Male circumcision has been heavily debated in Denmark in recent years. Photo: Colourbox 
 
 A poll showing 74 percent support for banning male circumcision comes as parliament prepares for a new round of political discussion on male circumcision. 
 
 Nearly three fourths of Danes are in favour of banning male circumcision, a new poll revealed. 
 
 In a survey of over 1,000 Danes conducted by YouGov for Metroxpress newspaper, 74 percent of respondents wanted a full or partial ban on the practice while just ten percent supported giving parents the right to circumcise their sons. 
 
 The poll results come as parliament prepares to hold a hearing on the practice of circumcision on Wednesday. Left-wing party the Red-Green Alliance (Enhedslisten) and libertarian party Liberal Alliance are in favour of a ban, while other parties report internal disagreement on the issue. 
 
 The debate about circumcision is a frequent topic in Denmark. Following extensive media coverage in both 2012 and 2013, the Danish Health and Medicines Authority (Sundhedsstyrelsen) carried out a study on the potential health risks and benefits of circumcision. In June 2013, the agency determined that there was neither enough risk to justify outlawing circumcision nor enough documentation of its benefits to generally recommend the practice. 
 
 Despite the health authorities’ findings, Wednesday’s hearing in parliament may be the first step toward an eventual ban. 
 
 “We will handle this topic politically within a few years. As I see it, it goes against the [UN’s] Convention on the Rights of the Child to circumcise children. I’m leaning toward a ban until the person is of legal age,” Venstre MP Hans Christian Schmidt, a former health minister, told Metroxpress. 
 
 According to Sundhedsstyrelsen, somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 circumcisions are performed in Denmark each, primarily on Jewish and Muslim boys. Male circumcision is almost universal in the Muslim world and highly prevalent in many African countries. It is also a popular practice in the United States where more than half of all boys are circumcised and in Canada, where a 2007 survey put the percentage at 31.9 percent. 
 
 Jair Melchior of the Jewish faith group Mosaisk Troessamfund cautioned politicians to not let opinion polls affect their stance on circumcision. 
 
 “The problem is that there are so many assertions in the debate on circumcising boys. If it was so dangerous, the Jewish community would have been the first to stop it. But it’s not,” Melchior told Metroxpress. ||||| German lawmakers approved a bill Wednesday that explicitly permits male infant circumcision, ending months of legal uncertainty after a court ruling that the practice amounts to bodily harm led to an outcry from Jewish and Muslim groups. 
 
 Orthodox Jews attend a meeting of the German Federal Parliament, Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2012. The German Parliament is expected to vote on legislation clarifying the legality... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this Oct. 29, 2012 file picture mohel doctor Yacov Gassinovitch, center, is surround by other Rabbis and relatives as he holds eight days old Jonathan during the boy's circumcision at synagogue... (Associated Press) 
 
 Head of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, Aiman Mazyek, center, attends a session of the German parliament, Bundestag in Berlin Wednesday Dec. 12, 2012. German Parliament is expected to vote... (Associated Press) 
 
 Germany's government moved swiftly to draft a law following the Cologne regional court decision in June. The ruling didn't amount to a ban but raised fears of possible prosecutions. 
 
 The head of Germany's main Jewish group expressed relief at the vote, which passed with 434 lawmakers in favor, 100 against and 46 abstaining. 
 
 "The circumcision law finally restores legal certainty," said Dieter Graumann, the head of Germany's Central Council of Jews. "What's important for us is the political message of this law, which is that Jewish and Muslim life is still welcome here." 
 
 Restrictions on religiously motivated circumcision would have been particularly sensitive in Germany because of the country's persecution of Jews and other minorities during the Nazi period. 
 
 Proponents of the law, including Chancellor Angela Merkel, noted that failure to protect circumcision would have risked making Germany the only country in the world to ban a practice that Jews and some Muslims consider an ancient and essential part of their religious traditions. 
 
 The new law grants parents the right to have their sons circumcised by a trained practitioner. Once the boy reaches six months of age, the procedure needs to be performed by a doctor. 
 
 Some critics of circumcision in Germany have argued that the right of the child to bodily integrity trumped a parent's right to make a decision on his behalf. 
 
 A minority of left-wing lawmakers in Parliament proposed that parents should have to wait until the boy is 14 so he can give informed consent, noting the procedure is irreversible. 
 
 Such a delay would have contravened Jewish religious law, which requires that boys are circumcised on the eighth day after birth in a ceremony seen as their entrance into a covenant with God. Muslims also usually perform the procedure early in a boy's life. 
 
 Germany, a country of some 82 million people, has a population of about 250,000 Jews and about 4 million Muslims.
– "To be circumcised should be an informed, personal choice," or so thinks the Danish Medical Association, which on Friday issued its recommendation that no boy under age 18 in the country be circumcised. Going that route then leaves the door open for the male to make a decision of his own "when he has come of age," says Lise Moller, the head of the association’s ethics board. That's not to say the doctors' group is calling for a ban, which it says it weighed and decided against due to cases where male circumcision is medically necessary and for the potential for clandestine botched procedures, says Moller. Had they wanted a ban, they'd possibly face a steep slope. In a June report to the UN, Denmark agreed with Egypt's stance that it is a parental right to circumcise one's male child, reports the Copenhagen Post. Still, the Local reports that 74% of respondents to a 2014 survey said they'd support a full or partial ban. An estimated 1,000 to 2,000 circumcisions take place in Denmark each year, and the country should have a firmer idea of that number as of Jan. 1, after which all circumcisions must be logged in Denmark's national patient registry, reports the Local. Doctors who fail to do so will be fined, reports the Post. The CDC reports that in 2010, an estimated 58% of male newborns were circumcised in the US. (This mom went into hiding and then to jail in an attempt to avoid circumcising her son.)