclusive as to the medical benefits or nonbenefits of circumcision as it relates to the nine-year-old child of the parties,” he said in an order granting injunctive relief to the father.

While courts in several states have ruled in cases of unauthorized circumcision, Kaplan may be the first judge to decide a dispute between parents over the procedure.

The mother, a Northbrook, Ill., homemaker, wanted the boy circumcised to address medical problems including irritation and infections he had been experiencing on his penis. But the father, whose consent to non-emergency medical treatment is required under the custody agreement, objected, calling circumcision an “unnecessary amputation.”

Kaplan, who held a two-day hearing in the case, issued an injunction that will last until the boy turns 18. The injury to the child “as a result of an unnecessary circumcision would be irreversible,” the judge said, noting that the boy himself had indicated he did not wish to undergo the procedure.

“It is in the best interest of the child not to be circumcised at this time,” Kaplan concluded.

"We always thought it was not in the child's best interest to have a circumcision at age 9 that was not medically necessary, and the judge agreed,” the father's lawyer, Alan J. Toback (Lake, Toback & D'Arco, Chicago), told the Chicago Tribune newspaper.

By Matthew Heller
10/25/06