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.
I hate that I am a victim of mutilation!!! Give me a knife and the doctor who did this to me and a week vacation in a secluded spot. Justice would be SERVED!!!!
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