I’ve covered the proposed SF circumcision ban pretty extensively. And now, unless an appeals court reverses—it’s over. A judge has thrown it off the ballot. From the LA Times story:
San Francisco residents will not be voting in November on whether to prohibit circumcision after all, according to a tentative ruling by a Superior Court judge made public Wednesday. Judge Loretta M. Giorgi ordered the city’s director of elections to strike the measure from the ballot because she said it was “expressly preempted” by the California Business and Professions Code. Under that statute, only the state is allowed to regulate medical procedures, and “the evidence presented is overwhelmingly persuasive that circumcision is a widely practiced medical procedure,” the ruling said...Giorgi ruled that “it serves no legitimate purpose to allow a measure whose invalidity can be determined as a matter of law to remain on the ballot after such a ruling has been made.”
“Legitimate medical procedure:” That was always the key. Circumcision is not a purposeless “mutilation,” but rather, an elective and legitimate medical procedure. With that evidence in from the medical community, the court didn’t need to reach any constitutional issues.
This proposal was wrong from every angle. Persuade parents not to circumcise, fine. There are good and valid arguments on that side of the controversy. But outlaw it—especially when there are modest medical benefits and with no religious exemptions for faiths that call for all males to be circumcised, particularly at a local level? No way.
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