I have twice before here made reference to the debate about the morality of infant-male circumcision. There is a pair of articles in the latest Jewish Daily Forward - prompted by the efforts of a group to outlaw male circumcision in San Francisco - the first article defending the practice, and the second opposing it. I shall refer to my own changing perceptions about this issue to spell out how I now see it.
If at the time our daughters were born either of them had been a son, I would have wanted him to be circumcised. Were I, on the other hand, to face the same decision today it would go the other way. What has changed my mind? Back then, my reason for wanting it would have been the simple one of affirming Jewish identity; I took male circumcision as a very basic form of this. Now, however, I am much more conscious than I was of the invasive nature of the decision to circumcise a male baby, altering his body in a crucial way at a time when he's in no position to give or withhold his consent. The argument (in the first of the two articles linked to above) that circumcision continues 'a millennial tradition' is not good enough; neither is the 'freedom of religion' plea. If there is a rights-violating harm involved in a practice, then the tradition supporting it needs to be changed or abandoned. Likewise, freedom of religion can't justify acts that aren't defensible in their own right.
As for the affirmation of my Jewish identity, that is not something that has ceased to be important to me. On the contrary, it is more important now than it was when our daughters were born. But, first, as other Jews come round to the view, as they will, that infant-male circumcision is not a defensible custom, it will cease to be an unquestioned and universal part of male Jewish identity. And, second, identity is something the next generation gets to choose, even if not from scratch, so to say. Fixing a permanent mark of it by surgical means is not so apt in these circumstances.