Equality Now needs you to take action. Female genital mutilation (FGM), acknowledged internationally as a human rights violation and an extreme form of discrimination against women and girls, might be coming to the United States. The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a policy statement that essentially promotes changes in US federal and state laws to “enable ... pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ritual nick” such as “pricking or incising the clitoral skin to satisfy cultural requirements.”
Human rights groups around the globe have been working for decades to put an end to female genital mutilation, and the World Health Organization recognizes that female genital mutilation, even if it is “only” a pricking or incising of the clitoral skin, has no health benefits and only harmful consequences. It is disturbing that an American medical group would try to promote or legalize FGM in any way. Take action and tell the American Academy of Pediatrics to retract the portions of the AAP statement that, in effect, promote changes in US federal and state laws to enable physicians to “nick” girls’ genitalia.
@Anonymous: The question of male vs. female genital mutilation is a good one. PalMD at the ScienceBlog Denialism had this take:
Independent of how you may feel about male circumcision, it does not normally, or even more than very rarely, lead to long-term medical consequences. FGM nearly always does. FGM is not usually as "simple" as a pinprick. And who performs it is irrelevant. If women are co-opted into torturing each other by the dominant male culture, that is most emphatically not a mitigating factor, but a sign of how deeply disturbed gender relations in the culture are.
Male circ is not a method of controlling males and their sexuality. In nearly every culture that has ever existed (and one might argue that this is even more true of cultures that circumcise), males are dominant. FGM is always---always---a method of controlling women and their sexuality. It is almost always mutilitory (rather than symbolic) and leads to widespread female urogenital problems. Despite what the foreskin-worshipers may say, male circumcision and FGM are in no way equivalent.
PalMD (who had written the post in defense of a colleague's post at Science-Based Medicine) had to eventually close the comments after they went over the top.
So it's a rich topic. Feel free to continue it here or to open a thread in the Forums if you're a member.
Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 05/04/2010 - 21:18.
Why take a stand against only female genital mutilation? Why not all genital mutilation? Baby girls deserve protection but not baby boys? That's absurd.
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@Anonymous: The question of
@Anonymous: The question of male vs. female genital mutilation is a good one. PalMD at the ScienceBlog Denialism had this take:
PalMD (who had written the post in defense of a colleague's post at Science-Based Medicine) had to eventually close the comments after they went over the top.
So it's a rich topic. Feel free to continue it here or to open a thread in the Forums if you're a member.
Why only female?
Why take a stand against only female genital mutilation? Why not all genital mutilation? Baby girls deserve protection but not baby boys? That's absurd.