Earlier this year, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued perhaps the single most appalling statement of official multiculturalism I have read with regard to the United States in many years. It called for de-criminalizing what might be called a softer, gentler form of clitoral mutilation – allowing for a “ritual nick” of a girl’s clitoris instead. The fundamental argument was that if the US did not relax its criminal laws against ”any non-medical procedure performed on the genitals” of a girl, families committed to the practice would take them elsewhere for a much more thorough mutilation.
This ritual drawing of a drop of blood from a girl’s clitoris – and that is on the generous assumption that, over a decade or so, that’s all it turns out to be, rather than the stalking horse of the very thing that led to the change in policy – performed in a doctor’s office by, presumably, a pediatrician or nurse following the American Academy of Pediatrics’ advice, would therefore save American girls from a worse mutilation elsewhere. So. The laws of the United States and the norms of American society in a deeply fundamental matter are to be held hostage against the possibility of what might happen to an American girl taken to Somalia or elsewhere. Nowhere in the Academy’s logic did anyone discuss the possibility that relaxing a norm under the threat of its worse violation might count as, well, reward behavior and you’ll get more it. If you give a mouse a cookie, if you give a moose a muffin, and if you give the American Academy of Pediatrics a girl’s clitoris to nick …
The Academy, under intense pressure from advocates against female genital mutilation, has withdrawn its statement. The advice, of course, is important, because among other things it offers a “best practices” defense against claims of malpractice or abuse or what have you. One of the striking things about the Academy is that it has offered controversial counsel to pediatricians before – such as its advice several years ago about pediatricians interviewing their young female patients alone to solicit the possibility of sexual abuse. Generally its views have trended toward “helping profession” interventions into the family. What therefore makes the Academy’s now-withdrawn view particularly striking is how it essentially opts for “multiculturalism” over conventional feminism. Nor would I assume that this proposal is gone for good. It would be better understood as the Academy and its ideological supporters floating a trial balloon, with an long term advocacy goal of accustoming the public to the idea. Rust never sleeps.
After all, the debate has long played out in Europe, with its larger immigrant population from places where the practice is accepted. The Academy’s original advice merely sought to bring the US debate in line with progressive thought in progressive places. It will be back. It was therefore welcome to read a forthright editorial in the New York Times today calling not just for enforcement of the law as it pertains to the United States, but to extend it to make it a felony to take a girl abroad for purposes of genital mutilation. Indeed – and it is dismaying to have to say so – it was good to be able to read in the Times that it was willing to call it “mutilation” and not the increasingly preferred term among multiculturalist progressives, “cutting” or “modification.” Said the Times today, under the title “Not Anyone’s Daughter”:
Female genital mutilation has been banned in the United States since 1996. Representatives Joseph Crowley of New York and Mary Bono Mack of California are now sponsoring legislation that would make it a felony to take a girl out of the country to have the procedure, punishing violators with fines and a five-year prison term. Supporters hope the law will be a deterrent and embolden more young women or their mothers to resist family or community pressure and defend themselves.
The need for strong resistance was underscored after the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement that a milder version of mutilation — a nick of a girl’s genitals done in a doctor’s office — should be made legal in the United States as a way to prevent families from taking children abroad for the full brutal procedure. Advocates rightly argued that medicalizing this violence against women would only legitimize it and undermine the force of the ban. The academy has since withdrawn the statement.
Congress should move quickly to pass the Girls Protection Act. More needs to be done. State health authorities should step up education campaigns in immigrant communities. Pediatricians could make it their business to recognize and report the signs of abuse.
Federal officials could ensure that ports of entry like Kennedy International Airport in New York City have informational signs, hot lines and a shelter. An international departure terminal may provide the last chance to save a girl from a lifetime of suffering and early death.
Framing ideology matters. The use of words matter. Which is a reason why the Times’s endorsement, as a progressive icon, matters considerably. The distressing part was that I, at least, was quite unsure that the New York Times would have come down firmly for genuine legal measures that draw a clear line against genital mutilation. After all, would it have surprised you, or anyone really, if it had agonized a while and finally come down where the Academy did? The reason I say this is that within my academic world, the reaction to something like this is two-fold. One is affirmatively to embrace the multicultural as against the bourgeois feminist; presumed racism against Muslim immigrant trumps Western white liberal feminist, in much of my academic world.
The second is more widespread, and if anything more troubling. It is to simply never take up such issues. You don’t embrace the new orthodoxy but you don’t raise your voice against it, either. If you’re a liberal, progressive feminist, you concentrate your energies, on the one hand, on going after the wicked Catholic Church and trying to find ways to sue it while, on the other, never quite managing to say anything about the importation of these practices into the United States that might have implications for the Muslim community. When pressed, hint that it is simply a somewhat paranoid, if not perverse, anti-immigrant, racist, anti-Muslim obsession of right nativists with the spread of FGM, honor killing, and other practices in the US. Best not to talk about them at all.
The few times that I’ve raised these issues with my colleagues in the progressive academy, there has been a distinct undertone that even to raise the issue is to mark oneself out as a pervert for thinking about such things and a wicked conservative-nativist-racist. They prefer not to talk about it, and to the extent they do, it is not to set out markers of prohibited behavior at all, but instead to find “common ground” and build “communal bridges” and all that. Everyone wants to be the “friend” across cultures – no one wants to have to play the mean, nasty enforcer, even when it comes to honor killings. This won’t work – it hasn’t worked in Europe and it won’t work here. Everyone wants to play the person of tolerant liberality; no one wants to play the enforcer of the basic rules that, yes, do impinge on certain things in family life.
Our political elites have failed us badly in this, as in so many things. How? Because they too want to be perceived not as the ones who both set and enforce the “deep” norms of behavior, but instead as tolerant emissaries of liberality. So they haven’t set the markers, haven’t demanded their enforcement – so that they can be the good guys, the tolerant ones, the accommodating ones – and then it falls to individuals to have to try and enforce what are, at the end of the day, social norms, and that means they turn into the bad guys. The way it should actually work is that the political elites play the heavy – so that ordinary individuals, in their daily interactions, can be the tolerant and liberal ones, the ones who make accommodations on a retail basis, so to speak, because they operate within a frame in which the fundamental, wholesale norms are set and enforced by society as a whole, and mean something. The liberality of daily life is made possible by the rigorous enforcement of the “iron cage” of fundamental norms at the social, political, and legal level; if the elites who are supposed to be in charge of setting those norms decide that, instead, they want to be the accommodating, liberal, relaxed, tolerant ones, they make it difficult-to-impossible for ordinary individuals to play that role at in daily life where it most matters.
My own positive view, set out in the last half of this article on Mormons, Multiculturalism, and Muslims in the Weekly Standard (this is a long article, and this argument is in the last third), is that religious commuities thrive within an “iron cage” of sturdy public standards on what is okay and not. It was, in my view, the enforcement of the ban on Mormon polygamy that both forced, but also allowed, Mormonism to find its place and a thriving place within broader American culture. That would not have happened, I believe, had the US instead adopted a “communalist” approach to the public political culture that said, well, Mormons do their thing in their community. It would have allowed Mormonism a much more radical practice – and it would have ghettoized it as well. Islam in America will thrive most, in my view, if it does not go down the special privileges of religious accommodation route, but instead locks itself and is locked by law and practice, into the iron cage of public life. Otherwise it will be ghettoized as in Europe – with an increasingly radical fringe and less and less integration. Not good for the broader culture and not good for American Muslims – the Mormon experience, and what made it possible – including a great deal of coercion – deserves much closer study.
However, the several times that I’ve raised these issues of FGM, honor killings, etc., among social and religious conservatives, their reaction has also been dismaying. On the one hand, unsurprisingly they have the same genuine recoil both from the practice of FGM that the general population does, and recoil from the idea that the United States should be making any “diversity” concession to it. They don’t think, any more than the general population in the US does, that this makes them “racist” or “anti-Muslim,” and that it is only the manipulation of the public culture by such “helping profession” elites in such places as the Academy that the charge even comes up. (And perhaps a provision added into the currently proposed legislation permitting a tort action against the Academy, and its executive leadership, board, and bioethics committee members individually, by any girl or her court appointed guardian in case of clit-nicking casually related to the Academy’s advice? Pour encourager les autres?)
But – a big but – on the other hand, these religious conservatives with whom I’ve raised this also exhibit a certain dismaying, underlying concern that nothing done to outlaw these kinds of practices should get in the way of anything that they might want in the way of religious accommodations under existing law. Some of those conversations have increasingly come to disturb me, frankly – a general sense that the door to religious accommodation has to be thrown open as widely as possible and anything that might put limits on that is a bad idea from a religious Christian conservative point of view.
My own view, which I will set out separately at some point, is that religious accommodation in the United States has actually gone too far. Something that could work as a fine, abstract, robust statement of liberal principle actually only worked insofar as it only really turned out to be invoked in relatively restrained circumstances. If no one was trying to invoke it as a basis for never having to show your face on an ID, for example, but instead it was limited to a historically limited and self-limiting practice of some Indian tribes and the religious use of peyote, then it is easy to frame it as a matter of grand principle, all high minded liberalism about religious accommodation. When things get serious, and the issues involve things like cutting girls’ clitorises, then suddenly one needs to be able to draw much tougher lines. Those tougher lines would be less accommodating to Christian grounds, but I think it is a consequence of boundary-stretching claims that push things where a liberal society should not go, or allow its religious communities to go.
Finally, then, there is the worst possible argument – and the scariest. This is the argument that if the US does not relax its bright line rules, then the girls will just be taken someplace else where it will be worse. Even someone ordinarily as sensible as Jay Nordlinger at NRO took this seriously in a post when the Academy advice was first released. Should we really think that the right way to address this is to allow the US to be taken hostage by clitoral mutilators and their Academy enablers? The idea that the United States has somehow reached the point at which it is no longer able to make its own laws against something as basic as FGM and that, therefore, it needs to give into the demand to relax them in order to prevent something worse is breathtaking.
The underlying assumption is that the US is no longer capable of policing this kind of behavior and therefore should make accommodations to it. It is a form of concession to the logic of hostage-taking: Your society must change its ways, its fundamental assumptions about the treatment of girls and women, because if you don’t, we’ll do something worse. Listen to Dena Davis, the law professor who advised the Academy’s bioethics committee, offering an oh-so reasonable view on NPR. And it is always a form of logic that says, you can’t draw the line at x, because people will then do x+1; but you can’t draw the line at x+1, because then people will do x+2; but you can’t draw the line at x+2 … One of the insufficiently recognized problems with consequentialist logic of this kind is its susceptibility to this kind of gaming.
Then ask yourself if, under that logic, any lines can be drawn anymore – since one can always threaten to do something worse. And note, too, that in the Economist’s account of Professor Davis’s position, the society to which the United States should look for its inspiration is Indonesia – with an underlying assumption that it is not okay, or no longer possible, for the United States to look to, well, the United States for the basic assumptions about what it owes in the way of protections from abuse for its girls.
Quick addition. I see from the early comments that they are headed in a direction in which VC comments often go … analogies that wind up making the skeptical case by showing that this isn’t really different from that, so what’s your problem? Well, I’m glad that VC commenters are a skeptical bunch, but I’m not always impressed with the way in which the analogies tend to suppress the social realities surrounding any particular practice. It’s peculiar, but the skepticism often put out in the comment threads here looks to be so tough-minded – but then is almost touchingly child-like in its willful naivete.
Well, it’s a larger topic than I propose to take up here, but I don’t think that you can take up this argument without committing yourself to a view on the social function of this kind of cutting – the question of about circumcision makes sense, but frankly trying to assimilate this to, say, an ear piercing is simply inapt. At that point, if one returns to the circumcision issue as a more meaningful analogy, then one does have to adopt – if only by implication – a view on such things as the social practice surrounding it. You might dispute the framing of the social context in which the practice takes place – deny, for example, that it is part of a larger structure of the (in)equality of women and their sexuality – but you do need to be clear that you are taking a position on that in the selection of your analogy.
The reasoning from analogy that often takes place here at VC conceals a great many hidden assumptions about the social practice embodied in the analogies. I don’t find much of it particularly persuasive or useful; analogical argument requires in the first place an account of why the “similar” features are indeed similar. In that sense it is a more demanding form of argument, containing an extra step so to speak, than a linear syllogism would be. But that’s a big topic, obviously, and I’ll take it up another day. Meanwhile, I think the circumcision discussion is relevant – while ultimately unconvincing on many grounds – while many of the other offered analogies, well, a lot less so. It is not really helpful to say, if I can imagine a possible world in which x would be okay, then here in our world, our life, our social circumstances, the social function that x plays in our world, it must also be okay.
Also, please note, the fundamental argument offered by the Academy was to say that it opposed the practice, but that out of a concern for worse consequences of girls being taken elsewhere, it supported this relaxation.
Seamus says:
If it’s being described correctly, that “ritual nick” sounds a lot less drastic than male circumcision.
July 1, 2010, 11:28 amShelbyC says:
Or ear piercing. How’s a ritual “nick” different that the other forms of minor procedures that we currently allow?
July 1, 2010, 11:32 amAeon J. Skoble says:
Excellent analysis. Thanks!
July 1, 2010, 11:32 amGordo says:
This is one of the best commentaries I have ever read at VC. Thank you.
I think one argument someone might make is to ask why we aren’t as opposed to male circumcision, which is done at least partly on religious grounds. However, there is no clear evidence that male circumcision has unmitigated negative health impacts – in fact many of the health impacts (reduced HIV transmission rates, reduced cervical cancer for females with circumcised partners) are positive.
July 1, 2010, 11:35 amJardinero1 says:
There is always one hot button issue(no pun intended) where a libertarian mutates into a “there ought to be a law” hack. Mr. Anderson seems to have exposed his(again, no pun intended).
July 1, 2010, 11:37 amCal lawyer says:
People make this sort of deal all of the time. Parents allow their kids to drink, as long as they do it in their presence. Nevada allows prostitution, as long as the brothels follow certain rules that make the practice more safe. Etc. Etc.
Of course, whether this sort of trade off makes sense in this case is a separate question. But the mere fact that the American Academy of Pediatrics is considering it shouldn’t be abhorent to you, unless you always object to this sort of trade off. (Do you?)
July 1, 2010, 11:38 amBarb says:
Yes, this is multi-culturalism run amok–and we shall see more of this sort of thing as we integrate without assimilating foreigners into what has been mostly a Judeo-Christian and protestant culture.
I predict we shall not like the result of growing hostility toward Christianity in the world. Secularism will not maintain the good aspects of America. And religious tolerance to the point of polygamy and female mutilation will not serve well the equality of women and children. What’s next? Islamic pederasty as a cultural norm –as in Pakistan and AFghanistan?
T. Jefferson in “notes on the State of Virginia,” 1781.
July 1, 2010, 11:38 amyankee says:
This seems like an odd issue to be complaining about multicultural concessions to religious norms about. We routinely do much worse things to childrens’ genitals than what the AAP was authorizing here. What possible grounds are there for saying that permanently chopping off part of a child’s genitals is OK, but drawing one drop of blood is not?
Male circumcision is not nearly as bad as clitoral mutilation, which is more like chopping off the entire glans of the penis, but male circumcision is much more serious than a small cut that causes temporary injury.
I’m opposed to all three, but supporting male circumcision while opposing female one-drop-of-blood-drawing is intellectually incoherent.
July 1, 2010, 11:39 amruuffles says:
Circumcision. That is all.
July 1, 2010, 11:41 amBarb says:
I certainly do object to such trade-offs. Tee-totalers don’t produce alcoholics. None of my 4 children had temptation to drink –and they don’t drink today as adults. They didn’t run with the crowds that have to have their alcohol. My sons have only tasted alcohol at weddings and get a big kick out of bringing me a beer which I think is ginger ale until I taste it. It’s an acquired taste and we had no difficulty preventing the interest. Tastes bad.
And there is nothing necessary or good about prostitution.
July 1, 2010, 11:44 amrichard says:
Simple question: if the medical evidence were to show no medical benefits from circumcision, would you be aghast at an Academy of Pediatrics report that allows doctors to perform the procedure? And if not, why not?
July 1, 2010, 11:46 amShelbyC says:
Is there any evidence that the ritual “nick” has any negative impacts? Or more negative impacts than, say, ear piercing or tatooing?
July 1, 2010, 11:49 amI Callahan says:
Circumcision isn’t even in the same ballpark as clitoral mutilation. Circumcision doesn’t make a man less apt to have sex; clitoral
July 1, 2010, 11:51 ammutilation does changes a woman’s libido, otherwise, why would Muslim fathers want their daughters to have the procedure in the first place?
Barb says:
As another suggested, there are health benefits to circumcision of males–some of them to the wife. No health benefit for anyone in female circumcision.
And it’s not really “religious, ” is it?? I mean, mandated by the Islamic writings? It’s to deny a woman pleasure so she will be faithful by lack of sexual interest. Why should a civilized nation kowtow to such a barbarian notion?
July 1, 2010, 11:51 amShelbyC says:
Well, what’s being described here doesn’t sound like it can honestly be called “mutilation.” Do you have any evidence that it causes any negative impact on a woman’t life?
July 1, 2010, 11:56 amBarb says:
It would be very painful to a female of any age. It’s absolutely unnecessary and uncivilized. (as are piercings and tatoos, I might add. –no, my ears aren’t even pierced.)
This equal respect for all cultures/religions will do us in –such that the USA will look just like backward nations and no longer be a beacon on a hill. Don’t let immigrants bring their cultural cruelties and inequalities with them. Immigrants used to come here on our terms –and still should.
July 1, 2010, 11:58 amEngineer says:
Not that long ago, the whole “gorgeous mosaic” thing was about being open to ethnic cuisines and folk dances. Now it’s about FGM, blasphemy, tolerance of proselytization etc.
I had intended to make the point that if going abroad for FGM were made to be a felony, then there would be calls from liberals to do the same for male circumcision. But I see that some commenters here already believe the two should be legally equivalent.
In my opinion, ethical and meta-ethical analysis is necessary to properly deal with these issues. When traditionalist Muslims state that they have their own notion of “human rights” and that these should be recognized by the law, liberals really have no answer.
July 1, 2010, 11:59 amShelbyC says:
Again, does anyone have any evidence that such a “ritual nick” causes any loss of pleasure?
July 1, 2010, 12:00 pmKen Arromdee says:
Libertarian principles don’t apply when unconsenting third parties are involved. Children are unconsenting third parties.
July 1, 2010, 12:03 pmBarb says:
We should say, “Leave the country and stay away if you want to mutilate your daughters” –or “we’ll put the girls in foster care. Just how important is it to you to symbolically, ritually take away your daughters’ potential for sexual pleasure? It’s not about a ritual pinprick of blood –or religion–it’s about the oppression and subjugation of women.”
July 1, 2010, 12:03 pmyankee says:
I absolutely agree. Clitoral mutilation is comparable to chopping off the entire glans of the penis, which of course is nothing like circumcision. But that’s not what’s under discussion here: we’re talking about a small cut in which one drop of blood is removed. That’s nothing like circumcision either. No evidence has been produced, and none is forthcoming, that small cuts to the clitoris result in permanent damage.
July 1, 2010, 12:04 pmShelbyC says:
And yet we allow piercings and tatoos, and circumcision, which I imagine is equally painful (I don’t remember, of course). We can’t say something is OK when we do it, but a cruel inequity when immigrants do something very similar, can we?
July 1, 2010, 12:04 pmfalse seriousness says:
There’s our answer – whatever Barb feels should be the national standard, that’s it. If it doesn’t comport with her views on righteousness, it’s illegal.
Barb doesn’t like customs of strange brown people, even if a ritual nick is less barbaric than sawing off part of the male’s penis – and like it or not, doctors do encounter this scenario and need guidance. So the reasonableness of a ritual nick that doesn’t do anything harmful as a way to discourage full clitorial removal is immaterial. Doesn’t matter.
Barb, the child of immigrants, has spoken.
Pretty simple amirite?
July 1, 2010, 12:04 pmOneEyedMan says:
Maybe it is the motivation for the behavior of the American Academy of Pediatrics more than the proceedure that offends. If they are good and just laws, we shouldn’t loosen our laws here simply because people will go elsewhere to break them. On the other hand, a blanket prohibition excluding drawing even a small drop of blood may not be good law. It could simply be us prohibiting something because it is a shadow a a gruesome practice.
I have trouble getting upset about the practice of drawing a single drop of blood. In the Jewish community, when I man is to be religiously circumscribed who is already medically circumcised a drop of blood is drawn from his penis. This could hardly be described as medically necessary or any more gruesome than ear piercing or tattooing (as others above have pointed out) is legal.
The right grounds for legalization is that drawing a drop of blood is a reasonable religious accommodation that does not deliver any lasting harm to the children involved. The wrong reason is that we want to make a less-evil but still evil substitute for terrible practices elsewhere.
July 1, 2010, 12:05 pmBarb says:
Then why do it? Loss of pleasure is the purpose. My understanding is that it is more cultural than religious –so what’s the point if the pricking doesn’t do the damage? Is it not possibly psychologically damaging to have your trusted parent assault your private parts this way –causing this unnecessary pain?
It’s time to tell some cultures to just grow up; join the civilized world. You’re in America now.
July 1, 2010, 12:07 pmAndrew L says:
Just to continue the circumcision argument on this thread…
I’m Jewish and I was circumcised as an 8-day old baby. Haven’t had any problems since, thank God.
