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BERLIN -- German lawmakers on Wednesday passed legislation ensuring parents the right to have their boys circumcised, bringing a close to months of legal uncertainty set off by a regional court's ruling that equated the practice with bodily harm. The measure passed by a vote of 434 to 100, with 46 abstentions, in Germany's lower house of Parliament, the Bundestag. The vote followed months of emotional debate, and angered and alienated many German Jews and Muslims, for whom circumcision is a religious rite, integral to their beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BERLIN -- In the first move to create legal clarity since a court ruling in June equated circumcision with bodily injury, local Berlin officials laid out guidelines Wednesday to allow the practice to continue in the capital, pending nationwide legislation. The move comes after an outcry from doctors, who feared they could be prosecuted for carrying out the procedure, after a ruling June 26 by a Cologne court that, although not applicable in other jurisdictions, created legal confusion around the country. The ruling also provoked strong protest from religious communities in Germany and abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The author criticizes a July 2012 court ruling in Cologne, Germany, which found that circumcision of boys, a religious observance practiced by Jews and Muslims, is impermissible because it harms the child's body.

The article reports on the rulings of the Superior Court in California on the proposed ban over the practice of circumcision for minors to be included within the ballot initiative in November 2011.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A judge said Wednesday that she intended to strike a ban on circumcision of male children from the city's November ballot. Judge Loretta M. Giorgi of Superior Court said in a tentative ruling on a challenge brought by the city attorney's office and Jewish groups that the ban violated a California law that makes regulating medical procedures a function of the state, not cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]