Facebook comments by Radikale candidate Ida Auken that she has the “religious and cultural freedom to let her son be circumcised” has kicked up controversy on social media.
The statement was made in a private discussion with the doctor Morten Frisch, who is preparing a summary of parliamentary candidate’s attitudes on the circumcision of boys.
Auken gave Frisch permission to publish the statement on his Facebook profile.
During the debate, Auken said that her support for religious circumcision includes only male children. That stance has led to several challenges on social media.
Comedian Lasse Rimmer asked on Twitter, “Do you think that a girl’s genitals deserve specific protection under the law, while a boy’s do not?”
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Another commentator, Thomas Finn, asked Auken to make a list of “pieces of skin that it is ok to cut off of healthy boys.”
Auken has yet to respond to any specific questions.
“I am not a spokesperson in the field,” she told Jyllands-Posten. “You should call Radikale’s spokesperson, but I do not think that it is the campaign’s main issue.”
Not ready to make it a law
Liv Holm Andersen, Radikale’s equality spokesman, said that the party had considered a resolution at its 2013 congress that it would work for a ban on circumcision of boys, similar to the law governing the circumcision of minor girls.
The resolution has never been voted on, so Radikale has yet to adopt an official stance on the circumcision of boys.
Andersen said that although Radikale’s parliamentary members are mostly opposed to male circumcision, they are not ready to create legislation making it illegal.
Public support
Frisch’s study of the candidates’ attitudes to male circumcision is not yet finished, but a recent poll showed that 17 of the 21 Radikale parliamentary candidates who responded, supported a total or partial ban on circumcision of boys.
A YouGov poll conducted for Metroxpress last October showed that 74 percent of respondents fully or partially support banning non-medical circumcision. Only 10 percent of respondents were directly opposed to a ban.