I’m against dangerous ritual procedures, but statistics and medical facts are important to establishing relative danger. I’d be interested in hearing what the medical issues are as they relate to “clit-nicking” compared to ritual circumcision and the more severe forms of FGM. I would assume the first two are fine whereas the third is not, but I that’s just a guess. Anyone know?
July 1, 2010, 12:08 pmShelbyC says:
Sure they do, in general, we view parents as better able to make decisions for their children than the government, except in cases where the parents are causing unquestionable harm to their children. The question here is, is the “ritual nick” unquestionable harm? I haven’t seen any evidence that it is, especially given its similarity to things we already allow.
July 1, 2010, 12:09 pmLongCat says:
If you’ve never met an alcoholic child of a teetotaler, you simply know too few people. While I’d agree that such a person is less likely to be an alcoholic, it’s absurd to say it never happens.
And male circumcision feels pleasant? Even after the initial mutilation, a clitoral nick wouldn’t permanently destroy thousands of erogenous nerve endings or decrease clitoral sensitivity.
Both practices are equally barbaric.
July 1, 2010, 12:10 pmyankev says:
Well, that didn’t take long. Of course any advocacy of Judeo-Christian norms is irrefutable and ipso facto proof of racism.
July 1, 2010, 12:11 pmZach says:
Do you feel the same way about Jews? After all, they didn’t have any health benefits in mind when they came to the “civilized world.”
July 1, 2010, 12:11 pmtheobromophile says:
Um, guys? The clitoris (or the part that sticks out of the body) is really, really small. Think pea-sized or smaller. A “ritual nick”, even by a skilled surgeon, would cut it top to bottom. If it’s deep enough to be a permanent “nick” (whatever that means), then it could very well end up scarring a good portion of the tissue. Furthermore, not to go all girl-power on y’all, but we’re talking about an organ that has twice as many nerve endings as the entire male organ, so the equivalent (by nerve ending) is to cut a man’s parts from top to bottom, deeply enough to scar, and wide enough to cover maybe 1/5th of it.
Then, if you want to put the cultural context on top of it, it would be like doing that… in a society that routinely scars men so badly that they can never have an erection or feel pleasure. (Of course, that’s a hypothetical; a society that did that would never continue beyond the current generation, just as a biological matter.)
Male circumcision, from what little I understand about the subject, has a basis in preserving health and reducing the spread of diseases (which it still does today). As our hygiene improves, our society could decide that there’s no longer any reason for this (although that would be an odd result as we promote circumcision abroad as a way to reduce the transmission of AIDS). I don’t think anyone seriously argues that the same can be said of FGM.
July 1, 2010, 12:13 pmShelbyC says:
We’re beacon on a hill because we’re a free country. And just about all of you comments are about making us less free.
July 1, 2010, 12:15 pmBarb says:
I’m giving you the common sense view about multiculturalism –the view that respects much of what America is and understands why people find this place a good place to be. If you let immigrants bring all their foreign oppression of women and abuse of children with them, our culture becomes like the one they wanted to escape –miserable.
July 1, 2010, 12:16 pmIt is far better to EDUCATE people on why female circumcision is simply…BAD! Otherwise, they can stay home where barbarous practices are the norm. If hurting their daughters is so important, stay home to do it; don’t bring it here.
ShelbyC says:
Hey, if you want to pony up some evidence that this procduere causes permanent harm, I’ll be right there with you. Until then, we’re all just speculating.
July 1, 2010, 12:18 pmyankev says:
And you know this because you were circumsised after you reached sexual maturity? The opinions I’ve read on this all sound very speculative, and fall into either the category “You poor circumsised saps don’t know what you’re missing” or “Woe is me, my parents had me circumsised as an infant and now I’ll never know the glorious passion that all those uncircumcised studs experience.”
I have known (not in the Bibilical sense, however) a number of men who were circumsised as adults. Not one of them has mentioned any resulting decrease in sexual sensation or pleasure.
July 1, 2010, 12:19 pmBarb says:
Are you talking about circumcision and the Jews? I believe in circumcision for medical reasons. God had them do it as a sign of their covenant with Him –and it was healthy –for them and their wives.
July 1, 2010, 12:20 pmZach says:
I see. You think U.S. law should be based on the Bible. Interesting.
July 1, 2010, 12:22 pmKamal says:
Circumcision is of course a form of mutilation, and one that needs to end. It’s amazing this practice is legal in the united states.
July 1, 2010, 12:22 pmfalafalafocus says:
Um Zach, 1: loss of pleasure is not the purpose of a male circumcision in the Jewish religion. 2: The male circumcision is religious, not cultural. 3: The male circumcision occurs at 8 days old, not during adolescence. Other than those minor distinctions, your equivalence argument to Barb is just too strong to overcome.
July 1, 2010, 12:24 pmJoeBlow says:
Male circumcision = good, because it is normal for my culture.
Female pinprick = should be outlawed, because it is not normal for my culture.
There’s some libertarian logic right there.
July 1, 2010, 12:24 pmElliot says:
I’d suggest we allow Muslim fathers to beat the hell out of girls seen in public speaking to an unrelated man. If the beating is done with a rattan stick, bones are unlikely to be broken, but the public display of the cuts and bruises will restore the family’s honor among other Muslims who are also nuts.
The alternative is that these fathers will take the whores out of the country and stone them to death.
July 1, 2010, 12:27 pmzuch says:
JOOC, any reason why male circumcision ought not be similarly banned?
Cheers,
July 1, 2010, 12:29 pmKamal says:
Well, of course they will come up with other distinctions, such as the age it occurs. But yes, you are right.. this is a permanent physical change being taken not by the person in question, but by their legal guardians. And because of religion? I could invent a wacky religion that says abusing children is a ‘tradition’ or ‘covenant’, and while that made-up religion is just as valid as yours, the principal is just as wrong.
July 1, 2010, 12:30 pmzuch says:
Then ought not such an irreversible procedure be postponed and left to the discretion of the person most intimately involved? I can’t see banning adult male circumcision, but why (even assuming arguendo the above “health benefits”) circumcise babies?
Cheers,
July 1, 2010, 12:33 pmShelbyC says:
1. Evidence that the “nick” results in a loss of pleasure? Nobody’s produced any.
2. So?
3. AFAIK, male circumcision is allowed at any age. And who says this takes place during adolescence?
Well, now that we’ve dispatched those points, I guess you’re right; Zach’s equivelence argument is too strong to overcome.
July 1, 2010, 12:34 pmOrenWithAnE says:
Indeed as I’ve heard tell, it is largely impossible to detect whether such a ‘nick’ has been performed a mere few weeks after the procedure. If that’s factually true (big if) then there seems to be very little to the opposition.
Yes, it’s much preferable to keep our cultural cruelties and inequalities than to have to confront theirs.
No, but it is an unfortunate side effect.
July 1, 2010, 12:44 pmunclewin says:
And in the mean time, you’ll go ahead and assume that slicing-open a young girl’s clitoris doesn’t cause permanent harm. Because if given the choice between the two, assuming no harm at all makes way more sense.
July 1, 2010, 12:45 pmJeff Black says:
Because parents in this country have the right to decide if a medical procedure that has health benefits is in their child’s best interests.
I don’t think there is any evidence, however, showing that FMG – even the nicking variety – has any health benefits.
Is this point obvious to anyone else? Am I missing something?
July 1, 2010, 12:46 pmzuch says:
Of course not. Any “secularists” are just doing the work of the De’el. Only through some kind of religion — say, one that says you can be an axe-murdering pederast but you can still get to Heaven as long as you accept Jayyyszzzuuuss as your Lord’N'Savour™ — can we maintain a bare skien of a social fabric.
Ummm, “not exactly”, as Hertz would say. More Bartonesque mishistory?
Here’s a fuller quote:
Jefferson was commenting about the evil of slavery here, and speculating that there was big trouble ahead (on this, he was of course right).
Cheers,
July 1, 2010, 12:50 pmShelbyC says:
Given the fact that we allow many similar procedures, from male circumcision to ear piercing, to tattooing, and that we generally presume parents act in their kid’s interest, yes, I’ll assume that.
July 1, 2010, 12:50 pmMike says:
I don’t see why we need a religious or cultural understanding.
We have a religious-neutral viewpoint on the requirement to do no real harm. Male circumcision does no harm and arguably has some health benefits. This “nick” as described also does no harm. Therefore both should be legal. Full female circumcision does serious, inarguable harm. Therefore it should be illegal.
The same way that ear piercing is legal in children, but chopping off fingers is not. If your religion says you do a minor cut on kid’s pinky, it’s none of our business. If you ritually chop off the left pinky, screw you we’re civilized here.
Now, whether a practice is legal or not says *nothing* about whether we should deplore it as a society as symbolic of cultural barbarism.
July 1, 2010, 12:54 pmCornellian says:
“Circumcision isn’t even in the same ballpark as clitoral mutilation. Circumcision doesn’t make a man less apt to have sex;”
Got any evidence for that? Did you know that was precisely the basis upon which male circumcision was originally popularized in this country? If it were so replete with health benefits and devoid of negative effects why is it practiced only in the US and not anywhere else for non-religious reasons?
More generally, how is the the outrage over female genital mutilation in this country combined with such an unquestioning acceptance of cutting boys?
July 1, 2010, 12:58 pmfalafalafocus says:
ShelbyC,
1: Zach’s comments did not argue that there was no loss of pleasure but simply asserted that there was an equivalence to the Jewish male circumcision. Also, assuming that there is no evidence to support the fact that there is no loss of pleasure (I simply don’t know one way or another) really doesn’t matter. We have all been discussing the fact that the purpose of the prick as is an attempt by certain cultures to decrease pleasure. Whether the purpose is actually fulfilled is not relevant. There is no information I am aware of to indicate that the purpose of the male circumcision is to decrease pleasure (whether effective or not). So, my point still stands.
2: The difference between religious and cultural is important because we have pretty obvious American cultures and subcultures (the scope of which we can fight about generally). But a religious requirement is different than a cultural norm or even a cultural requirement. You can avoid your culture if you move far enough away. How do you avoid your god (assuming that it is a religious requirement and you are doing so because of your religious belief)?
3: Barb’s third point was that the female nick is harmful to the person physically and emotionally because the female is old enough to remember it. I concede that not all female nicks are during adolescence and apparently most occur during the ages of 2 to 6 (I’m sure that there is more precise info, but I don’t have time to find it). Claiming that there would be no chance of psychological problems with forcing a prick on a six year old girl seems like a pretty big assumption to make and at least a bit counter-intuitive.
My point was that Zach’s attempt to make the two sound equivalent is not nearly as strong as it sounds in a one sentence blurb.
As an aside, I tend to agree that neither female circumcisions and/or nicks/pricks nor male circumcisions should be performed by physicians (at least in their capacity as professional physicians). These are cultural and religious acts and should be treated accordingly.
July 1, 2010, 1:00 pmLongCat says:
In my experiences with cut and un-cut guys, there are significant differences in relative sensitivity of certain areas (I could go into a bit more detail on the mechanics, but this is a family blog). The bottom line is that you can still feel the same total degree of pleasure, but you’re more limited in the number of ways to get there.
Even without experience, one can objectively determine the number of nerve endings contained in the foreskin; if those endings are removed in infancy, they become far more difficult to stimulate.
July 1, 2010, 1:02 pmzuch says:
Why not let the child decide … when they’re old enough to make an informed decision on their own? I’d note that the purported “health benefits” for the most part apply to sexually active males, and I’d think that such probably wouldn’t apply to most children. And I’d further note that a fair amount of the prevalence for male circumcision is due to religious and cultural factors; it’s not nearly as common in Europe or most of Asia, for instance, with the U.S. having one of the highest rates worldwide.
Cheers,
July 1, 2010, 1:03 pmKamal says:
The health benefit myth was dispelled long ago. And loosing part of your body is what you consider ‘no harm’?
July 1, 2010, 1:04 pmfalafalafocus says:
I don’t have time to respond to each point, and I appologize to Zach about the snark, which was unnecessary. But a quick question as to 1 for ShelbyC. When did the fact that there is no permanent damage or permanent loss of pleasure (assuming both to be a given) mean that the purpose of the prick/nick is not to deprive the girl of pleasure? Why do the two have to be the same?
July 1, 2010, 1:06 pmyankee says:
By what definition of “harm” does male circumcision do no harm? Permanently removing part of someone’s genitals seems like harm per se. If nothing else you are causing the baby unnecessary pain (even leaving aside the permanent reduction in sensation).
Would cutting off a baby’s earlobes not cause any harm by your lights? That wouldn’t have any health benefits, but earlobes don’t really serve any biological purpose either.
If a man decides the health benefits of circumcision outweigh the harm from having part of his penis cut off, he should be free to do so, but there is no justification for doing so to an innocent baby. I think the rate of voluntary adult circumcision for health reasons says a lot about the tradeoff baby boys would make if they had a choice in the matter.
July 1, 2010, 1:06 pmHoustonSelgin says:
Not true:
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/164/1/78?home
July 1, 2010, 1:10 pmShelbyC says:
But isn’t the whole anti argument based on an anology to the “ritual nick” as being simialar to female genital mutilation? The “nick” doesn’t sound like mutilation in any honest sense of the word. If you don’t like the anologies to other procedures, fine, just produce some evidence that the nick is harmful before arguing that it should be outlawed.
July 1, 2010, 1:10 pmfalse seriousness says:
Here’s Anderson:
That’s a pretty silly comment.
The rest of his update is gibberish, other than as some mushy mechanism to homogenize religious and cultural practices to suit Anderson. Classic pseudo-libertarian/conservative stuff.
July 1, 2010, 1:13 pmJeff Black says:
Because, as I already said, parents get to choose whether or not to have a medical procedure performed on their child if the procedure has health benefits. That seems obvious to me. For example, an MD told me that my son should have an operation on his ear canal to fix an abnormality that might cause problems later. Sure, I could wait until he is old enough to decide whether to have the procedure done but it should be my right as a parent to make that decision.
That may all be true – although you haven’t provided any evidence of it here – but your previous comment said, “assuming arguendo the above “health benefits.”
July 1, 2010, 1:16 pmKamal says:
Stopping STDs? The religions that sanction this practice believe you shouldn’t have sex before marriage so this is besides the point. And regardless, cutting off your penis would stop STDs even more effectively; that doesn’t mean it isn’t cruel.
July 1, 2010, 1:16 pmLongCat says:
While “the data are insufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision,” the only potential health benefits mitigate the effects of poor-hygine and un-safe sex.
Deciding to circumcise your son for health reasons is admitting in infancy that you don’t think he’ll be able to figure out how to shower or use a condom.
July 1, 2010, 1:18 pmJeff Black says:
Anyone have their tonsils taken out? Appendix?
July 1, 2010, 1:19 pmgeokstr says:
Being biased towards monogamy, outlawing forced child marriage and pedophilia, banning stoning for mere accusations of adultery, not allowing divorce by the male saying “I divorce thee” thrice (even in an email), allowing women to wear anything they damn well please and even go to school, not permitting schools to teach that Jews and infidels are pigs and dogs, not preaching that blowing oneself up is a wonderful way to get laid by multiple virgins, allowing people to leave one religion for another without a death sentence, etc, ad nauseum = good, because it is normal for my culture.
Allowing the opposite of the above = should be outlawed, because it is not normal for my culture.
Yeah, I could get down with being called a racist for believing that.
July 1, 2010, 1:19 pmJeff Black says:
We can argue all day about whether a parent’s decision to circumcise their son is wise given the health benefits and that is a reasonable discussion. But to compare circumcision, which arguably has some health benefits, to FMG or even a genital prick, which have none, is ridiculous.
July 1, 2010, 1:22 pmyankee says:
Well, if nothing else it causes some amount of pain, which is harmful per se. I have no problem banning the practice on girls too young to offer meaningful consent, which is the same position I take with respect to tattooing, ear piercing, and circumcision. (I could argue about the age for meaningful consent, which should probably vary depending on the permanence and severity of the injury.) If a woman wants her genitals nicked, that’s fine with me, but nobody has any businses doing that to a child.
July 1, 2010, 1:23 pmShelby says:
Is the Academy’s proposal being implemented elsewhere? Particularly in Europe or Israel? I’m interested in how it works in practice, if possible, rather than hypothesizing in a near-vacuum.
July 1, 2010, 1:24 pmShelbyC says:
The pro argument, of course, assumes that the procedure causes no permanent harm. If there’s evidence that it causes a loss of pleasure, that’s a different story. The purpose, of course, is different for everybody who participates in the procedure. You seem to be assuming for many folks have the purpose of causing a loss of pleasure. If you’d care to back that up, go ahead.
July 1, 2010, 1:24 pmThrobert McGee says:
Are you one of those people they call “educable”?
Just to point out one piece of evidence that ought to be rah-thuh obvious, AIDS became epidemic among American gay men (who, being American men, were overwhelmingly circumcised!) as a result of American gay men having lots and lots and lots of sex with each other.
Also, see Portnoy’s Complaint.
July 1, 2010, 1:24 pmShelbyC says:
Fine. Compare it to ear piercing if you’d rather. But why is the comparision ridiculous? The purported health benifits of circumsision are ancillary to the practise, no? It’s not like, if we found out tomorrow that there were no benefits, we’d suddenly become horrified at the ritual and outlaw it, right?
July 1, 2010, 1:29 pmlosantiville says:
I wonder why the practice was banned in 1996? Wasn’t it already illegal under normal jurisprudence? After all, polygamy was already de jure illegal when Utah was admitted. Or was it subject to local choice under territorial law? Seems unlikely.
Polygamy is illegal everywhere in the US now but it’s only punished in Utah but not in New York which may have more polygamists.
As long as they don’t outlaw any religious practices that were legal in (some of) the 13 colonies in 1791, there shouldn’t be any originalist problem.
July 1, 2010, 1:32 pmKamal says:
Without consent, or threat of impending harm? No.
July 1, 2010, 1:33 pmKamal says:
Isn’t the bigger concern that this is a permanent mutilation done by the parents, not the person in question?
July 1, 2010, 1:34 pmThe River Temoc, In Winter says:
I’m giving you the common sense view about multiculturalism
Anytime some politician starts talking about “common sense views,” I instead hear, “I can’t be bothered to actually gather data or argue my position.”
July 1, 2010, 1:35 pmLongCat says:
A genital prick causes no permanent damage, so comparison to male circumcision is, by your standard, ridiculous.
For FGM, its supporters want to cut down on female sex in general; if the woman is unlikely to have sex, she is unlikely to contract an STD. We now have the same alleged health benefits. All agree that GFM is unequivocally wrong; what is the difference when you mutilate a man’s penis? Is there some bright line ratio of acceptable mutilation to incremental mitigation of entirely preventable risks?
July 1, 2010, 1:37 pmThe River Temoc, In Winter says:
I could invent a wacky religion that says abusing children is a ‘tradition’ or ‘covenant’,
No need. The Branch Davidians did that; they’ve become libertarian folk heroes.
July 1, 2010, 1:38 pmDilan Esper says:
I’ve read through this whole thread, and I haven’t seen anything to convince me that you can oppose this while supporting ritual (NOT medical, which can be done later in life and with consent) male circumcision on any other ground than “our invisible man in the sky is better than theirs”.
That said, I think it’s perfectly fine to make a slippery slope argument here– there really is a danger that once you start compromising medical ethics for procedures that are “culturally” supported, you start on a road that ends in a very bad place. But I would argue that’s true of Judeo-Christian male circumcision too– indeed, if that were illegal, we wouldn’t even be arguing as to whether a mild form of female circumcision should be legalized.
I’d prefer a rule that bans all of this until a person’s 18th birthday, and allows that person to make the choice. Parents shouldn’t be cutting off foreskins or clitorises, and if that contradicts your religion, too bad. Do it to yourself, not to your kids.
July 1, 2010, 1:41 pmThrobert McGee says:
I would second this — cut and uncut wangs may tend to need different patterns of stimulation, but they’re both highly responsive to being handled! And while there may indeed be millions and millions of nerve endings in the foreskin, one can argue that they are functionally redundant, in that the “frenulum region” on a circumcised man’s johnson remains exquisitely sensitive.
July 1, 2010, 1:43 pmyankee says:
From the perspective of someone not raised in the tradition of any Abrahamic religion, this “health benefits” stuff looks like a transparent ex post facto rationalization for an otherwise unjustifiable religious/cultural practice. Remember that the practice in question isn’t just circumcision, it’s infant circumcision. A man who thinks a somewhat smaller risk of STD infection is better than a foreskin is, and should be, free to have himself circumcised. The number of uncut men who choose this option speaks volumes, I think.
July 1, 2010, 1:45 pmShelby says:
they’ve become libertarian folk heroes
Not among any libertarians I’ve ever encountered. Though they did become an example of what happens when an over-militarized paranoid civilian agency has a breakdown — which supports libertarian arguments against such agencies. But there’s a clear consensus among libertarians that the Branch Davidians themselves were indeed wackjobs.
July 1, 2010, 1:45 pmOrenWithAnE says:
If by liquor ….
[ I was lead to believe that the procedure is not at all aptly described by the verb "slice" ...]
July 1, 2010, 1:47 pmzuch says:
My prior comment referred to arguments assuming that. In the paragraph you’re responding to here, I also express doubt as to the assumption. “Arguing in the alternative” and all that, like a good student of the law:
“I don’t have a gun.”
