Roger Saquet, director of the Non-Circumcision Information Center in Belmont, Mass., said he heard about the case from others who promote leaving boys' foreskins intact.

"I can't imagine an 8-year-old boy to be forced to go to a hospital and have his genitals mutilated," he said.

Saquet criticized the parents for letting their dispute escalate.

"They're using the kid as a weapon against each other," he said. "It's really sad. My heart goes out to that kid."

Tracy Rizzo, the mother's attorney, said religion, not medicine, is the father's concern. Rizzo said the father disagrees with circumcision because he resents the fact that his ex-wife has remarried a Jewish man. The mother lives with her new husband, her son and her husband's son from a previous relationship in Northbrook.

The father, an Arlington Heights resident, denies he's concerned about the religion of his ex-wife's husband.

The mother testified Wednesday that she wanted the boy circumcised when he was a newborn, but her then-husband refused. She quoted him as saying at the time: "There is no way my son is going to be circumcised. He is not a Jew."

But the judge would not allow Alan Toback, an attorney for the father, to ask the new husband, who also testified Wednesday, if he is circumcised.

"We're not going there," the judge said.

In a March 1999 policy statement that was reaffirmed this year, the American Academy of Pediatrics said there are "potential medical benefits" to circumcision, including a reduction in risk of urinary tract infections. However, existing data "are not sufficient to recommend routine ... circumcision" of newborns, the statement says.

The group estimates that 1.2 million newborn males are circumcised in the United States a year at a cost of between $150 million and $270 million.

Dr. David Hatch, a pediatric urologist who testified Wednesday, said he performs 250 circumcisions a year, including about 20 on boys between the ages of 5 and 10.

Hatch testified his own three sons are uncircumcised because he does not think it is normally medically necessary. But he said he would recommend circumcision for a son with a history of recurring inflammation or infection.