Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is one of the cruelest ways in which women are oppressed. Briefly put: a young girl's clitoris is mutilated or sliced off completely in order to honor tradition or religious belief. Not only does this deprive the girl of sexual pleasure when she becomes a woman, but is often done without any anesthetics or antibiotics.
A modern society that prides itself on gender equality would abhor such a practice, right? In fact, US federal law prohibits anything resembling FGM. You would also think modern physicians, free from primitive superstitions and religious practices, would also oppose FGM.
Well, maybe not all of them.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has issued a policy statement that opposes FGM - sort of. Read the relevant passage:
Most forms of FGC are decidedly harmful, and pediatricians should decline to perform them, even in the absence of any legal constraints. However, the ritual nick suggested by some pediatricians is not physically harmful and is much less extensive than routine newborn male genital cutting. There is reason to believe that offering such a compromise may build trust between hospitals and immigrant communities, save some girls from undergoing disfiguring and life-threatening procedures in their native countries, and play a role in the eventual eradication of FGC. It might be more effective if federal and state laws enabled pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ritual nick as a possible compromise to avoid greater harm.
Notice what the AAP has done here. First, the substitution of the benign-sounding term Female Genital Cutting (FGC) for FGM. Almost like body-piercing, eh? Next come the it's-all-for-the-children shtick, which is the the new refuge of the scoundrel. Finally, the suggestion that allowing "FGC" will somehow result in its decrease.
It is a passionately held belief of our modern secular culture that Christians are fundamentalist misogynist savages who want to turn the clock back a millennium or two. But it was not the hated Christians who came up with the barbaric proposal to make the degradation of women an accepted medical practice.
In the "primitive" parts of the world unwanted infants are sometimes left in the wilderness to either die of expose or be eaten by wild animals. In the modern Western world we slice them up in the womb and call it abortion. Criminals sentenced to execution get painkillers to prevent their suffering. What steps are taken to prevent pain to the unborn fetus as it is ripped limb from limb?
Likewise, we have joined hands with "primitives" who want the aged and sick to die. Only we call it euthanasia, and in certain parts of the Western world you can make a living snuffing the unwanted. In America we watched a ghoul named Jack Kevorkian become a folk hero, and we can be thankful that Dr. Joseph Mengele never made it to the 21st century (otherwise Hollywood might be making hagiographic movies about him).
It is hard to look at the actions of the American Academy of Pediatrics and not come to the conclusion that something has gone terribly amiss in that organization. Does the AAP really believe that "FGC" will stop at just a little nick? It certainly didn't with abortion, which we were assured would decrease after legalization. One wonders when the AAP will address the issue of foot-binding, sati (wife burning), and child brides, and decide that multiculturalism trumps human rights in those cases as well.