“If I did have a gun, I didn’t use it.”
“If I used it, I didn’t fire it at him.”
“If I did fire at him, I didn’t intend to kill him”
… and so on.
;-)
Cheers,
July 1, 2010, 1:47 pmSueSimp says:
I suspect, and have seen no evidence to the contrary, that those offering lukewarm support for the “ritual nick” procedure are doing so for mostly or entirely pragmatic reasons, and that a love of fluffy multiculturalism doesn’t come into play here.
Basically, the AAP decided that allowing a backwards and abhorrent cultural practice to be transformed into a benign, ritual procedure is preferable to causing the original form of the ritual to be done elsewhere. The question is open to debate about whether, factually, allowing the procedure will actually reduce the total level of FGM (or even somehow lead to an increase), but being “tolerant” and “accommodating” doesn’t have anything to do with a practical limited support for allowing it.
Since the procedure in its modified form causes no harm, should we prohibit it solely because it can be traced back to barbaric origins? In practical effect, the ritual nick is less damaging than those parents who get their babies’ ears pierced — there’s no physical evidence left behind from the ritual nick, no change to appearance. The procedure does not involve modifying the children’s genitals in any way, and causes minimal pain. It’s the same as getting a finger pricked to draw blood.
July 1, 2010, 1:48 pmRowerinVA says:
The great majority of women get ear piercings in their teens, or around the time they start to think for themselves. Many people get tatoos around then.
But it is only a vanishingly small number that voluntarily have their clitoris nicked, glans pierced, foreskin cut off, etc. Seems to me a pretty important distinction.
July 1, 2010, 1:51 pmKen Arromdee says:
Do you also think it should be illegal to manufacture a hijab on the same grounds?
There is such a thing as freedom of religion. Actually oppressing women is something we normally try to stop. Symbolically oppressing women is no business of ours. There are lots of things which can symbolically oppress. There are Koran passages (and Bible passages) which symbolically oppress women; should it therefore be illegal to teach these verses to anyone? Or even to people under 18?
Besides, who says that it symbolically oppresses women? The origin of the practice may have been to oppress women, but cultural practices evolve and something that was originally meant for one purpose may evolve into a form lacking its original significance. They’re not doing it to oppress women (if they were, it would continue to use the version that’s more than just a nick), they’re doing it because it’s tradition, and the origins of the tradition are irrelevant.
July 1, 2010, 1:54 pmRowerinVA says:
Yankee (1:45pm), you beat me to it. Well said.
July 1, 2010, 1:55 pmCookie Monsta says:
1. KA used the word “progressive” six times. Actually, multiculturalists, feminists, liberals, progressives [etc] are very much opposed to female genital mutilation. The proponents of FGM are, 99% of the time, religious [Muslim] conservatives.
2. It appears the AAP is taking the “legal and safe” route that we’ve seen in the abortion argument. It’s better for the procedure to be performed legally and safely by a professional instead of being performed by untrained hands in unsanitary conditions. This route has nothing to do with multiculturalism or submitting to the demands of the Muslims. Many Somalis who went through the awful procedure in Somali have said they would never put their own children through that agony in the US. However, the very conservative ones still want to do it. It’s going to happen, so maybe it should be regulated ["allowed"] in such a way that it causes the least possible harm.
3. I oppose both male and female “circumcision.” Nowhere in this entire discussion is any mention of the risks of male circumcision. Infections, hemorrhage, urinary retention, urethral stricture, pain, loss of pleasure, death, etc. Some have mentioned there are no benefits of FGM. The obvious one is reduced STDS – if sex is painful, then there will be less sex and less STDs. It’s naive to think that only one or the other has benefits or that only one or the other carries risks.
4. Here is a great music video against FGM. It’s called “Non a l’excision.”
July 1, 2010, 1:55 pmShelbyC says:
Kenneth:
Of course, I don’t think you can take up this argument without — an argument. Maybe I missed it, but I don’t see anywhere you make an argument for why the “ritual nick” should be illegal. If it’s because the cutting is harmful, I havent seen any evidence that it’s harmful. If, as you indicate above, it is because “the social function of this kind of cutting…is part of a larger structure of the (in)equality of women and their sexuality?” That raises the question of whether or not we should outlaw things for that reason? I don’t know.
But so far you’ve been taking shots at other people’s arguments for being “arguments by anology” that are “inapt”. You’ve called the American Academy of Pediatrics’s statement “perhaps the single most appalling statement of official multiculturalism I have read with regard to the United States in many years.” Why is it appalling? What’s wrong with a ritual nick? I just wish you’d make an argument so we could take shots at it. :-).
July 1, 2010, 1:57 pmThrobert McGee says:
By the way, you haven’t known funny until you’ve heard a gay man with a freakin’ Prince Albert bitterly denouncing his parents because they “mutilated” his penis when he was a baby.
(Anytime I hear or read of a dude ranting against Male Genital Mutilation, I just assume until proven otherwise that he’s a run-of-the-mill doofus American fag in search of another reason to feel victimized.)
July 1, 2010, 1:57 pmzuch says:
In what may be one of the biggest First Amendment FoR violations of all time. The Union strong-armed Utah into doing this as a precondition to statehood.
Cheers,
July 1, 2010, 1:58 pmyankee says:
This guy’s parents gave him a Prince Albert at 8 days old? Yeah, I’d say he has a reason to be angry.
For what it’s worth, I’m uncircumcised. I like my foreskin and am glad my parents didn’t remove it. The prospect of a somewhat smaller risk of STD infection has not induced me to change my mind. I’ve never met an uncircumcised man who feels otherwise.
July 1, 2010, 2:07 pmCookie Monsta says:
Sue: “The procedure does not involve modifying the children’s genitals in any way, and causes minimal pain. It’s the same as getting a finger pricked to draw blood.”
This is speculation. I’d reckon it hurts a lot. I’d also reckon that male circumcision hurts a lot.
People do circumcision because of old tradition. All the health rationales are just ex post explanations for something that people wanted to do for superstitious reasons anyway.
In some Muslim societies, male circumcision is done not in infancy but at puberty. I’m sure that hurts.
In other Muslim communities, both types of circumcision are prohibited, for the same reason tattoos and piercings are prohibited – no messing up the creation. That’s exactly why the Sikhs forbid circumcision. I’m sure some Sikh people come up with health rationales for not doing circumcision, but again that’s just to “rationally” explain something they were going to [not] do for traditional reasons anyway.
July 1, 2010, 2:08 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
In any case, the AAP wasn’t talking about “slicing open” anything. What they were talking about is (literally) a pinprick. (*) That’s it.
(*) I will ignore any possibility of double entendres.
July 1, 2010, 2:11 pmdcp says:
Female circumcision, or genital mutilation, is also commonly performed (with mixed results) on children who are born with androgynous sexual characteristics, so there is some legitimate medical data on these types of procedures.
Male circumcision has some proven health benefits – a decreased rate of infection, a decreased rate of STD transmission, a decreased rate of penile cancer (which is somewhat rare) and, obviously, the elimination of the need to perform the procedure at a later, more difficult stage of development should a complication arise that necessitates it. The AMA’s position is one of neutrality – they neither promote nor discourage the procedure but allow parents to make an informed consent decision. A reasonable mind could probably go either way on the decision, although the present day American popularity is undoubtedly influenced by a desire to have your son look and feel “normal”.
July 1, 2010, 2:12 pmyankee says:
Yeah, I don’t know who these pro-mutilation “progressives” are. Perhaps KA could name some names?
July 1, 2010, 2:16 pmAbdul Abulbul Amir says:
Where is General Napier now that we need him.
July 1, 2010, 2:23 pmOrenWithAnE says:
Just a quibble, Congress can make no law abridging FoR but they are under no obligation to admit Utah to the Union either. That discretion is likely plenary.
July 1, 2010, 2:24 pmDavid C says:
One of the historically most emotionally-resonant arguments in favor of legalized abortion has been that women were having and were going to continue to attempt to have abortions anyway, and keeping them illegal just dramatically increased the harm they entailed. I’ve seen an awful lot of buttons and posters with pictures of coathangers on them, evoking this argument. Now, obviously the consent and agency issues for the woman are dramatically different there. But to someone who believes that a fetus is morally a person, I suspect the coathanger argument looks almost exactly the way Mr Anderson describes the “going overseas for a more radical procedure” argument here.
In other contexts, providing a safer alternative to a dangerous socially-disapproved practice is known as “harm reduction.” I’d be curious to know whether Mr Anderson is equally opposed to, say, needle exchange programs, methadone maintenance programs, or drug-testing kit giveaways, on the grounds that we must not allow society to be taken hostage by druggies and their enablers? I think that in practice we as a society make use of harm-reduction as a reason for a great many things, although most of them are somewhat controversial; is this opposition to the very idea of harm reduction consistent, or is there something that distinguishes female genital mutilation from other cases?
July 1, 2010, 2:26 pmDilan Esper says:
In what may be one of the biggest First Amendment FoR violations of all time.
I don’t think it was. But then, I’m a big fan of Scalia’s opinion in Employment Division v. Smith. I don’t even think it’s unconstitutional to refuse to allow an exemption for Catholics from Prohibition, and I think Sherbert was wrongly decided. As long as everyone has to play by the same rules and the government doesn’t specifically target anyone’s religion, there’s no free exercise violation.
July 1, 2010, 2:44 pmRowerinVA says:
David C (2:26pm):
I can’t speak for every consistency/inconsitency you may be thinking about. But yes, “there something that distinguishes female genital mutilation from other cases” that you cite. Which is, the drug users etc. are generally adults. Quite different from FGM where a female infant is the victim.
Where children’s sexual integrity is involved, yes, U.S. society usually does act in an absolutist prohibitory fashion. For example, you would not get very far with the argument that society must tolerate older men having sex with 5-year-old boys in well-regulated brothels because if we don’t, the older men will abduct them and do it in the woods.
July 1, 2010, 2:51 pmCookie Monsta says:
KA used the word “liberal” 10 times in describing liberal support for female genital mutilation.
Yet almost all of the 139 sponsors of the Girls Protection Act, which specifically provides criminal penalties for transporting girls outside the country to have FGM performed, are Democrats.
Interesting how this bill has almost no conservative supporters in Congress.
Yet it’s the liberals and libs and liberalists and liberal multiculuralists and liberal accomodationists and liberality and liberal progressives who support FGM or at least do not oppose it????
Wow. Where’s the condemnation of all the Rs who oppose this new criminal law?
July 1, 2010, 2:53 pmMike says:
By the way, as an atheist who was circumcised for entirely aesthetic reasons (my parents wanted me to look “normal”) I can say that the reason I don’t consider it a big deal is because I’ve never felt wanting… sex drive is still high, sensitivity is still high … I don’t feel particularly “mutilated.” Therefore I consider circumcision a silly practice – but one that does no real significant harm, and it shouldn’t be outlawed, although I plan on leaving my own children “uncut.” It’s about as big a deal as little girls who have their ears pierced when their little so they don’t remember it, or having your tonsils removed.
That’s why I don’t see any intellectual inconsistency going on… it’s really not a big deal at all… and it’s not as though there are real medical studies showing significant sex drive reductions in cut men or anything serious.
July 1, 2010, 2:55 pmDavid C says:
Ok, way down in this thread someone (dcp) finally mentions, briefly, infants born with ambiguous genitals. No-one has yet mentioned polydactyly.
In fact it’s quite standard here in the United States for infants to have functional body parts cut off (as sometimes happens in cases of polydactyly) or surgically altered (as has often been done with intersex children) for purely cosmetic, cultural reasons. This is something that we, as a society, do to our babies.
Against that context, it seems (to me personally) a little precious to get up in arms about the suggestion to offer parents who believe themselves under strong cultural pressure to do the same a way to avoid the harm while saving face.
July 1, 2010, 3:02 pmCookie Monsta says:
“one that does no real significant harm, and it shouldn’t be outlawed”
Yup. It shouldn’t be.
Do you think the “one-drop nick” shouldn’t be outlawed [or alternatively, should be encouraged as an alternative to the traditional method]?
Your parents did it for aesthetic reasons. So the argument that circumcision falls within the “parents get to make health decisions for the child” rule is disingenuous because parents don’t make the circumcision decision as a health decision.
July 1, 2010, 3:02 pmtheobromophile says:
Dilan: I largely agree with your conclusion (let adults do this stuff, on their own volition, if they want to), might tweak it with regards to male circumcision (i.e. allowable at the age of sexual consent), but disagree with your underlying assumption that this is all about religion.
Male circumcision has very definite, distinct religious roots: you can point to places in Judeo-Christian texts that tell you to circumcise within a sport period after birth. It’s also been done for thousands of years. From what I know, the same cannot be said of FGM: it has no basis in the Koran, doesn’t seem to have been around since the inception of the religion, and is much more of a cultural rather than a religious issue. In many respects, it’s a bit like not eating meat on Fridays if you are Catholic… except that its purpose is to cause lifelong trauma and destruction of perfectly healthy organs.
As a final thought: people who called FGM “female circumcision” really won the PR war, didn’t they?
July 1, 2010, 3:05 pmArthur Kirkland says:
That statement is as dumb as two boxes of rocks. Any adult should be ashamed to have stated it. If there were any chance religious belief made human beings one thousandth of one percent better, we would have observed it by now.
July 1, 2010, 3:06 pmdcp says:
Methadone is a reasonable alternative to drug use. I’m not informed on this issue but it seems to me that a ceremonial pin prick would provide very little satisfaction to those (read: fundamentalist muslims) who favor female circumcision.
In other words, all this would accomplish is lending professional medical legitimacy to a practice that will remain 99% bad, while maybe a select few cases become less bad. I suspect they’re not interested in the procedure itself, but the longterm results.
Think of it this way: if a teenage girl wants to get her ears pierced and you say “no, you can’t do that, but I will partially stick your earlobe with a hot, sterile needle causing it to temporarily bleed”…would any girl consent to that as a consolation? The goal is a lifetime of being able to wear earrings, right?
July 1, 2010, 3:07 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Did you inform them that people who drink moderately live longer, more healthful and perhaps happier lives than those who shun alcohol, or did you leave them to learn such things on the street?
July 1, 2010, 3:08 pmyankev says:
Go back and read Theobromophile’s post as to exactly why this goes way beyond a pinprick. If she is correct, we are talking about pretty serious mutilation.
July 1, 2010, 3:15 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Our society permits parents to engage in a great deal of religion-based mistreatment of children. When the mistreatment moves from indoctrination and psychological abuse to denial of medical treatment and mutilation, the parents are demonstrating that they have the intellect of infants. It may be proper for society to tolerate this situation, but the parents deserve contempt rather than respect.
July 1, 2010, 3:16 pmAndrew L says:
A lot of very happily married Jewish males (including myself – TMI?) would beg to differ…
July 1, 2010, 3:18 pmptt says:
Yeah, cuz God had the foresight to give one and only one Bronze Age people antibiotics.
You can still get to orgasm, but the “total degree of pleasure” is, necessarily, less, as there are many fewer nerve endings, entirely missing surfaces to stimulate, and a serious reduction in the sensitivity of skin surfaces that, without circumcision, would be covered almost all the time.
Yeah, compared to the rest of his penis, but not compared to the frenulum of an uncircumsized man.
Some of whom (inexplicably to me, but hey people are weird) are women. I suspect some women are so “devout” that they fully support the procedure. Far more, again I suspect, support the theory but despair of doing to their daughters what was done to them. The prick offers the latter group an alternative.
Maybe we should actually look and see what the consequences of a similar policy have been in Europe and other places. Is FGM down? Are trips home to “visit the relatives” down?
July 1, 2010, 3:25 pmElliot says:
If it’s just a pin prick, why is a doctor involved? The local tatttoo shop will pierce anything they can get to. A pin prick requires a sharp needle and a book of matches. Seems anyone could do it at home.
July 1, 2010, 3:29 pmptt says:
I, for one at least, would not consider it TMI to hear why you would beg to differ.
July 1, 2010, 3:33 pmalkali says:
KA: Finally, then, there is the worst possible argument — and the scariest. This is the argument that if the US does not relax its bright line rules, then the girls will just be taken someplace else where it will be worse. Even someone ordinarily as sensible as Jay Nordlinger at NRO took this seriously in a post when the Academy advice was first released. Should we really think that the right way to address this is to allow the US to be taken hostage by clitoral mutilators and their Academy enablers? The idea that the United States has somehow reached the point at which it is no longer able to make its own laws against something as basic as FGM and that, therefore, it needs to give into the demand to relax them in order to prevent something worse is breathtaking.
This avoids a key question: will permitting the nick save some non-zero number of girls from the more drastic FGM? And why shouldn’t Jay Nordlinger (or anyone else) take seriously the possibility that the answer to that question might be yes? Is the answer…
1. “Empirically, it is patently obvious that permitting the nick cause even more girls to be subject to the more drastic FGM.” (Not obvious, at least to me.)
2. “The nick would save some number of girls from drastic FGM, but permitting that violates some principle that we hold so dear that we should obviously be willing to sacrifice the genitals of girls we have never met to uphold that principle.” (Not clear what this principle is.)
I’m not sure the Academy’s proposal was the right answer, but the dilemma is certainly more troubling than this post lets on.
July 1, 2010, 3:34 pmyankev says:
How could you prohibit this if you are going to allow non-Muslims to spank, or even scold, their kids? And if we let parents put kids in time out, isn’t it cultural chauvinism to say you can’t lock your kid up as discipline?
And what makes us think Western Judeo-Christian culture is worth while anyway? Isn’t that an inherently racist thought? Face it, we’re all just a bunch of oxygen thieves.
July 1, 2010, 3:34 pmyankev says:
Among other reasons, because the pain and incapacitation of non-infant circumcision is considerably more severe.
July 1, 2010, 3:36 pmJack Marshall says:
If a person I know rather intimately had been circumcised as an infant, he would not have had to suffer from a painful and debilitating condition arising from an overly tight foreskin requiring an excruciating adult circumcision in his 30s. I have it on good authority that he believes even a slight risk of his son having to endure that agony later fully justifies his parental decision to have the child chopped young. I know of no equivalent benefit of “nicking” the clitoris, and in the absence of such, comparing the two is both false and ignorant.
July 1, 2010, 3:36 pmBarb says:
They also have studies that mormons who don’t drink, smoke, etc. live longer than average. I’m not a mormon but also come from a church tradition of abstinence –for at least 3 generations on my father’s side. Same for my husband. It’s good. I doubt very much that moderate drinking would make us happier than we are; we seem to be happy enough.
I remember Johns Hopkins U. Med school once saying that St. Paul was right, “a little wine for the stomach’s sake” as in prevention of HP bacteria causing ulcers –but they said, “if you don’t now drink at all, however, don’t start as there are far more health risks from drinking and alcoholism risk than from not.”
We all know about the alleged claims for a little daily wine for heart/blood pressure health–probably to help people who are stressed. But I’ll not regret the fact that I don’t have to worry about alcohol abuse and addiction in my spouse or children and son and daughter in law –all tee-totalers and raised that way. There are enough health risks out there without that one.
My history heroine: Carrie Nation and the WCTU –the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Alcoholism was so bad in the early 20th century, before prohibition, that the women were finally fed up. Prohibition reportedly slowed down per capita consumption of liquor for several decades –until the 70′s. Excessive gin addiction was a blight on the English society for a time.
July 1, 2010, 3:36 pmArthur Kirkland says:
How many parents base the circumcision decision on a reasonable assessment of health benefits and risks?
July 1, 2010, 3:36 pmyankev says:
Maybe for you.
July 1, 2010, 3:37 pmyankev says:
Okay, that statement has got to take some kind of prize. Cutting off your head would mean you won’t make stupid arguments, but I don’t recommend it.
July 1, 2010, 3:45 pmyankev says:
Sorry, we’re willing to tolerate anything except traditional western moral views. Those are intolerant. We will, however, tolerate considerably more intolerant views if they come from Muslims, because western society is not perfect. We will not allow an official campus group to teach that there is something wrong with homosexual sex. We will support the harassment of anyone who is so bigoted as to think that marriage is the union of a man and a woman. Because anyone who holds these views of course wants to kill or oppress gay people. But we have nothing but admiration and tolerance for societies where men who want to have sex with other men are stoned to death.
I’m sorry, this is all giving me a headache.
July 1, 2010, 3:51 pmBarb says:
Thanks for that. Agreed.
What a nice daddy you’d make, Elliot! I’ve read of Muslims in Africa doing this to the girls –the women do it –and hold the victim down as she screams –such a loving ritual –and absolutely no value to it at all. Granted, this was more than a needle prick –but I wouldn’t want someone to do this to me today –not even with a needle and ice –that’s our personal property -why would I advocate it for anyone’s daughter? Grisly, excruciatingly painful practice with no practical value. So why should doctors who promised to “do no harm” be sucked into this practice? What other practices do the Muslims want to bring with them to America –that we should allow in the name of cultural and religious diversity? 4 wives? honor killings? beheading the enemies of Allah? Islamic pederasty? If we start to justify this practice on the girls, will we also justify tippy-toeing around the historical character of Mohammad and his followers, so they won’t hurt us? Just watch.
So? the principle is the same for all evils –that our equality and liberties come from a divine source –and when we fail to realize that as a people, we are in trouble.
