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The Nation's Pulse
AAP Gives FGM an AOK
The American Academy of Pediatrics proposes a strange new approach to female genital mutilation.
In 1996, it became illegal in the United States to perform the operation commonly called “female genital mutilation” (FGM). That law makes it clear that surgery is allowable only for specific medical conditions. Appallingly, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) now wants to “compromise” the legal prohibition and allow physicians to perform a ceremonial “nick” on the genitalia of baby girls whose parents request the procedure. Clearly, the AAP capitulated their principles for political expediency. They excused their “nuanced” and “culturally sensitive” decision on the basis that “some families might take their daughters to other countries” for the entire “circumcision,” so their “compromise” is meant to “avoid greater harm.”
It is an open secret that the procedure is meant for baby girls born into families among the 10 million Islamic followers in the United States. As Mark Steyn put it: FGM is a “key pillar of institutional misogyny in Islam: Its entire purpose is to deny women sexual pleasure.”
The brutal FGM procedure is not a medical procedure; instead it is a cultural, religious, or social practice. The underground practice of altering or removing the female genital organs is common in some African, Asian, and/or Islamic countries such as Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, and Mali. Actually, the procedure is prohibited in Africa, “in order to eradicate” the practice. The African Protocol on the Rights of Women prohibits “in all states” all forms of “female genital mutilation, scarification, medicalisation and para-medicalisation in order to eradicate them.”
How ironic that those living where the practice is most common are trying to “eradicate” the procedure, while here in the United States where the practice is rare, there is a move to downplay the serious nature of the practice by introducing a lesser degree of the procedure. How ironic, too, that international progress condemning the procedure has expanded, while here in the U.S. a medical association recommends compromising our revulsion against the practice.
The World Health Organization estimates that about 140 million girls and women have endured clitoridectomies (typically performed between infancy and 15 years old) and live with the consequences — which, in addition to the immediate dangers of infection and severe bleeding, can include long term problems such as repeated urinary tract infections and childbirth complications. The procedures are sometimes done under less than ideal circumstances and with crude implements — without anesthesia and without sterilized instruments.
The supposedly intelligent physicians in the AAP are endorsing a policy for a brutal, sexist, non-medical procedure that is universally condemned. Their own 1998 statement recognized FGM as a human rights violation, and they opposed “perpetuating a social practice with cultural implications for the status of women.” Today, however, AAP members are more enlightened; they no longer use the acronym, FGM, choosing instead to recommend “female genital cutting (FGC) or ritual genital cutting.” These terms are meant to be “neutral” and “descriptive” rather than culturally insensitive. Ironically, they oppose only those forms of FGM which “pose the risk of physical or psychological harm” — as if ritual “nicks” have no such risks. One writer described the “harm reduction” as similar to “the difference between amputation and laceration.”
In other words, instead of protecting infants, children, and young girls, the AAP employs a “philosophical equivocation” to accommodate an inhumane Islamic practice that disfigures and subjugates its women and denies them normal lives as wives and mothers. Worse, the AAP accommodation gives legitimacy to a barbaric and illegal practice and ensures its continuation as a cultural rite of passage.
As a countermeasure — and, on the same day that the AAP issued its statement — Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-New York) and Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R-California) introduced H.R. 5137, The Girls Protection Act, a bill that will expand the current federal law by making it illegal to take a girl to another country to be circumcised.
In addition to the legal prohibitions against FGM, mothers have been a formidable obstacle to the procedure because they don’t want their daughters to suffer through the same procedure and its aftermath that they have endured. Decent people around the world have joined with those mothers to decry the inhumanity of FGM. How sad that the AAP is choosing to weaken the case of those mothers by providing an alternative for their daughters that will perhaps weaken those mothers’ valid concerns and strengthen the case of those who want to continue the brutality of the practice.
What will the AAP recommend next? Perhaps, as Equality Now suggested, they can come up with a less binding way of “foot binding”!
Letter to the Editor View all comments (49) | Leave a comment
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Stephanie| 5.25.10 @ 6:16AM
Oh my God.
Stephanie| 5.25.10 @ 9:27PM
Meaning what? Don't tell me you're for t his barbaric act. And yes, he is my God.
Truman| 5.25.10 @ 6:29AM
This is disgusting. Why are these people still being paid to develop such legal and moral frauds?
Face the horror and ban it. Should cannibalism be permitted, maybe just a taste, because some societies have traditionally practiced it? How can such a misogynistic practice be permitted? How can women be reduced to second- or third-class citizens in our allegedly equal society? This is horrible almost beyond words.
bluecollarbytes| 5.25.10 @ 7:46AM
Stories like these had the late Paul Harvey recognizing that "we are not one world". We will set our own destiny in America or capitulate to every 'cultural difference' imposed upon us by the worst among us.
