Open comment to Lydia Smith of International Business Times regarding circumcision and FGM

On Feb 5th, 2015, Lydia Smith wrote on International Business Times, an article called: "Why female genital mutilation is a very different issue to male circumcision"


Sorry Lydia, you drank the propaganda.

Let me ask you, would FGM carried on sterile conditions by medical personnel be permissible? Because it is done that way in Indonesia and Malaysia, and to a certain extent in Egypt. And yet, the WHO opposes medicalization of FGM. So, no, it's not a matter of whether it's done in sterile conditions or not, that is just a way to move people's emotions.

What's wrong about FGM is the lack of consent. Adults raising sharp instruments (whether sterile or not) to the genitals of children.

Now, male circumcision of CHILDREN. Also skips over consent. Skips over the rights of the child to physical integrity. Cutting through the skin of the child without medical necessity and without consent is medical violence.

Would FGM be permissible if there were no "adverse events" of infection and bleeding? No, because there would still be harm to the genitals.

When you remove the foreskin of a child, you are also harming his genitals. You are leaving a permanent scar. You are exteriorizing what is normally an internal structure, the glans. You are removing the mobile skin, between 1/3 to 1/2 of the skin of the shaft. You are skinning the genitalia.

Adverse events between 0.2 and 0.4%? That means that in the United States alone, there will be between 2,400 to 4,800 babies suffering adverse events every year. Does that have any value to you Lydia? Are you blind?

"adverse events, which are usually minor" but not always. Some of them are life threatening. Some are life altering. Bleeding, on a baby, can be lethal before the parents even realize it. Operator error can destroy the child's genitals, and it happens EVERY YEAR in the United States.

"Much less tissue is removed". Lydia, pricking, nicking, scratching the genitals of a female minor constitutes FGM, even if no tissue is removed. And that's pretty much what they do in Indonesia and Malaysia.

The AAP themselves recognized in 2010 that some forms of FGC (because they couldn't bring themselves to call it FGM) are less extensive than MC as practiced here.

How much tissue is there in a clitoral hood? How much tissue is there in a boy's foreskin? And yet, removing a clitoral hood (which is anatomically equivalent to a male foreskin) from a female minor in sterile conditions, constitutes FGM.

All children have a right to physical integrity Lydia. Not just their girls. Our boys too.