–Jesus Christ, c. 33AD
July 1, 2010, 3:55 pmAnthony says:
In general, medical procedures with no identifiable benefit should be discouraged. That said, where there is no identifiable harm (do statistics exist on the clitoral prick?), it’s not clear that they should be forbidden. I think the philosophical reason to object to the ‘prick’, other than potential risk of real harm, is that it can be seen as somehow validating the full procedure, or that it creates an abusable hole in the law. The first doesn’t seem sufficient, the second might be (it’s hard to draw a legal line, particularly since it’s unlikely that the threshold of permanent damage is known).
On the topic of circumcision, the evidence is mixed and disputed (and suffers from a problem that infant circumcision not directly comparable to adult due to differences in neural development), ranging from a small net benefit to a small net negative; it’s certainly less clear than the evidence on FGM.
July 1, 2010, 3:56 pmyankev says:
No, no, that’s western cultural chauvinism rearing its ugly head.
July 1, 2010, 4:00 pmCookie Monsta says:
“But we have nothing but admiration and tolerance for societies where men who want to have sex with other men are stoned to death. ”
We do? I don’t know anyone who admires such things.
Is this another of your strawman “Liberals love [Islamic fundamentalism, Naziism, etc.]” claims?
July 1, 2010, 4:00 pmOrenWithAnE says:
Aesthetic reasons are health reasons. Alternatively, there are going to be a lot of unemployed orthodontists.
OTOH, the availability of the prick might discourage the full procedure …
Hard to tell in advance really.
July 1, 2010, 4:01 pmCookie Monsta says:
“Aesthetic reasons are health reasons.”
No. There can be some overlap, but it’s not the same thing.
If I get a procedure that makes something look better [my nose, my ears, my breasts, etc] with no discernible health ramifications, I did it to make something look better. I didn’t do it for health reasons.
In the case of orthodontics, dealing with a facial deformity can be either for aesthetics or health or both. If you do it for the looks, you are doing it for the looks. If you do it for the looks, but it ends up helping your chewing, breathing, speaking, and reduces certain jaw pains [etc], then it has beneficial health effects. But you still did it for the looks. It just has an ex post empirical rationale if you want to dishonestly justify “why” you did it.
July 1, 2010, 4:08 pmAngus says:
Give him the other side of it. My parents went the circumcision route and I’ve had to deal with a very low level of sensitivity my entire life, so much so that in adulthood it has seriously impeded my and my wife’s efforts to have children. I’ve forgiven my parents for doing it because it was all the rage at the time, but I’ll never forget that they did.
July 1, 2010, 4:10 pmyankev says:
Yes.
July 1, 2010, 4:11 pm~aardvark says:
What a horribly uninformed statement! We can try to blame multiculturalism for the problem (although the explanation may be far more mundane), but how does one make a leap to defending the alleged “protestant culture”??? Read the Constitution for once, instead going with the religious “gut”. This has nothing to do with Christianity or that horribly ridiculous hybrid–Judeo-Christianity. There are plenty of insane Christian and even Jewish sects with all sort of bizarre rituals and procedures that we, as a society, proscribe. Aside from some questionable issues concerning the Fundamentalist LDS in Texas, the underlying issue is undeniably clear–and members of that particular church have already been convicted in several jurisdictions. The issue was child rape and incest. We still prohibit it even if some churches accept it or even encourage it. No one screams that we should permit the practices out of concern for multiculturalism. We also have limitations on polygamist practices that some churches–as well as non-Christian religions–might want to encourage (we prefer to think of them as “sects”, but that simply understates the issue).
The bottom line is that this is not about multiculturalism vs. Judeo-Christian Western Civilization. It is about social ethics and its limits–philosophy, if you wish, not religion.
July 1, 2010, 4:14 pmJeff Black says:
As a parent who made the decision for health reasons, I can tell you that some parents, in fact do make the decision for health reasons.
July 1, 2010, 4:16 pmLester Livio says:
The AAP decision is global sensitivity gone awry! The purpose of female genital mutilation is to control female sexuality and prevent women from having orgasms. By putting its imprimatur on this distasteful practice, the APA shows that it has no moral principles. What is the APA going to endorse next. Virginity tests for unmarried women? This is part of the female gental mutilation culture.
To show my displeasure with the AAP, I will take my daughter only to a pediatrician who is NOT a member of the AAP. If my current pediatrician is a member of the AAP, I will tell her adios!
July 1, 2010, 4:16 pmBarb says:
Thanks for that. Agreed.
What a nice daddy you’d make, Elliot! I’ve read of Muslims in Africa doing this to the girls –the women do it –and hold the victim down as she screams –such a loving ritual –and absolutely no value to it at all. Granted, this was more than a needle prick –but I wouldn’t want someone to do this to me today –not even with a needle and ice –that’s our personal private area about which we are taught to be modest -why would I advocate this practice for anyone’s daughter? Grisly, excruciatingly painful practice with no practical value –and possibly lasting pscyhological harm and scarring –even if only by a prick. This is not a large part of the body after all! So why should doctors who promised to “do no harm” be sucked into this practice? What other practices do the Muslims want to bring with them to America –that we should allow in the name of cultural and religious diversity? 4 wives? honor killings? beheading the enemies of Allah? Islamic pederasty? If we start to justify this practice on the girls, will we also justify tippy-toeing around the historical character of Mohammad and his followers, so they won’t hurt us? Just watch.
So? the principle is the same for all evils –that our equality and liberties come from a divine source –and when we fail to realize that as a people, we are in trouble.
–Jesus Christ, c. 33AD
Actually, I understand that in Pakistan and Afghanistan, men are NOT stoned to death for homosexual acts against under-age males –that the Taliban got their start in the 90′s by opposing sodomy of Afghani Pashtun soldiers. I understand there was an LA Times article on this as well as a PBS special. The Kite Runner, a movie by an AFghani, made there, featured homosexual rape in Afghanistan. Mohammad reportedly said one handsome young lad was a source of mischief more tempting to a man than many young girls. Reportedly, one medic had to tell a local man how to impregnate his wife and he was aghast at the suggestion to have sex with a woman who is intrinsically “unclean” by virtue of being female–when he can have sex with men who are “clean.”
We do have superior aspects to Islam in Judeo-Christian culture –and we need to be teaching them to immigrants.
Public school teachers should be free to put the Golden Rule as a quotation from Jesus Christ on their blackboards –or this one by St. Paul to the Corinthians: “Be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another….” Good teachings for any faith, any culture, by historical figures who were great teachers.
July 1, 2010, 4:21 pmJoe says:
What would be the constitutional basis of such a ban?
What would be the legal implications if there was a medically necessary exception? (If this ban were extended to males, what would my wife and I done about my son who was born with a deformed foreskin?)
July 1, 2010, 4:21 pmWhaddona More says:
What about 3 – “The nick would save some number of girls from non-nick FGM, but would also legitimize the ritual in all forms such that the total number of non-nick FGMs would increase.”
July 1, 2010, 4:23 pmtheobromophile says:
On alcohol: according to the Mayo Clinic, there are some benefits to moderate drinking, but some groups face risk from any amount of alcohol, and there is also the risk of not being a moderate drinker.
Now, maybe it’s because I know too many people who have had problems with alcohol, but I’m not sure why anyone would assume that someone would necessarily be a moderate drinker, especially if that person started to drink at a young age. (The older you are when you start drinking, the better off you are.) That’s probably why the Mayo Clinic’s website says:
Last I checked, it’s not unlike vegetarianism. Yes, “in theory”, I could be healthier if I stopped eating dairy and eggs. “In theory” (depending on whose theories you buy), I would be healthier if I added a few servings of low-mercury fish to my diet every week. But that’s not an argument against the health benefits of vegetarianism, which is about a million times better than the way most Americans eat. What ever happened to the basic, sensible idea that you shouldn’t go looking for problems?
July 1, 2010, 4:25 pmChris says:
In historical times, inferior hygiene could have brought about infections that could not have been treated effectively given the knowledge at the time. So considering, circumcision was a preventative treatment, and I think it had its place in said time. However, with all the advancements in technology, is this still necessary?
On all levels, or should I say, ANY level, FGM is wrong and should not be assisted or even given social acceptance.
Dunno, but my parents did base the circumcision on health reasons; they are both in the medical field.
July 1, 2010, 4:26 pmBruce Hayden says:
Interesting problem. One thing that has been missed is that a lot of pediatricians were refusing to do male circumcisions due to the pain involved. And I do find it interesting that they, trained doctors, were not nearly as good at it as a (Jewish) Mohel at a Bris. Nevertheless, these are the physicians who were until recently pushing to do this sort of procedure on girl babies.
The problem for the pediatricians in regards to male circumcisions was that there are other types of doctors involved, esp. in the AMA, and I know of several Ob/Gyns who just went ballistic when the pediatricians started refusing to perform male circumcisions. The problem was that the problems with not circumcising males showed up in their female partners. I remember the Ob who delivered by kid telling us that she could guess, with a very high degree of certainty (over 90%) that a woman was with an uncut man by the type and frequencies of the infections she got. From her point of view, it came down to a slight bit of discomfort before most babies really remember pain, versus an awful lot of infections in their ultimate female partners years later.
Finally, it must be remembered that some 70% or so of the circumcised males in this world are Muslim. While there is slightly less of a religious mandate in Islam for male circumcision than in Judaism, it is still considered highly desirable. Also, given the population problems being caused by large Muslim families, male circumcision obviously does not affect sex drive enough to adversely affect the ability to father children. A lot of them. Indeed, it could be argued that we would be a lot closer to ZPG in many parts of this world if male circumcision were as effective as full female genital mutilation in destroying libido.
July 1, 2010, 4:30 pm~aardvark says:
Actually, we do have people who not only admire but encourage such treatment. In case you, guys, missed the news, the death penalty for homosexuality laws in Uganda were a byproduct of a consultation with American Evangelicals–in other words, those from the Right, not from the Left. And, if these idiots had their way, we’d be going back to forced treatments (e.g., the kind that resulted in Turing’s suicide) and absolute proscriptions (except for Evangelical leaders, of course, who’d be able to diddle boys–or male hookers and meth dealers–with impunity).
July 1, 2010, 4:30 pmptt says:
Uh… why did he wait until his 30s? If the condition was genetic, I can understand his decision regarding his son. If it isn’t genetic, just add it to the rationalization column in support of a procedure which is entirely legal in this country.
July 1, 2010, 4:30 pmShelbyC says:
K. But I didn’t ask what you say I asked above. That was Kirkland. But I have a tough time believing that the “health benefits” argument isn’t a red herring, do you think that are feelings toward ritual circumcision would change if we found out tomorrow that there were no benefits?
July 1, 2010, 4:33 pmJeff Black says:
I personally know of two – my wife and I. We have no religious obligation to circumsize our child.
July 1, 2010, 4:34 pmWhiteyC says:
In my mind, there is no reason that any parent would have the “nick” performed on their child except as a symbol of ritual female genital mutilation. There is no health benefit and no cosmetic benefit. Informed consent of the victim is impossible, since she is a child.
If I were a pediatrician, I would not perform any procedure that was symbolic of ritual barbaric cruelty, especially on a child. Doing so seems completely in contradiction of medical ethics as I understand them.
Whether the “ritual nick” procedure should be illegal, leading to criminal charges against the doctor, is another question. Not everything barbaric should be illegal.
Leaving it legal, however, makes it probable that there will be doctors who will say they are performing the “nick” but will perform the mutilation instead. I would rather make it very clear that any form whatsoever of the ritual is illegal, but the matter is open to argument.
If parents were to perform such a “nick” in their home, however, I think they would be guilty of child abuse, thought they would likely never be prosecuted. I would apply this to any parent that purposefully cut his child with a knife or any sharp object. I know something about this, having been on a jury that convicted a woman of child abuse and murder of her daughter.
As regards circumcision, I will say simply: two wrongs don’t make a right. For those among you who think circumcision is child abuse, and are frustrated that the broad society hasn’t reached the same conclusion yet: that is no reason to allow other forms of child abuse. In fact, doing so makes your long-term goal of forbidding circumcision less likely, not more.
July 1, 2010, 4:35 pm~aardvark says:
More nonsense from a religious zealot.
You mean like FLDS?
Matthew Shepard?
I’ll pass on this one, for the moment… Then, of course, there was that case in Texas…
Catholic priests? (Or FLDS, for that matter)
No, seriously–do you really want to go there?
July 1, 2010, 4:40 pmLongCat says:
I’m glad you decided on behalf of your child that mutilation was the only way to save them from their inevitable poor hygine and unsafe sex. At least my parents waited until I was in college to worry about me on those fronts.
So drowning is worse than offending a child, but mutilating his penis is dandy?
July 1, 2010, 4:40 pmChris says:
Uh, no. Last time I checked, my finger do not not have multiple pleasure-causing, sensitive nerve endings in them. Or my ear lobes. But if yours do, you might want that checked out. You could be a new evolutionary specie.
July 1, 2010, 4:42 pmBarb says:
Really? You don’t make your case.
No protestant Christian church approves child rape and incest. Our culture disapproves such because we historically were “biblically informed” as Americans. I quoted Christ’s statement above about harming the little ones. It applies. When people believe the New Testament and know AND HEED what it says, they don’t mutilate their children nor rape and abuse them. Some Christians have historically been harsh in corrections, but there is no justification for beating children in the new testament. The NT is a springboard for the equality of women and the freedom of the slaves, too –as in John Newton’s and Wilberforce’s Christianity-based work for abolition.
When one accepts the premise that God loves all people, sent Christ to save all people, sent the Holy Spirit to comfort and be His presence with all people, the result is a belief in democracy and equality of persons –and a belief in kindness to all –and to children.
FGM and polygamy disregard the equality of women and kindness toward children and women. Male circumcision is good for men and their wives –an entirely different matter.
Our country has historically made laws based on our collective/majority view of right vs. wrong –and our status as “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights” –and those views were influenced by our religious beliefs –which included a right to believe differently –but only to a point –the point at which immigrant cultures wanted to do something that the majority culture was sure was wrong –(because of their beliefs.)
There is always a balance to strive for in the will of the majority vs. rights of minorities –based on ideas of what makes a good culture for raising children. Historically, Americans advocate for protection of children –and their equality as boys or girls. We don’t approve of some foreign cultures –and for good reason.
July 1, 2010, 4:42 pmM. Gross says:
Yeah, given all the wonderful ways parents can legally cause detriment to the health of their child, I really don’t see either circumcision or the drop-of-blood mentioned rising to the level of concern that the government should pass a law against it.
July 1, 2010, 4:43 pmChris says:
My apologies for misquoting. Health benefits I’m referring to is preventative medicine; rather than getting an infection later in life and having it done. If there were no benefits to it, I certainly hope the trend would change, and preferably stop.
July 1, 2010, 4:45 pmBarb says:
Sue, how do you know it causes minimal pain?
July 1, 2010, 4:47 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Yes, while speeding up the rate of ice picks to the base of the skull, machine-gun-riddled bodies stacked in car trunks, children slain consequent to being on the wrong sidewalk at the wrong time, police funerals, official corruption, and general disrespect for the law. Nice work by Carrie. (Then there is the issue of impairment of freedom.)
It is difficult to understand why Americans pushed prudes aside and repealed Prohibition?
July 1, 2010, 4:47 pmToby says:
We have a winner.
Of they prefer the customs of hell-holes to those of the US, I think we should urge them to re-stablish their lives back in the hell-hole.
July 1, 2010, 4:51 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Or, some might argue that the real trouble starts when adults conclude that fairy tales are non-fiction — although some fairy tales are less troublesome than others. I have never heard about anyone killing or dying over whether Jack in the Beanstalk is a better story than The Three Little Pigs, or anyone mistreating a child because of an obsession with Goldilocks or the Princess and the Pea, or nations warring over interpretations of Cinderella or Little Red Riding Hood.
July 1, 2010, 4:53 pmBarb says:
I think you misinterpreted. Jesus is saying the divine, eternal punishment will be worse than drowning for one who harms children. Better he should drown than harm a child –because God’s punishment for harming/damaging a child will be great. I don’t think he meant causing a little pain to the child as a correction –nor the practice of circumcision of male infants.
Circumcision of male babies has health value –and it hurts, but the child won’t remember it. Not so with female mutilation done on older girls. I’m not Jewish; nor is my husband; but he and my sons were circumcised as are most American male babies –for practical health reasons. And no regrets on their part.
When I was 5, I had to have a shot in the posterior –and I kicked the doctor in his chest as he attempted the procedure –for this indignity and violation of my modesty. I can’t imagine the terror and violation a girl would feel about a needle approaching her in the area which she only knows as the source of “pee-pee.” Traumatizing.
July 1, 2010, 4:58 pmDilan Esper says:
Male circumcision has very definite, distinct religious roots: you can point to places in Judeo-Christian texts that tell you to circumcise within a sport period after birth. It’s also been done for thousands of years. From what I know, the same cannot be said of FGM: it has no basis in the Koran, doesn’t seem to have been around since the inception of the religion, and is much more of a cultural rather than a religious issue. In many respects, it’s a bit like not eating meat on Fridays if you are Catholic… except that its purpose is to cause lifelong trauma and destruction of perfectly healthy organs. As a final thought: people who called FGM “female circumcision” really won the PR war, didn’t they?
You are quite right as a historical matter, Theo. One thing I would note, however, is that I am not sure how much these historical arguments matter so long as some people view it as a religious issue now. I’ve heard the same arguments in the Middle East, for instance, i.e., that Muslim and/or Jewish claims about the importance of the Holy Land are oversimplifications of a more complex historical reality. The problem is, they believe it now, even if their ancestors believed something different in the past. It’s fair to say that the belief in the Holiness of Jerusalem is a fundamental tenet of both modern Judaism and modern Islam.
Similarly, there are certainly a lot of Muslims at this point who see this as part of their religion, whether that’s a correct historical interpretation or not.
As for the PR war, absolutely– I believe Marilyn Faux, in “The War Against Women”, tried to popularize the term “FGM” and depopularize “circumcision”, and its certainly had some effect, but not as much as I’d wish it would have.
July 1, 2010, 5:01 pmCrunchy Frog says:
On whether the “we should allow X because, if not, some people will leave the country to do Y instead” argument:
We should allow men to have sex with 12-year olds, because otherwise, some men will go to Thailand to have sex with 7-year olds.
July 1, 2010, 5:05 pmShelbyC says:
I dunno. Many folks have babies ears pierced, AFAIK there are no health benefits to that, but it its done all the time.
July 1, 2010, 5:05 pmLongCat says:
Suffering pain from the removal of highly sensitive skin doesn’t matter so long as you don’t remember it? If that were the prevailing legal standard, I’d buy stock in a roofies manufacturer.
Just so I’m clear on the bible verse, it means you face eternal damnation for harming a child, but causing a child pain to protect him from his own future poor hygiene or unsafe sex is just dandy? Hell seems to have more stringent admissions requirements than Harvard.
July 1, 2010, 5:07 pmspo says:
This isn’t about the “nick”. It’s about what the “nick” represents. It is the judgment of our society that a little girl’s clitoris is to be inviolate. That sends a message about how we as a society feel about this abhorrent and misogynist practice. The idea that we should cut back on that message is wrongheaded. FGM is wrong, and there should be no accommodation of the ideas that lead to it. And the idea that a “ritual nick” is going to satisfy those who would cut their daughter’s clitoris off is mind boggling. More than likely, it sends a message that it’s really not that bad.
And what’s even sicker about the practice here is that there are no social ramifications to not doing it. While FGM is abhorrent, it’s possible to understand the difficulty in being the one father that doesn’t allow it in some place where all the other girls/women have had it done. Not excusing it–just understanding that there are different issues there rather than here. A parent that does it here is a monster and worthy of a lifetime of incarceration.
July 1, 2010, 5:13 pmBarb says:
And I’ve never heard of anyone getting killed over fairy tales, either. Nor have I heard of anyone who knew His Bible killing innocent people in Jesus’ name –or mutilating little girls and violating their modesty with a painful, unnecessary procedure designed to force chastity. Just what was your point?
July 1, 2010, 5:14 pmBarb says:
Absolutely!
July 1, 2010, 5:16 pmLongCat says:
Yeah, those witch-burning Puritans were staunch secularists. You’re trying to define Christian as “one who agrees with me in all respects.” That’s not a particularly workable definition for any form of discussion.
July 1, 2010, 5:21 pmSueSimp says:
Barb, Chris;
I’m basing this on the American Academy of Pediatrics’s (now retracted) recommendations and description of what a “ritual nick” should consist of, i.e., a “minimal pinprick.” If you have any proof to the contrary that the AAP (or anyone else) is suggesting that a “ritual nick” should result in permanent damage, then produce it, because as far as I’ve seen there is none. But the ritual nick the AAP originally suggested being open to is minimal and non-deforming, and to claim they are advocating any form of mutilation is baseless.
I have no doubt it hurts. But in the same manner as does getting your ears pierced, or getting a shot; yes, the location is different, but not so much that a pinprick would be mutilation. And male infants are certainly in far more pain when they are circumcised.
I’m not really convinced that, as a factual matter, allowing this procedure will reduce the suffering of FGM victims as a whole. But it is a complete fabrication to claim the procedure itself causes any damage or more than minimal discomfort.
July 1, 2010, 5:23 pmSarcastro says:
It’s the speech that’s the part we want to suppress, sillies!
Though not the wang. The clit is Serious Business. The wang, on the other hand, is a goofy organ.
