Scottish NHS calls for end to funding for religious genital mutilation
Fixed that for you
this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
68 points (98.6% liked)
UK Politics
5349 readers
154 users here now
General Discussion for politics in the UK.
Please don't post to both !uk_politics@feddit.uk and !unitedkingdom@feddit.uk .
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.
Posts should be related to UK-centric politics, and should be either a link to a reputable news source for news, or a text post on this community.
Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.
If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread. (These things should be publicly discussed)
Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.
Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
They shouldn't just remove funding for it, they should make it illegal. In general, children should have autonomy over their own bodies - whether it be in the case of genital mutilation (of any sex or gender), taking puberty blockers, overriding parental lack of consent to get immunisations, etc
children should have autonomy over their own bodies ... overriding parental lack of consent to get immunisations, etc
This is interesting. Everything you've said I agree with, but I wonder if that's just because I agree with those things.
For example, I don't believe that children should be able to override their parents' wishes and skip immunisations. And I'm not sure at what age it is appropriate to allow a child to opt to be circumcised for decorative or religious reasons.
In my opinion, it is appropriate to allow a child to make irreversible surgical decisions about their body once they are at least pubescent, and can demonstrate full informed consent about the procedure
18, the legal age of medical consent in most countries.
Meanwhile, let's teach boys basic hygiene.
Wtf?? My taxes were going towards religious circumcisions??
Edit: no, not mine - was shocked to learn that Scotland is the only UK nation to offer religious circumcision on its NHS: "can policy please confirm that statement by the [Daily] Record is correct that we're the only UK nation to offer on the NHS? That doesn't seem right".
This is one of the problems thst arise from seperating our country into 4 seperate governing bodies.
I got circumcised as a kid. We went to an upmarket jewish practicioner who botched the job because he was used to doing it on younger kids, and then blamed my parents culture for leaving it too late.
We went to the NHS who thankfully saved my penis (he's fine, thriving even) and I'm forever grateful to them for doing the procedure correctly instead of winging like that upmarket cunt did.
In retrospect, I like the way it looks, but if I had a kid I'd definitely spare them the ordeal of it. I also have mixed feelings about it not being supported on the NHS since the danger of it going wrong in the hands of private is way higher than say getting a nose piercing - as in, if it's to be done anyway, might as well have it done in a sanitary hospital with qualified surgeons
Did your parents do it for religious reasons? I know that americans, for instance, have made a tradition of doing it even for non religious reasons, and i feel liek your parents would've done it sooner if you were religious, right?
Cultural reasons mostly, like getting your kid christened to appease that one grandparent, whilst you yourself nor your partner have ever set foot in a church
Alternatively, it can one of the good ones if a change requires consensus.
funny thing is, many religious jews don't consider the hospital circumcision as a real one anyways.
no, not mine
They probably were, the Barnett formula means England effectively subsidises Scotland.
Mutilating baby boys being legal is pure insanity. Hope the rest of the Neanderthals in the world follows.
If Scotland is the only nation doing this, then I would support removing funding for this. It is not a medical procedure. It is a religious procedure that can lead to health issues if done improperly, but then so is ear piercing.