Tom in Michigan| 5.25.10 @ 7:48AM
This is yet another example of the evil that is Islam and its incursion into civilization through "Shariah by inches." Each time one of our institutions allows one more incursion by this pure evil (don't dispute this; what could be more evil than cutting off the labia and clitoris of a young child? How will some moronic leftist justify this barbarity in subsequent posts?) American society declines just a bit more.
This is the result of the repugnant gospel of political correctness whereby all cultures are equal, regardless of the depravity they represent.
Kal | 5.28.10 @ 8:21AM
What could be more evil than this 7th century sadism? Ask Sara and Amina Said. Oops, you can't, their loving muslim father shot and killed them to ring in 2009, in Dallas Texas. Of course the media covered it up.
Melvin| 5.25.10 @ 8:15AM
The above practice just wants me to run out to the nearest mosque and convert. The merciful and peaceful religion of Islam, yea right.
You know people, Americans are slowly getting their fill of Liberal organizations supporting barbaric practices that are practiced by a illiterate savage people and a equally illiterate savage religion.
I'm sorry, after reading this I've become real damn short on political correctness.
It is beyond the pale of human decency in why immigrants would immigrate to this Country for a better life only to practice this act of human depravity upon their daughters.
This act is not done by women to women it is done by Muslim men who want to demean, to control, and to subjugate females to their male masters, under the approving gaze of Muhammad .
A man that does this to his daughters is not a father, but an animal that should be put out of his misery. And I also fault Muslim women who stand by and do nothing through the centuries while they allow this unspeakable act against another human being.
This is the United States of America, not Somilia, not Asia, Sudan, or some other shit-hole of human depravity. If these immigrants wish to practice this act then they should be immediately deported back to their 12th Century existence.
Damn I'm steamed, that we as a civilized nation can even think about condoning this ancient behavior.
Charles Martel| 5.25.10 @ 1:30PM
After the word "convert" I would insert the phrase "it to rubble".
In this and all related matters, let us review the observations of the wise Winston Churchill.
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property - either as a child, a wife, or a concubine - must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. ... [T]he influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. ... [W]ere it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science - the science against which it had vainly struggled - the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."
We are locked in a war we did not start, and one of the fronts therein is our own culture, which is under vigorous assault by these barbarians. We must not flag or fail; we must fight wherever imperial Mohammedanism lifts its ugly head or whenever it seeks to build a monument on the site of its victory; we must never surrender. We must go on to the end, and that end shall be a time when the koran is read only in Hell.
Deus vult.
+++
PJ| 5.25.10 @ 8:24AM
AAP is the same depraved organization that wants girls to be vaccinated w/Gardisil. They assume ALL girls are going to have sexual intercourse by the time they're 13! They're going after the boys too. This will probably be the same organization that will decide (DHS will most likely take AAP's advice.) on the protocols taken to administer various medical procedures, medications, tests....for children under Obamacare.
amin | 5.27.10 @ 12:58AM
PJ,
HPV prevalence data from the CDC:
20-31% by age 19.
36-55% by age 25.
(the report can be accessed by clicking on my name)
JimH| 5.25.10 @ 8:41AM
I think the West needs to restore of of it's former attitude. Such as Sir Charles Napier. When refusing the plea of some Brahmins of Sindh to allow suttee: "It is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and hang them."
Dan Hirsch| 5.25.10 @ 8:49AM
HEY, AAP!
Weren't you all supposed to take a pledge that started out with:
"First, do no harm..."
You must not be doctors then. You must be something else, what then? Veterinarians? Spiritualists? No, I've got it, you are all CHIROPRACTORS.
With deepest and sincerest apologies to all professionals practicing the useful and helpful science of chiropracty. I laugh here at the self-important, godless yet cowardly behavior of some in the medical field. Mostly those who don't practice, but preach to the practitioners, who are too busy to preach...
Louis Jenkins| 5.25.10 @ 9:31AM
Well here they go again!! Now they're cutting up the womenfolk. When will this BS ever stop? What's next? I shutter to think about it. It's time to stand for freedom and liberty, not a bunch of towel headed wrong way men (and women). You've asked where are the women? Why they're standing in the corner scared out of their wits. Where's the physicians? They're standing behind the women. Bunch of crap if you ask me.
Ken (Old Texican)| 5.25.10 @ 9:41AM
Just one question.
Why in hell are there not 50 million American women marching in the streets on behalf of their "sisters" around the world including the US now?
MTB| 5.25.10 @ 7:17PM
I know I'm really late on this, but I've been busy all day, but I'm going to respond, anyway.
They will as soon as they can find a way to blame Bush for this evil practice. Once they make the connection, they'll march in the street.
KyMouse| 5.25.10 @ 9:58AM
You beat me to it, Ken. Why aren't the so-called feminists up in arms about this?