So we’re banning not only the practice, but anything at all like it!
Also true of polygamy, so we should probably ban Mormonism. Also Scientology is bad, so we should probably ban science-fiction.
Which is why on Easter I know everyone is secretly having orgies. I mean, who would settle for some egg-and-rabbit show in the place of a fertility festival?
Because some ideas are worth jail time in my America!
July 1, 2010, 5:27 pmBK says:
you clearly are not a surgeon! (i am, however). let me guess, you think that when a diabetic checks his blood glucose, for which you need a drop of blood gotten through a nick, the person has to take off his entire fingertip. haha
July 1, 2010, 5:28 pmBarb says:
So, do you think FMG is OK? That’s the issue here, not circumcision of male babies. Maybe in God’s celestial design lab, He realized that the foreskin was causing problems –perhaps He meant it to be a protection of the sensitive end of the penis, but it was hard to care for and keep from adhering to the penis and was causing more trouble than protection–so in his covenant with Abraham, He corrects the design flaw –having Abe and His family surgically remove that which had proved to be problematic –even thought to cause problems for their wives because of unclean penises. AFter all, they didn’t have modern bathrooms with ever-present running water and daily showers.
That’s my theory: Male Circumcision was a cleansing ritual to undo a design flaw.
Female circumcision, however, was not done by Jews or Christians –having a purpose to interfere with sexual pleasure, rather than enhancing it. As such, the practice does not come from God but from a diabolical source who wants to harm humans and sow discord in families between mothers and daughters and husbands and wives.
July 1, 2010, 5:28 pmyankev says:
You mean murder in the course of an armed robbery?
July 1, 2010, 5:33 pmptt says:
A fact recognized by the Creator, hence the auto-shroud.
July 1, 2010, 5:34 pm~aardvark says:
There are different forms of circumcision and different rituals. When the procedure is done in a hospital, following birth, there is no cutting at all. When religious Jews get involved it’s an entirely different matter. The greatest risk from the procedure (it’s hard to call it “surgery”) is human error. The second risk is associated with human error–excessive scarring and/or infection. The former is a small risk but it’s real and it requires corrective surgery if it happens. Either way, the excessive scarring is the closest male circumcision comes to female genital mutilation, but, even then, it’s an anomaly that can be eliminated. It’s very difficult, if not impossible to undo “female circumcision”, which is really the equivalent of the Lorena Bobbitt procedure, with equally as much skill and care.
July 1, 2010, 5:35 pmtheobromophile says:
I’ve taken my blood sugar through my fingertip, not infrequently (it runs low). I’ve also donated a couple of gallons (yes, gallons) of blood in my life and am well aware of how much damage is done to my finger in the process of checking my iron levels.
Those things, you imbecile, are “pricks”, not “nicks”. I’m assuming that the “ritual nick”, which is associated with full-blown cutting, would meet the definition of a nick: a notch, groove, or chip, with the added condition that it be enough to draw blood. The action is also cutting, not pricking.
So no, I’m not a surgeon, but I know what the English language means, and I’m in possession of the relevant anatomical part, know its size, and can logically put things together. There’s no need to be a surgeon to recognise that a “nick” in the clitoris is going to do a lot of damage to a very, very tiny organ – one smaller than a fingertip. (Surgeon or not, you don’t seem to be aware of that!)
July 1, 2010, 5:36 pmyankev says:
Or to be more precise, despicable and particularly depraved and cowardly murder and torture of a particularly vulnerable victim made all the more despicable by the fact that the scum who committed the murder enticed the victim by pretending to befriend him, after selecting him as a victim on the assumption that his homosexuality would make it easier for them to do so.
July 1, 2010, 5:37 pm~aardvark says:
Right… keep deluding yourself.
July 1, 2010, 5:37 pmS says:
Anderson wrote:
That statement, is anti-liberal, and anti-libertarian, all at once. Anderson’s argument is not just nonsense but un-American nonsense. If you need elites to free yourself from feeling bad, then you are not only a coward but also immoral.
July 1, 2010, 5:38 pmyankev says:
Also the abolitionist work of the Beecher family. (I leave aside John Brown.) And the work of countless others who campaigned against slavery, child labor, human trafficking and countless other abuses.
July 1, 2010, 5:40 pmJack Marshall says:
He waited until his 30′s because 1) the problem was supposed to have non-surgical treatment 2) He apparently was not sexually active before that time, and 3) there is no way to tell whether the problem was genetic or not (his father was circumcised as an infant) and 4) it became intolerable over time.
An infant circumcision is 100% successful in eliminating any chance of the same miserable experience happening to his son. That’s no rationalization. That’s a valid parental decision made in the best interest of the child. There is no tradition of the operation in the family, and they are not religious.
July 1, 2010, 5:41 pmyankee says:
See here. And here. And here. And here.
But no true
July 1, 2010, 5:43 pmScotsmanChristian would do such a thing, would they?yankev says:
OT Warning: There is precious little evidence that Islam attached any particular religious importance to Jerusalem until it was held by Israel.
July 1, 2010, 5:44 pmJillC says:
As usual, Theobromophile must resort to name calling and snark because she cannot reason.
July 1, 2010, 5:45 pmBleh says:
Yes… no one has ever killed or suggested killing over the bible. Or maybe it’s just that people who know their Bible, are hard to find, much like true Scotsman.
July 1, 2010, 5:51 pmSarcastro says:
I’m shocked, shocked! to find snark on the internet! Though ‘imbecile’ is such a pre-wired word. She should have gone with asshat.
July 1, 2010, 5:53 pmyankev says:
I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise, but the evidence I’ve seen to date does not convince me.
I freely concede that people in the US have been murdered (and others who have been beaten or otherwise harrassed) for no reason other than being homosexual; I am simply not convinced that Matthew Shepard was one of them. Either way, I have no problem with the idea of executing the scum who were convicted of murdering him.
July 1, 2010, 5:55 pmLongCat says:
Under what possible interpretation of anything I’ve said could you say that I think FGM is ok? I oppose all forms genital mutilation; you support one. Your only justification for the distinction is that one of them makes it less risky to have poor hygiene or unsafe sex.
How could God have a design flaw? If someone is omnipotent, shouldn’t he be pretty good more or less everything? It’s hard to call God a perfect being if he can’t even figure out how to make a penis.
July 1, 2010, 5:57 pmptt says:
Cuz, goodness knows, Christians have always been about enhancing sexual pleasure.
Anyway, inconvenient-fact-wise, FGM, the full version, not just the pinprick, is supported by a majority of the population in some Catholic provinces of Nigeria. It’s a cultural tradition, a deplorable one (just so we’re clear).
Also, up until the 50s, FGM was used in this country to “cure” masturbation, lesbianism, and other “mental disorders”. Of course, in those days, castration for males was seen as equally helpful.
A rational discussion focusing a bit less on “us” versus “them” might yield better results.
July 1, 2010, 6:05 pmBleh says:
Darn you! Beat me to it!
July 1, 2010, 6:05 pmDennis N says:
I think this is a reasonable assessment of the likely outcome. What would be the spilt? Pure guesswork.
There would be a certain amount of pressure by parents, and a certain amount of inclination by believing physicians to do the procedure “properly.”
“Oops. We took off too much.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
July 1, 2010, 6:08 pmBleh says:
Design flaws don’t seem very Godly. I guess true Gods are hard to find as well…
July 1, 2010, 6:09 pmgladetariba says:
Female castration has its origin on sharia ,the nomads law.
July 1, 2010, 6:10 pmOnce , a rich man saw a girl begging in the street. He thought “she is pretty someone will force her into prostitution”. So he killed her to avoid a greater evil. The case is real but his name could be the same of that atrocious idea.
BTW: the idea can has supporters, some america”journalist” and ” intelectual” accused Ayaan Hirsi Ali of being guilty of defamation and disrespect and said that Van Gogh murder was less important because of the obscure and far relationship to the painter
~aardvark says:
“Biblically informed”? Really? You do know that the fundamentals of the “Ten Commandments” are enshrined in the Code of Hammurabi, right? And you do recall what these “biblically informed” sages used to do to “witches”, right? And the Inquisition… Do you recall all these historically biblically informed events? How about the “biblically informed” rhetoric that used to justify slavery? Is this also a part of “our culture”?
Look, you’re entitled to your medieval superstitions, but please don’t foist them on anyone else under the pretense of “our culture” being “biblically informed”! This is not an issue that has anything at all to do with Christianity or Islam. FGM is a procedure endemic more to certain geographical regions that coincidentally happen to be dominated by Islam. Christians in these regions may or may not demand the procedure, although the incidence is likely lower than among the region’s Muslims. But, ultimately, it’s the same superstitious nonsense. Same deal, different cross…
We prohibit FGM because it is a brutal, barbaric, discriminatory practice that is contrary to our cultural ethics, not because it violates some mythical Judeo-Christian principles. Like I said, the idea for Ugandan death penalty for homosexuals came and those behind the laws in other African countries (such as Malawi) did not emanate from Islam (although many Muslim countries do have stiffer penalties for homosexuality than they do for rape). They came from American Evangelicals. So no religion has a stake at primacy when it comes to brutality and stupidity–they are all equally guilty. The degree to which these religions have become “civilized” is the degree of their modernization–and, by that, I don’t mean which one has the most hours of prayer on TV, but rather which absorb the humanist principles the most. And from the very beginning, there has been a debate among Christians as to whether these principles are an outgrowth of Christianity or an abomination to Christianity. Some look forward, others look backward.
July 1, 2010, 6:11 pm~aardvark says:
My point exactly.
July 1, 2010, 6:14 pmgladetariba says:
Il dono dello spirito maligno. Gli ideali, le convinzioni, i modi di pensare nei loro rapporti col diritto
July 1, 2010, 6:14 pmIn this book the author defend less punishment for people with different cultural background like “Honor” murderers
802d says:
So, whom amongst the dirty multiculturalist communists call for naming the practice “genital modification” as opposed to “mutilation”? Inquiring minds want to know.
July 1, 2010, 6:16 pm~aardvark says:
Would you prefer George Tiller as a prototypical example? Or should he go under “ritual beheading”?
July 1, 2010, 6:16 pmDilan Esper says:
OT Warning: There is precious little evidence that Islam attached any particular religious importance to Jerusalem until it was held by Israel.
Thank you, Yankev, for unwittingly proving my point.
(Hint: saying that Muslims didn’t believe Jerusalem was religiously important in the distant past, even if it were true, wouldn’t in any way prove the insincerity of such claims now, any more than past Southern Baptist support for slavery proves that current Southern Baptist religiously-motivated opposition to slavery is insincere.)
July 1, 2010, 6:19 pm~aardvark says:
Actually, it’s a technical term on the original Binet scale that has been corrupted over the years… kind of like “retard”…
July 1, 2010, 6:19 pmShelbyC says:
So you’re cool with a ritual prick?
July 1, 2010, 6:26 pmSarcastro says:
I prefer ‘dullard’ myself.
July 1, 2010, 6:27 pmPlugInMonster says:
RACIST!!
July 1, 2010, 6:35 pmRACIST!!
RACIST!!
RACIST!!
RACIST!!
~aardvark says:
Oh, you mean like Benedict whatshisname?
July 1, 2010, 6:39 pmOwen H. says:
Prior to the marriage, Princess Diana had to undergo such an exam. I was unaware the Royal Family were Muslims.
For that matter, aren’t both parties in a marriage supposed to be virgins, at least as far as any fundamentalist religion is concerned? Last I checked, Christians weren’t supposed to have sex before marriage either.
For the record, I am circumcised (and not Jewish). I am quite happy with it as it is. And as far as I’m concerned, claims that I am “missing out” on some level is ridiculous; if it were any better it would kill me anyway. And also as far as I’m concerned, a ritual “pin prick” or even a “nick”, is no more concern than circumcision. And we do not require parents to have a religious reason to do so. Just like they can have their little kid’s ears pierced; we may not agree, may not like it, but that’s tough.
July 1, 2010, 6:43 pmzuch says:
Yeah, right. The Holey Babble approves of slavery (or at best is indifferent to it). So don’t go spouting Babble verses at me….
Cheers,
July 1, 2010, 7:04 pmJim says:
“The problem was that the problems with not circumcising males showed up in their female partners. I remember the Ob who delivered by kid telling us that she could guess, with a very high degree of certainty (over 90%) that a woman was with an uncut man by the type and frequencies of the infections she got. From her point of view, it came down to a slight bit of discomfort before most babies really remember pain, versus an awful lot of infections in their ultimate female partners years later. ”
So Bruce, let me get this straight – you think it’s permissable to cut male bodies for the sake of female bodies? What kinds of cutting of female bodies would you find permissable for the sake of male bodies?
And does this OB of yours practice in the US or in Europe? What is the European experience with these different rates of infection? Has your doctor corrected for any possible socio-economic or cultural differences between the wives of cirumcized verus uncircumcized men? Does she base her judgment on actual statistics or just her anaecdotes?
Barb,
“Maybe in God’s celestial design lab, He realized that the foreskin was causing problems –perhaps He meant it to be a protection of the sensitive end of the penis, but it was hard to care for and keep from adhering to the penis and was causing more trouble than protection–so in his covenant with Abraham, He corrects the design flaw –having Abe and His family surgically remove that which had proved to be problematic –even thought to cause problems for their wives because of unclean penises. ‘
First off, you have quite obviously thoroughly confused Christianity with Judaism. The Christian position on circumcison is quite clear (you would probably claim to know the Epistles, so you will know the relevant passages) there is no spiritual value to circumcision of any kind. None. It is meaningless to a Christian. So how about you stop trying to defend it from any kind of Christian perpective, because from that perspective it’s indefensible.
Oh, and BTW – you just made the argument for trans-gender operations.
One more thing – “unclean penises”? What an offensive man-hater you are. What do you say to surgical routering-out of “unclean vaginas”?
July 1, 2010, 7:13 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
No one so far in this thread seems to have picked up on the fact that the AAP statement nowhere mentioned FGM. The term used was FGC — “female genital cutting.” After all, “mutilation” sounds so, y’know, judgmental, as though there were something wrong with this longstanding tradition. And obviously we mustn’t judge, yes?
I agree, by the way, with theobromophile: A “nick” implies a cut (however small), not a pinprick.
July 1, 2010, 7:27 pmOwen H. says:
Quoted to remind later posters of the FACTS.
July 1, 2010, 7:58 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Owen H., ptt,
Also, up until the 50s, FGM was used in this country to “cure” masturbation, lesbianism, and other “mental disorders”.
Cite? Seriously, if you want me to believe that doctors in the US were doing to American girls 60 years ago what is done to Somali girls today, I’d appreciate evidence.
And remember, it’s not FGM, it’s FGC! The only people who use “FGM” are judgmental Western bigots. Right?
July 1, 2010, 8:17 pmAnatid says:
Two hundred comments in, and I can’t believe no one has mentioned this yet:
The phrase “female circumcision” can refer precisely to an analogue of male circumcision: removal of the clitoral hood. The clitoris is left untouched and intact, and the reduction of sensation is roughly comparable to the reduction in sensation from removal of the male foreskin. Why doesn’t the AAP offer this as a reasonable compromise? Is there anyone here who favors legalized removal of the foreskin for nonmedical reasons but would not favor legalization of removal of the clitoral hood for nonmedical reasons?
Also, since a few people mentioned it upthread, I just wanted to throw in two cents on the concept of genital surgery for androgynous children and/or those with ambiguous genitalia. The current feeling in medicine these days, as opposed to decades ago, is that a child suffers no real harm from being left with ambiguous genitalia (so long as the ambiguity doesn’t interfere with basic physical processes like urination), partially as a result of our culture carrying less of an impetus for individuals to strictly conform to one gender role or the other.
Nowadays, it’s felt that kids are best left intact, as it can take years for an androgynous child to decide which gender (if either) s/he wishes to be as an adult, and permit the kid to opt for surgery once adult if s/he feels it’s necessary or appropriate. So citing ambiguous genitalia as an example of medically-sanctioned genital surgery that isn’t for specific health reasons really doesn’t carry water anymore.
July 1, 2010, 8:19 pmArthur Kirkland says:
It is difficult to develop a sensible argument to match this level of reasoning.
On this other hand, this paragraph is probably suitable for inclusion in the Republican Party’s national platform.
July 1, 2010, 8:28 pmDuracomm says:
Female genital mutilation is a horrific act.
The spectacle in this comment thread of self centered egomaniacs running over that fact in a mad dash to score cheap points is disgusting.
Now for some data.
The american academy of pediatrics does not support routine male circumcision. Even though it says there is evidence for some medical benefits.
This makes their position on female genital mutilation completely unsupportable.
July 1, 2010, 8:34 pmAMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS:
Circumcision Policy Statement
alkali says:
This is the same as my #1 (“permitting the nick [will] cause even more girls to be subject to the more drastic FGM”).
Again, I don’t know whether that prediction is correct or incorrect, but it is not obvious that it is correct.
And if it is incorrect — i.e., if permitting the “nick” would indeed reduce the incidence of the drastic FGM — it is not clear what principle requires us not to do that.
July 1, 2010, 8:37 pmptt says:
Obviously, it was not the same. Even back then, the patients weren’t held down by their relatives. They used sedation as they would in any other surgery. They weren’t barbarians after all!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_orientation_change_efforts see section on “History” and its citations. Here are couple citations that should chill you.
# ^ Daniel, F.E. (1893). “Castration of Sexual Perverts”. Texas Medical Journal 9: 255–71.
# ^ Talbot, E.S.; Ellis, Havelock (1896). “A Case of Developmental Degenerative Insanity, with Sexual Inversion, Melancholia, Following Removal of Testicles, Attempted Murder and Suicide”. Journal of Mental Science 42: 341–44.
# ^ “Results of Castration in Sexual Abnormalities”. Urologic & Cutaneous Review 33: 351. 1929.
# ^ Sharp, Harry Clay (1908). The Sterilization of Degenerates. National Christian League for Promotion of Purity.
# ^ “The Gentleman Degenerate. A Homosexualist’s Self-Description and Self-Applied Title. Pudic Nerve Section Fails Therapeutically”. Alienist & Neurologist 25: 68–70. 1904.
# ^ Friedlander, Joseph; Banay, Ralph S. (1948). “Psychosis Following Lobotomy in a Case of Sexual Psychopathology; Report of a Case”. Archives of Neurology & Psychiatry 59: 303–11, 315, 321.
# ^ Rosenzweig, Saul; Hoskins, R.G. (1941). “A Note on the Ineffectualness of Sex-Hormone Medication in a Case of Pronounced Homosexuality”. Psychosomatic Medicine 3: 87–89.
# ^ Owensby, Newdigate M. (1940). “Homosexuality and Lesbianism Treated with Metrazol”. Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease 92: 65–66.
If you use the same term to describe everything from a tiny pinprick to the removal of the clitoris, the labia, scraping the walls of the vagina and then sewing it all up and crossing your fingers that the girl won’t die in the next few days of shock and blood loss, I don’t know if I’d call you a “judgmental Western bigot” or not, but I would call you unconscionably lacking in reason and nuance.
July 1, 2010, 8:49 pmptt says:
Easily remedied by publication of an advisory that ritual male circumcision be replaced a ritual prick, as well. Not a bad idea, if you ask me.
July 1, 2010, 8:52 pmElliot says:
I don’t know. Nobody needs them. Besides, most health insurance probably doesn’t even cover it until 2014.
July 1, 2010, 8:52 pmOwen H. says:
I must have missed where they were supporting the routine use of this procedure.
July 1, 2010, 8:55 pmzuch says:
Curious comment for a person named “Barb” … unless her surname is something like “Three Eagle Feathers”.
Cheers,
July 1, 2010, 9:11 pmDuracomm says:
Michelle Dulak Thomson,
I notice ptt was not able to provide the cite you asked for.
Interesting that what he cites in support of his position would be criminal malpractice today.
And that he has to go back almost 120 years (1893) to obtain some of those cites.
What a tool.
July 1, 2010, 9:14 pmAeon J. Skoble says:
Barb- this is exactly right.
July 1, 2010, 9:19 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
ptt,
If you use the same term to describe everything from a tiny pinprick to the removal of the clitoris, the labia, scraping the walls of the vagina and then sewing it all up and crossing your fingers that the girl won’t die in the next few days of shock and blood loss, I don’t know if I’d call you a “judgmental Western bigot” or not, but I would call you unconscionably lacking in reason and nuance.
Take it up with Wikipedia, why don’t you? “FGC” is the new term for everything from one end of your spectrum to the other. “FGM” is, as I said, disfavored because it seems to suggest that there’s something wrong with this practice.
And, once again, I don’t see how a “nick” can be a “pinprick.”
July 1, 2010, 9:20 pmzuch says:
So much for Intelligent Design™, eh? But I must take exception with the claim that it’s some “design flaw”. And my wife would probably agree.
Cheers,
July 1, 2010, 9:24 pmjuris imprudent says:
Shelby sez The purpose, of course, is different for everybody who participates in the procedure.
I believe there is only one purpose, in intent of FGM. To assist in the perpetuation of the honor culture by subjugating women. This is merely less brutal than the full-on alternative. Is that really something that is compatible with modern Western culture? Why stop at that? Will we allow honor beatings as long they don’t result in honor killings?
