Those are good points. I respect that some people have religious beliefs and affiliations. Rights generally begin as a very individual thing... the right to vo

Those are good points. I respect that some people have religious beliefs and affiliations. Rights generally begin as a very individual thing... the right to vote, the right to free speech, etc. So the right not to have one's body mutilated without consent is pretty individual the way I look at it. It's hard (for me) to separate granting the right to mutilate a body that is not yours from the notion of the person being mutilated somehow being "chattle" of the person doing the mutilation. But I'm not arguing that the same set of laws should apply to all groups and all cultures, but for an area where rights and protections are very minimal (such as infants) there is a lot of room for improvement. My guess is that if circumcision were banned religious communities would not be harmed because the symbolism of circumcision would adapt to be more figurative in the same way that many other traditions are now done in a "lite" way that lacks strict historical accuracy but still holds great ceremonial significance. But don't take my remarks as disrespectful of religion or of Judaism. I think that trying to figure out how to accomplish (broadly speaking) moral progress is very difficult, and I'd much rather improve the rights of prisoners than see circumcision ended, even though in principle I hold the view that circumcision should only occur when the person whose penis is being circumcised can consent. In the US there are much lower hanging fruit for humanitarian improvement. Not sure about Norway.