Religious circumcisions not subject to Pennsylvania oversight
Family sues rabbi over newborn's catastrophic injury during procedure
January 25, 2014 11:18 PM
By Peter Smith / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
More than half of male newborns in America are circumcised before they leave the hospital. As with any medical procedure, if it results in injury, the medical professional involved could face discipline by licensing authorities in Pennsylvania and other states.
No comparable state oversight, however, governs the same procedure when it's conducted by a religious practitioner with no medical license. And that, says a Pittsburgh lawyer suing over a catastrophic injury suffered by a newborn in April 2013, needs to change.
The lawsuit, pending in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, is seeking damages from Rabbi Mordechai Rosenberg for alleged negligence and inflicting of emotional distress on the boys' parents, who witnessed what the lawsuit called a "gruesome and torturous event." Rabbi Rosenberg has since 1990 worked as a mohel, the traditional term for one who performs circumcisions as part the traditional Jewish rite of passage.
"I think that mohels or any non-medically trained individual who is going to do a circumcision should be regulated by the state in terms of their competence, their education, their technique, their sterility, everything you do during a circumcision," said attorney Neil R. Rosen, representing the injured boy's parents.
http://www.post-gazette.com/local/region/2014/01/26/Religious-circumcisions-not-subject-to-Pa-oversight/stories/201401260149
http://www.brismilahpgh.com/The_Mohel.html
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