The point is that FGM, or even a faint ritualized semblance of it is flat out unacceptable and has no place in THIS society. There are many places in the world where that is normal, and I say that anyone who wishes for that kind of society take themselves to where it exists rather than attempting to create a context for it here.
July 1, 2010, 9:30 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Duracomm,
I notice ptt was not able to provide the cite you asked for.
Interesting that what he cites in support of his position would be criminal malpractice today.
And that he has to go back almost 120 years (1893) to obtain some of those cites.
Actually, the thing I found most interesting is that practically all of his cites involved castrating men, not FGM. There was one reference to “curing” lesbianism, but it involved a drug rather than “cutting.”
Memo to ptt: Ayaan Hirsi Ali claims in her latest book (citing UN stats) that something like 98% of Somali women and 97% of Egyptian women have been mutilated in this way. I don’t think anything you can find in US history is remotely comparable.
July 1, 2010, 9:33 pmDuracomm says:
Female genital mutilation is a horrific practice. It needs to be ended not white washed and rationalized with bland pablum like the AAP came up with.
More information for the painfully clueless who have shown up on this thread cracking wise about female genital mutilation and the human suffering it causes.
Song and dance helps West Africa fight genital cutting
DIABOUGOU, Senegal (Reuters) – Marietou Ndiaye waited in vain for her daughter as the other children were brought back bloodied from an initiation ceremony in the woods.
Everyone of you tools not opposing female genital mutilation in all its forms strengthen the ability to keep the horrific practice in place.
Your ignorance multiplies the human suffering and destruction female genital mutilation causes.
July 1, 2010, 9:34 pmleo marvin says:
When I go into show business I’m using the stage name “Ritual Nick.”
July 1, 2010, 10:01 pm~aardvark says:
I hope that was an attempt at a pun… otherwise, it was just a wasted line.
July 1, 2010, 10:17 pm~aardvark says:
It’s an interesting rhetorical exercise, but I have not noticed anyone not opposing FGM. There might have been a few people equivocating based on comparison with male circumcision and some arguing that libertarians can’t get involved, but no one approved of the procedure itself.
July 1, 2010, 10:30 pmleo marvin says:
Hmmm, now that you mention it “Ritual Prick” might be even better.
July 1, 2010, 10:32 pmleo marvin says:
If anyone suggested a relevant comparison between male circumcision and FGM, much less anything approaching equivalence, I missed it.
July 1, 2010, 10:38 pmCornellian says:
That’s my theory: Male Circumcision was a cleansing ritual to undo a design flaw.
And yet somehow Christians managed to get by with this supposed “flaw” for all of human history and still do everywhere in the world outside the United States.
July 1, 2010, 11:20 pm~aardvark says:
That was actually my point–Duracomm’s (self)righteous indignation over a strawman argument. I did say “might” and “equivocating”, not “establishing equivalence”. Even if there was some equivocating, it was certainly inchoate. And the point remains the same–there was not one person who failed to condemn the practice, Duracommie’s posturing notwithstanding.
July 1, 2010, 11:41 pm~aardvark says:
We’ve been dancing around this one all night. See below (or above):
July 1, 2010, 11:47 pmBarb says:
Obviously you don’t agree, sarcastro, but we’re not talking about an idea here, but a painful, traumatizing ACT perpetrated on little girls for no good reason. Some acts perpetrated on children do deserve jail time –and the wrongfully-purposed mutilation of a child’s healthy body should not be allowed –nor should transgendering, for that matter, which sets the children up for a lifetime of hormone treatments and surgeries. Why waste scarce medical resources? Male circumcision, however, has a healthful purpose. But don’t worry –no one is forcing it on males of any age.
No, can’t people read??? I SAID, infant male circumcision “for medical reasons.” But then I give a Biblical rationale, too, because the Bible IS relevant today. Medical reasons are good reasons, when based on good science. It happens that the Bible has a lot of prohibitions and recommendations that happen to be healthful and expedient, economically, physically and emotionally, fair to men and women and good for their children– Like hetero monogamy.
You’d be wrong, from what I’ve read on the subject. Removal is surgery with a knife or a sharpened stone –whatever gets the job done. The APA was attempting a compromise to accommodate Middle-eastern culture –which is absurd considering the purpose is to force chastity on women by gruesomely removing pleasure from the sex act. A criminal idea.
July 1, 2010, 11:48 pmBarb says:
Yes, you missed it. Yes, some did suggest equivalence.
July 1, 2010, 11:52 pmDilan Esper says:
If anyone suggested a relevant comparison between male circumcision and FGM, much less anything approaching equivalence, I missed it.
Leo, it’s not that they are totally the same. But they do feature some similar features. Each of them:
1. Could easily be held off until adulthood and administered to a person with full consent.
2. Instead are inflicted on a child, often in a painful manner.
3. Are inflicted for unscientific cultural or superstitious reasons, rather than because the procedure is medically indicated at that age.
4. Are often excused and justified by pointing to supposed benefits later in life.
5. Can lead to sexual disfunction and loss of sexual pleasure.
6. Have powerful religious and cultural figures and institutions backing them, figures and institutions who will continue to insist that the procedures must be performed even if they are shown to be harmful.
So they aren’t the same. Indeed, FGM is much, much worse, especially when you get to the level of clitoridectomy and infibulation. But the asserted justifications for permitting them are quite similar, and equally unpersuasive. They essentially amount to a claim that if religions or cultures want to perform disfiguring medical procedures on children without their consent, they ought to be able to do so
July 1, 2010, 11:55 pmBarb says:
Are you not aware that most American Christian male infants are circumcised for health reasons? Perhaps Jews think they are the only circumcised ones? Devout Christians have a lot in common with religiously devout Jews –faith in Yahweh, our Creator-God, circumcised infants, respect for the Old Testament Scriptures, respect for Jewish history which we study and claim as our own since we believe we are “ingrafted Jews” –ingrafted into the family tree by Christ –such that the Family of God started with the Abrahamic covenant and continues to all peoples through the Covenant of Christ’s blood shed on the cross. Whereas it was once only Abraham’s descendents who were God’s chosen, we now are all able to be chosen –by His grace and our decision to follow the Galilean.
July 2, 2010, 12:00 amBarb says:
Thanks for this piece.
July 2, 2010, 12:05 amBarb says:
Well, Arthur, you made me LAUGH OUT LOUD!! I was being facetious in my imaginings about the celestial divine laboratory–though I think, like the Ohio state motto, “With God, all things are possible.”
She likes your little goo and bacteria-harboring foreskin? Or did I misunderstand. Don’t blame me for getting personal; you brought that up!
I notice that those whose names suggest they are probably men think a little prick in the clitoris for a child is inconsequential –a harmless accommodation for a benign cultural practice. Those who I think are women are as hopping mad about this as I am. No one has a right to mutilate or painfully poke and possibly damage a child’s most private and sensitive areas for NO GOOD REASON. Infant male circumcision is entirely different. However, if you had to undergo circumcision at age 12 as in some cultures –or an adults, you’d protest, too! mightily–as did the one writer here who kept comparing the two practices –wanting infant male circumcision viewed in the same light as mutilation of older girl children.
July 2, 2010, 12:28 amBarb says:
The clear implications of Christ’s teachings were impetus for the abolitionists of England and the US. Granted, the Bible was used to support slavery, too. And the Jews themselves were slaves and have suffered horrible abuse through the centuries. But you can’t read the Golden Rule and much else in the N.T. and not conclude that Jesus would not have us hold slaves. Paul tells slave and master to treat each other well –to be Christian with each other –and that ultimately led to the American ideal of freedom and equality for all persons.
July 2, 2010, 12:39 amSarcastro says:
[No one on this thread is arguing that doctors should be helping FGM.
You can say that the clit-prick/nick stands for that unconscionable practice, but then you are basically equating a symbol with an act.
There is one large difference. Symbols are speech.
Lots of you are just blurring the lines between the symbolic act and the act. This does mean you get to make lots of folks in this thread be for FGM in your head, and helps you get a head of righteous anger going. The only downside is that it means a lot of you are spending a lot of time knocking the hell out of a strawman.]
July 2, 2010, 12:55 amBleh says:
So you think that AAP is saying that because it shouldn’t be done routinely, it shouldn’t be done AT ALL? Or do you think that they’re saying the clitoris pricking procedure should be routine?
Or perhaps, just perhaps, they’re saying that neither procedure should be routine, but neither procedure should be outlawed?
July 2, 2010, 1:32 amClayton E. Cramer says:
Reading threads like this convinces me that homosexuality is incompatible with civilization. Most of these defenses boil down to this:
1. FGM can be analogized to infant male circumcision, although not very accurately. FGM is intentionally to destroy a woman’s ability to enjoy sex–unlike male circumcision. Unlike male circumcision, which has recently discovered positive health benefits (and the reason that many pediatricians see it as a mild positive), there are no positive health benefits to FGM, and many destructive ones.
2. Once this analogy has been made, it can then be used by progressives and liberals as an attack on Christianity. And the reason for this? Christianity’s failure to “get with the program” and accept homosexuality. Homosexuality is so important to the progressive mindset that it is prepared to defend FGM, at least in a ritualistic form, as a tool for attacking the dominant values of the West–values such as treating women as human beings, and tolerance of different belief systems. Theoretically, progressives, if they believed what they claim to believe, would recognize that attacking the West in defense of the worst aspects of Islam is counterproductive to what they claim to want.
I do hope all you homosexuals enjoy living under shari’a law. Well, you won’t live under it for long, that’s for sure.
July 2, 2010, 1:43 amClayton E. Cramer says:
There are strong parallels between lots of things. Analogies are wonderful tools, but when they lead to conclusions this warped, it suggests that you might want to consider if your analogy is accurate. I notice that most of this talk about male circumcision causing sexual dysfunction and loss of pleasure comes from male homosexuals. Of course, perhaps their sexual dysfunction and loss of pleasure comes from their deeper sexual dysfunction?
July 2, 2010, 1:47 amClayton E. Cramer says:
Note that those defending this ritualized FGM–or at least using it to attack decadent Western culture–are overwhelmingly men, and many of them are homosexuals. Why should they care if little girls are permanently rendered incapable of enjoying sex?
One of the characteristics of classical civilization was that wives existed to bear legitimate children. For pleasure, or dominance, men went to prostitutes (female or male), or teenaged boys who they could dominate and control. We’re headed back there in a hurry, with progressives leading the way.
July 2, 2010, 1:50 amClayton E. Cramer says:
This is the sort of progressive homosexual garbage that scares the wits out of me. These scum are so damaged and twisted that they are prepared to make common cause with a religion that is regularly executing homosexuals–but their hatred of the West for not completely rolling over for them blinds them to this.
July 2, 2010, 1:52 amyankee says:
But see, e.g., Colossians 3:22 (“slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything”); Ephesians 6:5 (“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ”).
July 2, 2010, 1:53 amBleh says:
I agree, anyone who disagrees with your point of view is a shari’a loving fag!!! Now lets just gets your meds…
July 2, 2010, 1:54 amSarcastro says:
[Nobody is enabling FGM, everyone is talking about this ceremonial thing. Your Christian apocalyptic victimization is fun and all, but doesn't exactly fit into the narrative of this thread. Folks keep trying though!
"at least in ritualistic form" is a helluva dodge. By that standard, Catholics are cannibals.]
July 2, 2010, 2:21 amleo marvin says:
Yeah, I was agreeing with you.
July 2, 2010, 2:22 amyankee says:
Well, the whole point of this”nick” procedure is to find a way of (sort of) complying with cultural demands without causing any permanent injury. Which it presumably would not, since the “nick” in question is only large enough to draw a single drop of blood.
I can’t speak for the rest of KA’s critics, but my point is that it’s woefully inconsistent to support infant male circumcision while opposing this “nick.” Claims that infant circumcision is performed for health reasons rather than to comply with religious/cultural demands are transparent rationalizations, since nothing requires the procedure to be performed in infancy to be effective. The arguments get even sillier, such as with claims that the pain won’t be remembered; in any other circumstance we say that inflicting unnecessary harm on a baby is worse than doing it to an adult, not better.
Nor is there any reason to believe people would turn against the procedure if the health benefits turned out to be spurious.
It is completely inconsistent to oppose one form of culturally-mandated genital cutting while supporting another, much more serious form of culturally-mandated genital cutting. You can consistently say both are fine, or that neither is legitimate, or that nicking is fine and infant circumcision is not, but you cannot say that infant circumcision is fine but nicking is not.
As for my views, I think adults should be free to mutilate their genitals in whatever ways they wish, whether for culture or health. But nobody has any business cutting (or “nicking”) the genitals of an unconsenting child.
July 2, 2010, 2:22 amleo marvin says:
Well, I think the differences are definitive, but since I said no one was even claiming relevant similarities, I stand corrected.
July 2, 2010, 2:28 amM. says:
The whataboutery in this thread makes me weep for the future of this country. How can you people sleep at night?
July 2, 2010, 2:35 amRich Rostrom says:
A few facts for this inchoate discussion.
1) FGM is not an “Islamic” practice. There is nothing in the Koran or Hadiths mandating it; many eminent Moslem religious figures have denounced it; in many Moslem societies it is not practiced; in many Moslem countries it is nominally illegal.
2) FGM is primarily an African practice, particularly in the grosser forms such as infibulation. Non-Moslem Africans do it too. Why? Because they’ve always done it, and no goddam interfering foreigners are going to make them change. (Wiki sez FGM was revived in Kenya during the Mau-Mau rebellion as a rejection of the authority of Christian missionaries who had suppressed it.) No, really: among Somalis and comparable groups, there is very little rationale for FGM other than “tradition”, and a vague idea of ritual cleanness. “Tradition” has immense weight within these societies.
3) It appears that many of the African societies are open to changing how they implement this tradition, including substituting a “token prick” for radical mutilation. This is a much easier sell than telling them flatly You Are Wrong. That’s what the AAP was talking about.
4) Clitoridectomy is practiced in Egypt and parts of the Moslem Middle East to desexualize women. This is a result (IMHO) of the general misogyny and male chauvinism endemic in Arab and kindred cultures, which has been reinforced by Islam but predates it. Laws against FGM are often not enforced in Moslem countries. In Egypt FGM is “medicalized” – performed by doctors, often at the request of young women. The syndrome is very different, and needs to be addressed in different terms.
July 2, 2010, 2:37 amJ.T. Wenting says:
Which should also be banned except for valid medical reasons.
July 2, 2010, 2:41 amWhy ban mutilation of girls but not boys?
The ban on female circumcision (as it’s known in Europe) but not male circumcision for religious or cultural reasons is discriminatory in the extreme.
If the reverse were done civil rights organisations and feminist groups would be up in arms about the fact that boys are protected from mutilation by the law but girls aren’t (of course some religious groups would protest that their religious freedom is being curtailed, as happened when female circumcision was banned but strangely noone listened to the Muslim clerics who protested then, I think were it attempted to ban it now the ban would not succeed).
yankee says:
Well, the only really relevant similarity is that the purported benefits of male circumcision and female genital mutilation could be obtained by performing the procedure on a consenting adult, but the procedure is instead almost universally applied to children too young to consent.
July 2, 2010, 2:44 amJ.T. Wenting says:
It does however change the experience, make it less pleasurable (which is why it’s done in the first place, sex should be purely for reproduction, never pleasure, according to ultra orthodox lore).
Same reason, same result, same procedure.
July 2, 2010, 2:45 amBoth should be banned unless there’s a valid medical reason to perform it (which there very rarely is, most cases it is performed for solely medical reason medication could have had the same result).
yankee says:
I cannot support you on this one; female “circumcision” is much more serious than male circumcision. Female “circumcision” involves cutting and permanently removing part of the genitals themselves, not just a retractable piece of skin. Female “circumcision” is much more like just lopping off the end of the penis than it is like cutting off the foreskin.
I oppose infant male circumcision, but female genital mutilation is much, much worse. The analogy to male circumcision is a false one designed to obscure the severity of the procedure.
July 2, 2010, 2:53 amReaderY says:
Why doesn’t Lukumi Bablo Aye apply?
All this talk of “barbaric” and so forth is dead giveaway for irrational decision-making. A practice is being specifically targetted because it’s a religious practice and people don’t like the religion. Where’s the rational, let alone compelling, interest? What makes this any different from the City of Hialeah, Florida’s decision to ban animal sacrifices because it thought the concept of animal sacrifice “barbaric” etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.? What makes this different from sodomy laws? If “it’s barbaric” isn’t a rational basis for legislation generally, why is it permitted to be a basis for legislation here? Or is “it’s barbaric” really just fine so long as 5 sitting justices happen to share the emotion at the moment? Is this all that rational basis review has come to mean?
If under Roe v. Wade parents can decide whether or not to have a child in the first place, why shouldn’t parents’ privacy rights regarding their families include this choice?
July 2, 2010, 3:04 am~aardvark says:
Clayton, you’re a walking proof that there is no God–if there were one, someone would stick a red-hot poker up your rear end.
July 2, 2010, 3:14 amUrsus Maritimus says:
Wrong. To quote from a muslim website:
July 2, 2010, 3:20 amAnatid says:
That was me. I said that removal of the clitoral hood and removal of the foreskin are roughly analogous procedures, as they result in some loss of sensitivity while leaving the clitoris/glans intact. I asked if this practice would be acceptable to people who did not oppose male circumcision. No one’s replied so far.
Clayton, is there something that you’d like to tell us?
July 2, 2010, 4:13 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Rich Rostrum,
It appears that many of the African societies are open to changing how they implement this tradition, including substituting a “token prick” for radical mutilation. This is a much easier sell than telling them flatly You Are Wrong. That’s what the AAP was talking about.
Which is also presumably why the AAP doesn’t call even the “radical mutilation” “mutilation.” You say “FGM”; they say “FGC.” Because the “M” does imply “You Are Wrong.” And we can’t have that, can we?
July 2, 2010, 5:15 amRicardo says:
That website says that only the least intrusive forms of genital cutting are permitted and are recommended rather than required by religious law. Drastic mutilation is mostly cultural rather than religious in nature and is concentrated mostly in certain parts of Africa where these practices predate Islam. I believe there are many Muslim communities in Asia that do not practice any genital cutting for women. I’ve never heard of Muslims in India engaging in the practice, to give one significant example. That said, I agree with Kenneth Anderson’s opinion in full.
July 2, 2010, 5:41 amMartinned says:
The Dutch equivalent of the AMA recently took this approach to its logical conclusion. They called on their members to “discourage non-therapeutic circumcision”.
July 2, 2010, 8:24 amShelbyC says:
Somebody needs to get him a Mr Garrison avatar.
July 2, 2010, 8:40 amMartinned says:
This seems to be the standard WHO statement on FGM. This is what they’re saying about “Type IV FGM”, i.e.
July 2, 2010, 8:51 amMartinned says:
From the same WHO document:
July 2, 2010, 8:53 amDuracomm says:
~aardvark and many other commenters,
Your cheap moral equivalence arguments are obscuring the point that female genital mutilation causes breath taking amounts of human suffering.
Replacing it with a westernized nick in some countries legitimizes the practice and is likely to prolong the practice of female genital mutilation in other countries, increasing human destruction and suffering.
There is a impressive amount of self centered concern about males on this thread.
What is notably lacking is much concern for the massive physical damage, pain and human suffering female genital mutilation inflicts on women.
Why is that?
Why all the concern over men and the complete lack of any empathy or compassion for women?
July 2, 2010, 8:53 amMartinned says:
Thank you for explaining why FGM continues to exist in so many countries and communities.
July 2, 2010, 8:58 amStrict says:
Michelle,
It’s probable that “cutting” is more descriptive and more of a medical/surgical terms than “mutilation.”
It’s not surprising that a medical society would choose to use more accurate, less politicized, and more “technical” medical terms. “Mutilation” isn’t very clear as to what actually happens. Cutting is what happens.
I do believe it is mutilation. But I also think that “cutting” is accurate.
Would you expect a medical society to refer to the procedure as “ritual vagina abuse” [RVA]? That would be weird, even if it’s accurate to describe the tradition itself. Mutilation is the result of the procedure, but cutting actually describes the procedure itself.
Does this make sense?
July 2, 2010, 8:58 amMartinned says:
Jews, not gentiles.
They only started circumcising American gentiles in the mid 19th century to stop them going to hell for masturbating.
July 2, 2010, 9:02 amyankev says:
Not familiar with the Tiller case. Again, I agree that it happens, that it shouldn’t happen, and that it should be punished severely like any other murder; I’m just not persuaded that the Shepard murder is a good example.
July 2, 2010, 9:17 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Strict,
Well, it wouldn’t be “ritual vagina abuse”; the vagina is not implicated. I am guessing you don’t have one, or you’d know that ;-)
But you are wrong about the AAP. Here’s their statement on what they were then calling FGM, from 1998:
Efforts should be made to use all available educational and counseling resources to dissuade parents from seeking a ritual genital procedure for their daughter. In those circumstances in which an infant, child, or adolescent appears to be at risk of FGM, the AAP recommends that its members educate and counsel the family about the health effects of FGM. Parents should be reminded that performing FGM is illegal and constitutes child abuse in the United States.
It’s only in 2010 that they decided that “mutilation” wasn’t accurate medical terminology. What do you suppose changed?
July 2, 2010, 9:20 amyankev says:
Probably because there’s not much risk of the parents of uncircumcised boys taking them abroad for total castration.
See above.
July 2, 2010, 9:22 amMartinned says:
How about the Albigensian Crusade?
July 2, 2010, 9:25 amyankev says:
As a physics teacher at my high school said, analogies are dangerous. They’re like cars without a driver . . .
July 2, 2010, 9:30 amyankev says:
Don’t know what you mean by ultra-orthodox lore, but if you mean “ultra” orthodox judaism, you are sadly mistaken.
July 2, 2010, 9:34 amMartinned says:
That’s what this infograph seems to suggest. It puts Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia in the 95-100% range.
July 2, 2010, 9:35 amShelbyC says:
Well, the procedure we’re talking about here isn’t “mutilation” by any non-propeganda definition. So maybe they decided to just be accurate?
July 2, 2010, 9:44 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
ShelbyC,
Except that the AAP statement uses “FGC” for all forms of the-treatment-formerly-known-as-FGM:
The American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement on newborn male circumcision expresses respect for parental decision-making and acknowledges the legitimacy of including cultural, religious, and ethnic traditions when making the choice of whether to surgically alter a male infant’s genitals. Of course, parental decision-making is not without limits, and pediatricians must always resist decisions that are likely to cause harm to children. 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.
To repeat: “Most forms of FGC are decidedly harmful, and pediatricians should decline to perform them, even in the absence of any legal constraints.” That sounds to me as though we might be talking “mutilation” even by a “non-propeganda” [sic] definition, nyet?
July 2, 2010, 9:52 amShelbyC says:
So they’re claiming that there’s really no such thing as “pricking”, that it’s just a euphemism for the worse form? If that’s true, there’s no real reason to put people who actually perform the procedure in jail, is there?
July 2, 2010, 9:53 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
ShelbyC,
So they’re claiming that there’s really no such thing as “pricking”, that it’s just a euphemism for the worse form? If that’s true, there’s no real reason to put people who actually perform the procedure in jail, is there?
No doubt there is some universe in which those two sentences make sense together. I’m afraid I don’t live in it.
July 2, 2010, 10:02 amMartinned says:
No, they’re claiming that there is such a thing as pricking, but also that many women who claim to have been pricked have, in fact, been mutilated in a more severe way. That is why they’re counting it all as FGM Type IV, for their statistical and policy purposes. For criminal prosecution purposes, of course, there would be actual evidence as to what has been done in this particular case, so that’s a different story.
July 2, 2010, 10:05 amShelbyC says:
Sure, they’re using the term “cutting” as a blanket term to include both procedures that can be described as “mutilation” and procedures that can’t be. What’s wrong with that? Besides, how credible would they be if they describe what’s done to boys by an innocuous term, but described cutting of little girls as “mutilation”? It would sound like they were assuming the conclusion when they said it was harmful. Besides, there are many women who have had the procedure done thay may not appreciate the AAP calling their stuff “mutilated”.
July 2, 2010, 10:07 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
ShelbyC,
Sure, they’re using the term “cutting” as a blanket term to include both procedures that can be described as “mutilation” and procedures that can’t be. What’s wrong with that?
What’s “wrong” with it is that a few hours ago your line was that the AAP (a) was only talking about the “ritual nick” when it referred to FGC; and (b) couldn’t refer to “mutilation” because that wasn’t medical terminology. Wrong and wrong.
Besides, how credible would they be if they describe what’s done to boys by an innocuous term, but described cutting of little girls as “mutilation”? It would sound like they were assuming the conclusion when they said it was harmful.
For some reason, this doesn’t seem to have been a pressing issue in 1998.
Besides, there are many women who have had the procedure done thay may not appreciate the AAP calling their stuff “mutilated”.
I doubt that the women in question even call their stuff “stuff.” You’re all class, ShelbyC.
July 2, 2010, 10:21 amArthur Kirkland says:
For some time, Clayton has reminded me of someone, but I haven’t been able to put my finger on the name. This quote, however, narrowed the field:
I think I’m homing in on that name. Is Clayton Cramer the down-low screenname of Larry Craig?
David Vitter?
Mark Foley?
Ted Haggerty?
George Rekers?
Roy Ashburn?
I am not yet sure, but those are the names “leading the way.”
In any event, observations:
cause me to be thankful that Clayton, for whatever reason, possesses such exquisitely calibrated gaydar, because mine is so unreliable I usually can’t divine someone’s sexual orientation from blog comments.
July 2, 2010, 10:35 amShelbyC says:
Neither of those was my “line”, but hey, to the extent that “mutilation” carries a judgement, it’s not medical terminology, and when you’re the one making the judgement that the practice is harmful, it’s best to stay clear of judgemental terminology, right? Kind of the reason we don’t call the defendant the “criminal”. Imagine you’re from a culture that ritually cuts little girls, and sombody from a culture that regularly cuts little boys but not little girls tells you the “cutting” little boys is OK, but “mutilating” little girls is not, you think that sounds like objective advice and not something deriving from cultural bias?
Hey, I would have gone with “junk” but AFAIK that’s usually for guys.
July 2, 2010, 10:42 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Arthur Kirkland,
Haven’t you something better to do?
I should add that Cramer has a point, at least this far: The blog-votes in favor of the “ritual nick” are overwhelmingly male. (Of course, so is the VC readership, so I’m not inclined to read much into that.)
July 2, 2010, 10:43 amShelbyC says:
Well, that may be the reason they did it originaly, but nowadays that do it for the medical benefits, like better hygene, reduced infection, and improved eyesight.
July 2, 2010, 10:47 amMartinned says:
I’m sure they do… (Not to mention reduced chance of developing hairy palms, etc.)
Either way, my response was to a commenter arguing from the ancient “Judeo-Christian” roots of the practice.
July 2, 2010, 10:52 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
ShelbyC,
Neither of those was my “line”, but hey, to the extent that “mutilation” carries a judgement, it’s not medical terminology, and when you’re the one making the judgement that the practice is harmful, it’s best to stay clear of judgemental terminology, right?
OK. This was you, yes?
Well, the procedure we’re talking about here isn’t “mutilation” by any non-propeganda definition. So maybe they decided to just be accurate?
“They” were the AAP, and what you’re calling “accuracy” was changing FGM to FGC. Except that FGC, by the AAP’s own lights, includes everything up to clitoridectomy.
And the AAP was a medical consortium even in 1998, yes? For some reason, their medical consciences permitted the use of the term FGM then; just not now. I gather they were just too damn stupid to avoid offending immigrant communities in 1998, but by now they’ve smartened up somehow.
July 2, 2010, 10:54 amShelbyC says:
Correct. And the procedure under discussion in this thread, the “ritual nick” as described wouldn’t fit any normal definition of “mutilation”. Yet, if I understood correctly, your complaint was that they didn’t refer to a set of procedures that included this as “mutilation”. What do you want them to say? “Mutilation and other forms of cutting or nicking”? Seems unnecessary.
July 2, 2010, 11:04 amElliot says:
” It appears that many of the African societies are open to changing how they implement this tradition, including substituting a “token prick” for radical mutilation.”
Is this a paid position?
July 2, 2010, 11:06 amStrict says:
“The blog-votes in favor of the “ritual nick” are overwhelmingly male.”
Whoa, there was a vote?
What is the question again?
Nick or no nick? I’d choose no nick.
Nick or drastic variants? I’d choose nick [least bad alternative - if someone gave me two choices "should I do A or B to my daughter" I'd pick the least bad one].
Criminalize or not criminalize taking a child out of the USA to have a drastic variant performed? I’d choose yes.
Criminalize or not criminalize performing the nick within the US? I’m not sure. There are slippery slope considerations. The practice of metzitzah, whereby the cutter uses his mouth to suck blood from the circumcision wound, is not criminalized. That practice is unsanitary and unnecessarily risky, but it’s allowed because it’s a religious practice. I don’t think the practice of periah, whereby the cutter uses his nails to rip off the foreskin, is criminalized either. However, it’s not a common practice, unlike the African practice of FGM.
There are also practical considerations of criminalizing the nick. Again, with the abortion analogy, would criminalizing it lead to more “back alley” operations? That could be a bad thing.
Would legalizing it and “normalizing it” within the communities that already have a tradition of FGM result in an eventual abolition of the more traditional drastic variants? That could be a good thing.
Or would it slow the eventual eradication of female cutting in the US altogether? On balance that could be a bad thing.
July 2, 2010, 11:12 amShelbyC says:
And my response was an excuse to work in the “improved eyesight” joke. But it’s funny, if true, that circumcision of gentiles in the US is really a cultural tradition stemming from a desire to reduce masturbation. The more different we think we are…
July 2, 2010, 11:18 amBleh says:
And your failure to understand that this procedure, which could cause far less harm, could actually save some girls from having their genitals permanantly mutilated. I do not support FGM in any form, and I think the practice of even pricking that area borders on child abuse. However, there is clearly a long standing tradition, and unfortunately there are still a lot of misguided parents who would like to retain that tradition — providing them with a low harm replacement ritual is an understandable position to me, and is certainly not the “single most appalling statement of official multiculturalism [I] have read with regard to the United States in many years.”
I think what many in this thread fail to understand is that both sides see a problem. One side thinks it can be stamped out with blanket restrictions. One side see’s similarities between this practice and other practices which are carried out in the Judeo-Christian culture, and is willing to consider this ritual-prick as a way to cut down on number of more extreme versions of FGM.
July 2, 2010, 11:20 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
ShelbyC,
Correct. And the procedure under discussion in this thread, the “ritual nick” as described wouldn’t fit any normal definition of “mutilation”. Yet, if I understood correctly, your complaint was that they didn’t refer to a set of procedures that included this as “mutilation”. What do you want them to say? “Mutilation and other forms of cutting or nicking”? Seems unnecessary.
Seems unnecessary to you, maybe. What they are calling FGC includes procedures that any reasonable observer would call “mutilation.” The “ritual nick” might be reasonably described as FGC. The other “procedures” the AAP is lumping in there don’t deserve medical terminology. We’re more in the realm of butchery here. As you would likely realize were your own genitals at issue.
July 2, 2010, 11:20 amShelbyC says:
Well, my own genitals (since you
July 2, 2010, 11:29 ambrought them upintroduced the subject) are, like those of most American men, already “mutilated”, and I’m totally cool with it. But imagine you’re listening to a doctor trying to make a case that male circumcision is harmful. Are you going to find him more objective and credible if he describes the procedure as “mutilating” little boy’s genitals, or if he says “cutting”?Bleh says:
I really should read to the end of the comments section before responding. Strict summarized things much better than I.
July 2, 2010, 11:32 amzuch says:
Well, when you choose to read the “clear implications of Christ’s teachings” as saying that. Of course, people are quite adept at reading pretty much whatever they want into whatever they want, no? Which makes the Word’O'Gawd™ pretty much whatever we want or need it to be (“moral relativism”, anyone?) at the time, much to our discomfort over the centuries. You’d think She’d come down and tell us in plain language what She really means, and emphasize it with some neat lightning bolts, all caught on CNN….
Cheers,
July 2, 2010, 11:35 amzuch says:
And this is the same Clayton Cramer that’s supposedly such a legal eagle on gun rights?!?!?
Cheers,
July 2, 2010, 11:39 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
ShelbyC,
So where were you when the AAP was denouncing “FGM,” twelve years ago? Was it just not so interesting then, or what?
You surely must know that many versions of what we are now to call FGC are the equivalent of excising a man’s penis and testicles. Feel free to lump that in with the “ritual nick” if you are so inclined.
July 2, 2010, 11:44 amBleh says:
I’d throw myself in as another gentile who was cut (mutilated if you prefer). Obviously I don’t really know what it’s like to be uncut, so I can’t tell you if it has truly affected my life.
It may have been nice to have a choice, but I’ll tell you this — if my parents came from a tradition where it was preferable to cut the whole thing off, but circumcision of the foreskin was an inferior (to them) but acceptable secondary option… I’d much prefer option #2. And if deciding between the two options, for my parents, came down to which one was legal… Although, option #3 (a ritual prick of the penis) might be even better.
Obviously this practice symbolizes something horrible. But I’d rather have a horrible symbol than a horrible reality.
July 2, 2010, 11:45 amBleh says:
50 years from now God will love “the gays,” and always will have.
July 2, 2010, 11:48 amShelbyC says:
Fine. Circumcision, castration (also practiced historically, but not ritually on one’s own children, for obvious reasons), FGM, circumcision, and the “ritual nick” are all forms of genital cutting. Some are harmful, others aren’t. Why is it bad to say it like that?
July 2, 2010, 11:55 amStrict says:
Michelle: “I gather they were just too damn stupid to avoid offending immigrant communities in 1998, but by now they’ve smartened up somehow.”
What is your proof that the AAP’s change in terminology was motivating by a desire to avoid offending Somali immigrants?
Somali immigrants aren’t a politically powerful group, and they don’t really “backlash” against much at all…
It’s more likely that AAP starting using different terminology because the new terminology [cutting] more accurately describes the procedures than the old terminology [mutilation]. I doubt the AAP faced pressure from Somali lobbying groups or anything like that.
July 2, 2010, 11:56 amBarb says:
You missed my point –”anyone who knew his Bible.” You don’t follow Christ, knowing His teachings, and wage war against innocent people. Instead, you will first be a missionary. You have love and compassion as a Christ-follower and want to see souls saved. That’s not to say Christians don’t participate as soldiers in “just wars” to stop tyrannical regimes who are committing genocide, etc. on others (–or to stop slavery in U.S.) Sometimes, a bully needs to be stopped (even by Christians) to end cruel injustice, to end the killing, before he blows up the world.
However, at the time of your crusade cited here, people wouldn’t have been particularly literate with access to Bibles or Biblical knowledge and could more readily be manipulated by church-state leaders in cahoots for power. That’s why the first public schools of America were established –to teach people to read –so they could read the Bible for themselves and not be manipulated by religious phonies. (My liberal, agnostic uncle, Columbia u. grad and now-deceased prof over phd candidates in education at U. of Pitt, told me that. The Bible, of course, was on the text book list of our first public schools and had more to do with shaping the best aspects of American culture than liberals and agnostics care to admit.)
There are countless examples of Biblical religious belief making human beings immeasurably better and happier than they were before conversion. America’s functional institutions (some are not functional) owe a lot to their Judeo-Christian-religion-based best aspects of Am. culture. Those views and practices we call wholesome and decent, just and fair tend to be rooted in Biblical religion. However, liberals get testy whenever religion says, “No, you ought not do just anything you darn well please (like abortion and gay marriage) without regard to impact on children and culture and rights of all.” Conservatives, too, need to regard also the impact of business and “progress” on people and planet, and subordinate profit motives to the good of all. (Of course, profit also IS for the good of all in the hands of people with humane values.)
July 2, 2010, 11:59 amtheobromophile says:
ShelbyC: um, intellectually dishonest much?
If someone were arguing that being hit by a car is like being smacked upside the head, and I were to point out that those are radically different things, that certainly wouldn’t imply that it’s okay to hit people. Obviously.
I dunno… maybe it’s only a tough thing to understand if you see the world in black-and-white, with no varying degrees of evil (or good).
July 2, 2010, 11:59 amBarb says:
Christianity already says that God loves gays –but hates homosexual conduct. You can’t change the Bible which is very VERY clear about sex outside of hetero -marriage. The church that now says homosexuality is not a sin is no longer a Bible-based church.
And about gay sex: Romans 1: 18-32
July 2, 2010, 12:07 pmBarb says:
Shelby, the procedure, symbolically or otherwise, is intended to deprive women of sexual pleasure in order to ensure her pre-marital virginity and her marital fidelity to her husband. She doesn’t NEED this mutilation –symbolically or otherwise, to make her chaste. It is a holdover to a pagan, primitive, uncivilized, barbaric ritual in a culture that considers women “unclean” and inferior to men. Why should the medical profession have anything to do with it –except to TEACH parents that this is an unnecessary, barbaric, gruesome practice that we do not allow in the USA because it is wicked? Drawing blood is not the ritual –mutilating the girl is the ritual. So a pin prick doesn’t even accomplish the intent of the ritual –but can be risky and psychologically harmful to a child regarding her female body parts and her natural modesty. A father or mother of AMERICAN culture, who would prick his/her child’s genitals with a needle, would be locked up. We ought not change good law to accommodate bad cultural practices of immigrants.
July 2, 2010, 12:16 pmtheobromophile says:
While I don’t want to disparage any men here (since playing Oppression Olympics does absolutely nothing to advance human rights, and usually just makes things worse), that you “don’t really know what it’s like to be uncut” tells me that male circumcisions is different from FGM. While no one can really know what it’s like to be different (if you were that way since childhood), women whose genitals were mutilated don’t tend to take a “well, who knows” view of it. The difference between being able to feel intense pleasure and being in horrific pain is so stark that it’s a matter of guessing, only because you have no idea what sexual pleasure would be like. It’s a matter of kind, not degree.
July 2, 2010, 12:17 pmStrict says:
Barb: You can’t change the Bible! [Cites to New International Version of the Bible - first published in the late 1970's].
That was great, thanks.
July 2, 2010, 12:21 pmyankee says:
Who’s claiming it’s the same? It’s the same in certain respects: both are forms of genital cutting that permanently remove part of the genitals, both are typically practiced on children, and both are principally done for religious/cultural reasons, with purported health benefits advanced as rationalizations. Then again, paper cuts and gunshot wounds are the same in certain respects as well.
Incidentally, how do you know how women who have been mutilated feel about it? Probably some of them would defend it and say they were glad it was done to them. The Marxist term for this would be “false consciousness,” but they’d still believe it.
July 2, 2010, 12:31 pmBleh says:
Romans 2:1: Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.
July 2, 2010, 12:35 pmBleh says:
For someone who accuses others of having a “black-and-white” view of things, you have some of your own problems seeing shades of grey.
July 2, 2010, 12:39 pmBleh says:
Also, while the passage that you provided was mainly about idolotry and paganism, and homosexuality was only really peripheral subject, another reading is that the indecent acts committed were orgies and other forms of non-marital sex. So give gays and lesbians the right to marriage, and all should be good with the Lord. Hallelujuh.
July 2, 2010, 12:46 pmKen Arromdee says:
Then wouldn’t the proper reaction be to object to the more severe version disguised as pricking but allow genuine pricking?
Most of the argument here seems to be “this is a horrible procedure and is mutilation” when the only procedure that anyone is suggesting be allowed is not mutilation.
July 2, 2010, 12:48 pmKen Arromdee says:
To say that the procedure is symbolically doing something is to say that it’s not actually doing it. “Symbolic” becomes a synonym for “not”.
July 2, 2010, 12:52 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Strict,
What is your proof that the AAP’s change in terminology was motivating by a desire to avoid offending Somali immigrants?
Somali immigrants aren’t a politically powerful group, and they don’t really “backlash” against much at all…
It’s more likely that AAP starting using different terminology because the new terminology [cutting] more accurately describes the procedures than the old terminology [mutilation]. I doubt the AAP faced pressure from Somali lobbying groups or anything like that.
You are forgetting that the “old terminology” was in use by the AAP in 1998, which is hardly the dark ages; also that practically everyone on this comment thread has been talking about FGM rather than FGC. In fact, the only person commenting here who has so much as mentioned FGC is me.
If FGC is the preferred and more accurate term, perhaps you ought to start scolding all the folks upthread who persist in using the inaccurate and bigoted “FGM.”
July 2, 2010, 12:59 pmShelbyC says:
You’re the one making the distinction between a “prick” and a “nick”. Are you OK with a ritual “prick” or not?
July 2, 2010, 1:15 pmShelbyC says:
Again, nobody’s defending genuine FGM. All you’ve got to do is pony up some evidence that the “ritual nick” deprives women of being able to feel intense pleasure, or any pleasure, and pretty much everybody here is down for banning it.
July 2, 2010, 1:20 pmStrict says:
“If FGC is the preferred and more accurate term, perhaps you ought to start scolding all the folks upthread who persist in using the inaccurate and bigoted “FGM.””
I personally don’t care what people call it. I never said it was inaccurate or bigoted, merely that perhaps AAP starting using a more accurate word to describe the procedure.
You said that AAP changed its usage out of a desire to avoid offending Somali immigrants. Your statement is completely unfounded. Maybe it changed its usage for a different reason.
July 2, 2010, 1:21 pmOrenWithAnE says:
We are referring to two different procedures. Context is key — I was talking about the “nick” in which a single drop of blood is taken and the entire things heals to imperceptibility within a few weeks. It does not force chastity nor remove pleasure.
The relation of this procedure to actual FGM is like the relation of a stage murder to an actual one — surely one does condone the clear crime of murder by engaging in a harmless recreation of one. I will be the first to suggest long jail sentences for anyone caught actually performing FGM while, at the same time, I have no issue whatsoever with the nick.
[ Incidentally, many less strict Jews do the same thing as well, adapting the old custom of hatafat dam brit. ]
July 2, 2010, 1:22 pmOrenWithAnE says:
No no, better to keep Barb’s moral haughtiness and not make an actual impact on things. Right ….
July 2, 2010, 1:25 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Strict,
You said that AAP changed its usage out of a desire to avoid offending Somali immigrants. Your statement is completely unfounded. Maybe it changed its usage for a different reason.
What I wrote:
I gather they were just too damn stupid to avoid offending immigrant communities in 1998, but by now they’ve smartened up somehow.
The “Somali” part is your own invention; and I said “I gather,” which in ordinary parlance is something like “I guess.”
I repeat, though: The AAP was as much a branch of the medical profession in 1998 as it is in 2010; if FGM is unacceptable terminology for medical professionals in 2010, it’s hard to see why it wouldn’t also have been in 1998. Or do you believe that somewhere in the last decade it suddenly dawned on US pediatricians that “mutilation” sounded kind of pejorative?
July 2, 2010, 1:40 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
OrenWithAnE,
I was talking about the “nick” in which a single drop of blood is taken and the entire things heals to imperceptibility within a few weeks.
You ought to write advertising copy. “The entire things heals to imperceptibility within a few weeks” is priceless.
July 2, 2010, 1:45 pmStrict says:
” if FGM is unacceptable terminology for medical professionals in 2010, it’s hard to see why it wouldn’t also have been in 1998.”
Michelle,
No one says that FGM is unacceptable terminology. Perhaps they switched to using the word “cutting” because the word cutting is simply better. That doesn’t mean the old terminology is awful, evil, bigoted, unacceptable [etc], it just means the new terminology is a little more accurate and scientific.
The medical profession changes its usage of terms all the time. For example, the medical profession stopped using the word GRID and started using AIDS. One explanation is that the medical profession was bowing down to the powerful gay lobby and wanted to be progressive/multiculturalist/liberal/accomodationist [whatever]. Another is that AIDS is simply a better term. It’s more accurate. It’s more scientific.
You would prefer the first, more political explanation that the medical profession didn’t want to offend gays [just like how the medical profession doesn't want to offend Somali immigrants].
I prefer the second explanation – the medical profession just wanted to be more accurate.
July 2, 2010, 1:59 pmDilan Esper says:
Clayton:
thanks for educating me. I didn’t know straight men do not care about sexual pleasure.
Leo marvin:
Just because male circumcision isn’t the same doesn’t mean it isn’t wrong. As theo says, unjustfiably mutilating someone doesn’t become OK just because someone else is doing something even worse.
Theo:
In fact, a lot of women who have had FGM swear it doesn’t affect their ability to experience sexual pleasure, just like cut men. That doesn’t mean either group is correct; they have no frame of reference to know otherwise.
But it’s enough to say that we shouldn’t be cutting areas of the body that are releated to sexual pleasure during childhood.
July 2, 2010, 1:59 pmShelbyC says:
Who says it’s unacceptable? I thought the whole point was that you objected to the use of the term “cutting” instead of mutilation. Perhaps the AAP didn’t mean to refer to non-mutilatve cutting in 1998, but they do in 2010. Perhaps they did, but decided that, since they were also refering to procedures like the “ritual nick”, that cutting was more accurate. Perhaps they decided cutting sounded more objective. Who knows? And why does it matter?
July 2, 2010, 2:00 pmAnatid says:
Welcome to the internet. The internet is predominantly straight white middle-class males. And since this is a libertarian blog, “empathy” is halfway to being considered a dirty word. Are you surprised at the outcome?
Not that you care, Barb, since you’ve already slapped science in the face a dozen times, but they’ve run studies on this. Seems that belonging to a community is good for people. Doesn’t have to be a religious community. Churches aren’t the only institutions that bring people together and offer social support. There don’t seem to be remarkable differences between the advantages of a church and any other social support group.
We’re social creatures. We need social support. Having others involved in our lives improves our outcomes and expectancies when tackling nearly any life problem.
For humans, religion is optional. Having other humans care about you isn’t.
July 2, 2010, 2:01 pmricky says:
I say let these people leave the country to get their daughters snipped – and then absolutely under no circumstances are they allowed to come back. We should not be letting these third world savages into our country at all.
July 2, 2010, 2:04 pmStrict says:
“The “Somali” part is your own invention”
That’s true. You said immigrant communities, not Somali immigrants.
But the Somalis are the immigrant community accounting for the vast majority of the FGM in the US. So it wasn’t so much of an invention as it was a fair inference.
July 2, 2010, 2:08 pmSarcastro says:
Good Ideas – coming Straight from the 1880s to save us all!
July 2, 2010, 2:09 pmDennis N says:
Pretty good practical advice, considering your master could have you flogged and possibly even crucified. It’s also better spiritual and psychological advice than futilely hating your master.
July 2, 2010, 2:14 pmShelbyC says:
Zuch, what a horrible thing to say! Just because somebody is a self-hating repressed homosexual doesn’t mean he doesn’t have talents.
July 2, 2010, 2:24 pmOrenWithAnE says:
I am open to evidence that this is not the case. As I understand, that is factually accurate regarding the ‘nick’
July 2, 2010, 2:26 pmJay says:
Barb specifically, others generally:
Male circumcision studies have found a slight medical benefit at best, so comparing male circumcision to the “female nick” is apt. Strong arguments clearly exist on both sides. However, you have to treat the two procedures the same. Had the pediatric association endorsed “mutilation,” my conclusion would be different because of its horrendous negative effects. However, because the only physical effects of the two procedures are short-term pain, and because the benefits are nominal, I can’t see how logic can support disparate treatment. I recognize the aesthetic argument for circumcisions, but that decision could be delayed until adulthood, so I believe it has no effect on this debate.
July 2, 2010, 2:28 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Strict,
GRID was objectively less accurate than AIDS. It became clear early on in the epidemic that you didn’t need to be gay to catch it.
FGM remains accurate. I can see inventing another term for the proposed “nick” (FGN?), but calling a full clitoridectomy “genital cutting” rather than “mutilation” is just hiding the truth.
ShelbyC,
Who says it’s unacceptable? I thought the whole point was that you objected to the use of the term “cutting” instead of mutilation. Perhaps the AAP didn’t mean to refer to non-mutilatve cutting in 1998, but they do in 2010. Perhaps they did, but decided that, since they were also refering to procedures like the “ritual nick”, that cutting was more accurate. Perhaps they decided cutting sounded more objective. Who knows? And why does it matter?
It matters, ShelbyC, because girls are being mutilated — oh, excuse me, cut — in large numbers.
July 2, 2010, 2:29 pmShelbyC says:
No, the results are the same whether you call it “cutting” or “mutilation”.
And those numbers are different if you call in cutting vs mutilation? It sounds like you’re done, you’re just arguing for the sake of arguing at this point.
July 2, 2010, 2:49 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
OrenWithAnE,
I am open to evidence that this is not the case. As I understand, that is factually accurate regarding the ‘nick’
We’re talking about this statement:
The entire things heals to imperceptibility within a few weeks
If my doctor told me that the entire things heals to imperceptibility within a few weeks, I think I’d be looking for another physician. Wouldn’t you?
July 2, 2010, 2:52 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Than objecting to lame attempts to impair reasonable debate by inexplicably turning this issue into a club with which to smack progressives, homosexuals and non-Christians around? To note that claims to be able to identify homosexuals by blog posts betray an intense and obnoxious level of delusion? To point out that anyone who believes any of the high ground in this debate is tied to any religion is being even less reality-based than usual?
I guess not.
In my judgment, the number of ritual nicks (or whatever term is appropriate) that is reasonable, justifiable or acceptable is zero. I also believe zero (or, during the World Cup, nil) to be the number of ritual nicks that should be lawful, and am not convinced that a parent should be entitled to arrange circumcision of a child (any more than law or morality would permit a parent to arrange amputation of an infant’s arm without a suitable medical diagnosis and recommendation).
July 2, 2010, 2:56 pmShelbyC says:
Don’t most “nicks” heal like that? I had a nick in my hand a couple weeks ago, it’s imperceptible now. The procedure being described sounds like that kind of nick.
July 2, 2010, 3:00 pmyankev says:
Haughtiness = believing that there are some things that should not be tolerated other than intolerance itself.
July 2, 2010, 3:49 pmOrenWithAnE says:
Ah, yes, I didn’t catch the other meaning on the first time through. Fair enough, reword it appropriately :-P.
I think scorning a perfectly benign reenactment of a profoundly cruel procedure is haughty, yes.
July 2, 2010, 3:55 pmShelbyC says:
Ahh, I get it. Good one :-).
July 2, 2010, 3:58 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
OrenWithAnE, ShelbyC,
I don’t think I caught the “other meaning” myself. My point was only that a doctor who tells me that “the entire things heals to imperceptibility” is not someone I’d want treating me or my family. Basic grammar is only an imperfect proxy for education, but it’s better than nothing.
I think scorning a perfectly benign reenactment of a profoundly cruel procedure is haughty, yes.
Because drawing blood from a girl’s clitoris is “perfectly benign.” Mmm-hmm.
July 2, 2010, 4:52 pmleo marvin says:
See strict’s nice summary of the nuances apparently lost on the chromatically challenged.
July 2, 2010, 6:09 pmleo marvin says:
Barb, you’re starting to give “begging the question” a bad name.
July 2, 2010, 6:14 pmleo marvin says:
This might be a good time to trot out some silly counter-argument, since it may be days before you stop celebrating today’s game long enough to return to the thread. Congratulations. Were you surprised?
July 2, 2010, 6:16 pmElliot says:
Perhaps. But they are still Christian.
July 2, 2010, 7:00 pmShelbyC says:
Depends, of course, on how you define benign. I just haven’t yet figured out a way to define it in a way that includes forskin removal and ear piercing, but excludes a little nick that heals without doing permenant damage.
July 2, 2010, 8:00 pmDuracomm says:
Bleh said,
A reasonable argument that has been swamped by some of the more “off-topic” comments on this thread.
However, it is more likely that this policy would not protect girls it would simply allow full female genital mutilation to occur in the United States under the cover of being a “ritual nick”.
And it would make female genital mutilation more likely to occur because girls would not have to be transported out of the country to be mutilated. And allowing the “ritual nick” would make it more difficult to find and prosecute full blown cases of female genital mutilation.
The horrific consequences that will occur if the “ritual nick” is misused mean the reasonable position is to put a bright line firewall against any invasive procedure designed to resemble or substitute for female genital mutilation.
To me it looks like one side sees a problem and most of the other side saw an opportunity to complain about male circumcision and / or slag Judeo-Christian values.
Those are useful, entertaining topics that have filled vast amounts of comment space on the internet.
On this thread the velocity and gusto with which those comments showed up gives a clear impression that large numbers of the “other side” are blissfully self centered individuals who have an exceedingly callous disregard for the human suffering female genital mutilation causes.
July 2, 2010, 8:18 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
ShelbyC,
Depends, of course, on how you define benign. I just haven’t yet figured out a way to define it in a way that includes for[e]skin removal and ear piercing, but excludes a little nick that heals without doing perm[a]n[e]nt damage.
Would you think a “little nick” on a six-year-old boy’s penis “perfectly benign”? Would the boy think so?
July 2, 2010, 8:18 pmptt says:
Look, one tool to another, I lost the link to an article about a clinic that performed full clitorectomies on lesbians. I wasted half an hour looking for it and provided the links I did and went off to a meeting. If providing MORE evidence than requested makes me a tool, fine. And excuse the heck out of me that everyone hasn’t gone and digitized the medical literature for the last hundred years for you.
Uh… DUH. Unacceptable now, acceptable then. That was sort of my point.
I left the earlier ones in there on purpose to show how long the practices had been going on.
See my notes above.
I never said that anything remotely comparable was done here. Those subjected to mutilation in this country were the misfits and the insane.
Yeah, it’s not like this whole issue isn’t about twisted heterosexual ideas about virginity, shame, sex, and fidelity. (Note the high overlap between these jerks and things YOU think are important.)
Yeah, we’re used to settling for what makes things better though far from perfect. We’re more practical. If allowing a practice that we find unpleasant protects even one girl from having her sexuality destroyed, I’ll go for it. Sexual autonomy, sexual freedom, sexual fulfillment is our area, as you so deridingly point out all the time. Social conformity, respect for social norms, respect for religious traditions, respect for parental authority even when it is harmful… those are all YOUR ideals.
These barbarians are YOUR allies, Clayton, not mine.
July 2, 2010, 8:21 pmptt says:
In retrospect I would rather have had a nick to my glans at age six than removal of my foreskin at birth. Of course, I would have preferred neither, but the nick would be my second choice by a long shot.
One thing that’s not mentioned is that some, not all, not even most, of the societies which practice FGM do horrific things to their boys’ genitalia as well, usually even later in life, closer to puberty. What they do does not have the same consequences in regard to destroying sexual pleasure, but given a choice between the full procedure and a pinprick, I can’t imagine any boy choosing the former.
July 2, 2010, 8:28 pmShelbyC says:
I have no idea. But don’t we allow “little nicks” on 6-yo boy’s penises?
July 2, 2010, 8:30 pmShelbyC says:
Yeah I had a friend from Gabon recount to me her experience seeing a cousin get circumcised, and it sounded pretty bad.
July 2, 2010, 8:32 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
ptt,
So what you’re saying is that there was some clinic somewhere that claimed to cure lesbianism via clitoridectomy, only you can’t find the reference, so here’s a bunch of cites showing that castration has been used as a “cure” for male homosexuality, and that’s obviously the same thing as FGM prescribed as a cure for lesbianism.
July 2, 2010, 8:32 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
ShelbyC,
I have no idea. But don’t we allow “little nicks” on 6-yo boy’s penises?
I think not. Circumcision happens much earlier than that.
July 2, 2010, 8:38 pmptt says:
No, Michelle, what I’m saying is that I found at least one article published in a respectable medical journal about “some clinic somewhere” trying to cure lesbianism that way. And I couldn’t go back and find it. And I wasted my time trying to fulfill your request. You obviously don’t believe me and, frankly, I’m not sure why I’m bothering to respond. I’m sorry I haven’t met your expectations of commentary on the internet. I can tell by your completely referenced posts that this is important to you. I’m sorry I failed you so completely.
To answer your question, obviously they are not the same thing. Why would anyone confuse the removal of sexual organs in one gender in order to cure homosexuality with the removal of sexual organs in another gender in order to cure homosexuality? The differences are so extreme, it’s utterly laughable to even consider the former having any bearing on the latter, especially since American medicine and American culture have always so considerate towards lesbians and women in general and doctors never ever have any crackpot ideas that they’re willing to inflict on the “mentally ill” and politically powerless.
July 2, 2010, 8:45 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
ptt,
I am sorry that I’ve made you waste your time. Indeed I am.
All the same, when you post something like
Also, up until the 50s, FGM was used in this country to “cure” masturbation, lesbianism, and other “mental disorders”,
you might expect someone to want particulars. I was not especially surprised to find them not forthcoming.
July 2, 2010, 9:11 pmAnatid says:
Uh, do you think circumcision becomes illegal after eight days? You can have your son (or yourself) circumcised at any age.
July 2, 2010, 9:21 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Anatid,
You can have your son (or yourself) circumcised at any age.
Indeed. I misspoke. All the same, I suspect that circumcisions performed on 6-year-old boys are vanishingly rare. FGM, er, FGC on 6-year-old girls, OTOH …
July 2, 2010, 9:30 pmOrenWithAnE says:
You think we cannot distinguish the difference between a pinprick that draws a single drop of blood and permanent removal of tissue?
July 2, 2010, 9:51 pmBarb says:
Perhaps you should experience both now as an adult so you can compare the pain of each and be the resident authority on the topic.
It is ridiculous to accommodate this vile cultural custom with a surgical “nick” in what another woman described here as a part of the female anatomy no bigger than a pea. A nick in a pea is a pretty big injury and scar –no stitches possible, i’m thinking. Regardless, it’s just insane to even consider accommodating a practice so vile and with such vile intention –to force women’s chastity by mutilation. We need to bring the Somalians into civilization and point out that
“Allah does not command this ritual in Mohammad’s book (I believe) and that it is considered barbaric and inhumane to do this to our daughters in America. It will not be allowed. Do not take them out of country to do it and expect us to let you back in if we find out that you have abused your daughter sexually in this manner.” If you do it here or overseas, your child will be placed in protective custody. This part of your culture is not to be practiced here.”
A little tough love.
July 2, 2010, 9:53 pmAnatid says:
That’s tough, but it’s not love. Just sayin’.
July 2, 2010, 9:55 pmBarb says:
I said that churches trying to condone homosexuality were not Biblical and Elliot said:
By what definition? Following and believing Christ on the topic of marriage? Nope.
July 2, 2010, 9:57 pmBarb says:
It’s love for the kids!!! Just sayin’.
July 2, 2010, 9:59 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
OrenWithAnE,
You think we cannot distinguish the difference between a pinprick that draws a single drop of blood and permanent removal of tissue?
Who are “we”? Please read martinned’s comments re WHO report about twelve hours back. Women who believed they had gotten a “pinprick” turned out to have undergone substantial mutilation.
July 2, 2010, 10:01 pmsierra says:
I don’t usually complain about such matters, but this sentence is grammatically incorrect: “The use of words matter.”
July 2, 2010, 10:06 pmAnatid says:
Is marriage really that important compared to turning the other cheek, or letting he who is without sin cast the first stone? By your definition, you’re not Christian either. You’re trying to convince yourself that those stones in your hands are actually teddy bears.
July 2, 2010, 10:06 pmAnonyMouse says:
There is the first reasonable thing you’ve in this thread. Your replies in this thread clearly indicate that either:
1.) You are a troll
2.) You can’t understand basic aspects of the human condition to a point where your ability to perceive reality should be called into question. If this is the case, you don’t need the Volokh wesbsite, you need a therapist.
Either way, you have no place at the adult table.
July 2, 2010, 10:38 pmElliot says:
There is no commonly accepted definition of a Christian. Each sect calling itself Christian has a definition designed to exclude some or all of the other sects calling themselves Christian. Given that situation, I simply accept self-identification.
Biblical? The bible means whatever folks say it means.
July 3, 2010, 12:01 amShelbyC says:
Ur funny.
July 3, 2010, 12:48 amleo marvin says:
You living biblicalist, you.
July 3, 2010, 12:55 amBarb says:
Aha! But i don’t do the very same things, do i.
Yes, Paul tells us not to condemn one another –Jesus said he didn’t “condemn” the adulteress –but he told her then to “go and sin no more.” So “judging” doesn’t mean what we commonly think it to mean It is not wrong to teach right vs. wrong –to proclaim what God will judge –that’s what the prophets of old did. jesus was put on the cross for a reason for which he was unpopular. Judging is a condemning attitude of one sinner toward another –especially repugnant when the finger-pointer is doing the same sins. Proclaiming the Bible’s standards of right and wrong is education.
July 3, 2010, 1:18 amBarb says:
The problem when Jesus protected the adulteress from stoning was that men who Jesus says have all lusted in their hearts and thus, also, committed adultery, were trying to stone an adulteress –so Jesus says he who is without sin could cast the first stone. And then told the woman to “go and sin no more.”
What we have today is different. People are saying that sin is not sin–that we can all do whatever we want and anyone who disagrees is judgmental and unloving. Jesus said marriage of man to woman was God’s plan since creation of man and woman. He said God hates divorce because it promotes adultery. The Bible says men should stay with the “wife of your youth” and not cast her aside for a younger model–or a young man.
I’m not judging anyone to say these things; I don’t know how any of you live, for example, that I could “judge” you –but I hear what you say and I’m telling you what the Bible says–whether or not you know it already–and yes, I’m “preachin’” –or “telling forth the Word of God –from the Scriptures.” That’s not judging. I’m not trying to throw any kind of stones at anyone. But homosexuals and their defenders, abortionists and their defenders, consider it “stoning” to have someone proclaim the Bible’s view on sexuality and marriage and life in the womb. It’s not stoning. I’m not wishing anyone to be punished or suffer damnation –but if the Bible is true, we ALL need to repent for sin –and need to agree with God about what IS sin and what is not. We can’t make up our own definitions.
WEll, actually, we DO try to define sin for ourselves –and the latest definition of sin is: intolerance of sin and naming sins –yet, the Bible names sins and is intolerant of sin. Nowhere did Jesus Christ condone immorality or suggest it doesn’t matter. He just said none of us is more sinless than any other that we don’t need to repent. “All we like sheep have gone astray, every one unto his own way.” “There is none righteous, no not one.” “All have sinned and come short of God’s glory.”
Jesus tells us not to bother the sinner about the mote in his eye until we’ve removed the beam from our own eyes. THEN, he says we can help with the mote in another’s eye. He saw that the Pharisees were uncompassionate, arrogant, and sinners in their hearts–devoid of humility about themselves and compassion for others. He stresses over and over that we are all sinners in need of repentance and salvation–and He gives it freely for trusting and following Him.
July 3, 2010, 1:44 amOrenWithAnE says:
I prefer John 12:47 for these situations:
That is indeed horrific.
By “we”, I mean the American people and our policies and laws. I was never suggesting that we allow just anyone to call anything a “pinprick” regardless of what it actually is.
July 3, 2010, 10:08 amBarb says:
You need the whole passage, Oren. He does say elsewhere that he will separate sheep from goats –the sheep to eternal life and the goats to damnation.
July 3, 2010, 10:59 amArthur Kirkland says:
Just like the Animal House script, a similarly rich source of wisdom.
“Knowledge Is Good.”
July 3, 2010, 11:47 amOrenWithAnE says:
No, he says that his Father will judge.
July 3, 2010, 12:26 pmBleh says:
You don’t expect her to understand any interpretation that doesn’t support her preconceived viewpoint do you? Someone has obviously already told her exactly what god was/is thinking years ago…
July 3, 2010, 4:46 pmArthur Kirkland says:
That’s what the Dover school board said (until adult supervision arrived).
July 3, 2010, 5:23 pm