Since the mutliation is intended to deprive young women of sexual pleasure, you'd think that the Planned Parenthood crowd, at the very least, would be speaking out against it. They encourage all forms of sexual exploration and activity for youngsters (see plannedparenthood.org/teen-talk).
NavyBrat | 5.25.10 @ 11:19AM
Ken & KYMouse, you both took the thought right outta my head. Where, indeed, are the NOW Nags & other assorted "women's rights" groups? Where have they been for a while, regarding the pratices of the "religion of peace?" Yes, the only religion that needs to constantly remind the world that they're a "religion of peace." Right.
amin | 5.27.10 @ 12:37AM
Please read the actual policy statement:
JP| 5.25.10 @ 11:53AM
Radical Islam doesn't need violent jihadists - our elites will do all the heavy lifting for them. Watch closely these next few years. You won't believe how quickly we will surrender - one act at a time.
Look at ground zero in Manhatten. It's been nearly a decade and the elites cannot come up with a plan to rebuild there. But, it only took them months to agree to zoning permits for a $100 million mosque, abptly named The Cordova Center. I don't believe everyone knows the history behind this name, and what it means to Islam. Try looking up the Caliphate of Cordova. To Muslims, this is no small thing.
So, on the one hand our medical elites wish to "compromise" with Islam concerning a horrendous religious practice; an on the other hand, our political elites wish to surrender to Islam sacred ground where 3000 victims were murdered by radical jihadists.
And somehow these same elitists are risking the lives of our servicemen in a far away land while they surrender at home.
Gary| 5.25.10 @ 12:24PM
Maybe these devout Muslim men ought to have THEIR precious equipment cut off as young lads. This practice on girls is an abomination.
MTB| 5.25.10 @ 7:18PM
Now you're talking, Gary. Great idea!
New Englander| 5.25.10 @ 2:48PM
The APP is doing this to capitulate to the religion that makes drawing a picture of mohammed or accidently tearing a page in the koran punishable by death. Anyone with kids should ask their pediatrician if they plan to perform this "procedure." If the doctor answer "yes" or refuses to answer the parent should take the kids elsewhere.
Ken (Old Texican)| 5.25.10 @ 3:08PM
Folks,
The day of reckoning is at hand. Hunker down, go liquid, and keep your gas tank full.
SC Dave| 5.25.10 @ 4:23PM
I find it hard to say in words how much this disgusts me, that an American association would actually condone this. According to their website they AAP says that they are "committed to the attainment of optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. "
How the hell is female genital mutilation optimal to any of these goals? The members of AAP should demand that whomever came up with this stance resign immediately, but I some how doubt that will ever happen.
Our enemy does not need to worry about defeating us militarily, we will destroy ourselves trying to assure them we mean no harm to them by accommodating their every whim.
amin | 5.27.10 @ 12:41AM
"Parents should be reminded that performing FGC is illegal and constitutes child abuse in the United States."
Please read the actual policy statement before jumping to the conclusions.
Matt| 5.25.10 @ 5:07PM
Muslims don't want women to enjoy sex, or else they might be able to make up their own mind about who they want to have sex with. This is a brutal crime against women, whether its a 'tradition' or a 'ritual', its still intended only to mutilate the female genitilia. Why would we EVER allow this to happen in the US?
amin | 5.27.10 @ 12:47AM
We're not allowing it in the US. You can see for yourself by clicking on the link (my name) and reading the actual policy statement by the AAP.
WAKE UP| 5.25.10 @ 9:26PM
We've been here before on this topic, and there's only one thing to say to the traitorous fools who want to sanction this: first, do it to your own daughter - and it'll be the last thing you do.
Jack| 5.26.10 @ 2:10PM
Male and female genital cutting are different as men and women. FGM in particular has many varieties. Clitoral hood and labia cutting is actually less severe than male circumcision as practiced here in the US. That does not make it okay, but it must be kept in mind that male circumcision amputates more pleasure giving nerve endings than the clitoris has.
Male circumcision is nerve damage -- a cutting off about 20000 fine touch and stretch sensing nerve endings and removing a source of pleasure from the male FOR LIFE. This is 2/3 of the total pleasure source amputated! This is nerves, blood vessels, protective covering and pleasure zones taken away from a human before the human can experience this. The dynamics and function and pleasure from sex and masturbation of the penis is harmed for good.
If you are aginst FGM like I am you should also be against MGM.
Karen| 5.26.10 @ 7:38PM
Jack, you say "clitoral hood and labia cutting is actually less severe than male circumcision as practiced here in the US".
Who have you been listening to? When a male is circumcised he is still able to enjoy sex, when a girl has her genitals mutilated there is no enjoyment for her during sex for the rest of her life.
amin | 5.27.10 @ 12:45AM
I'm with Karen on this. Even though both procedures are culturally driven, a clitorectomy is the equivalent of cutting off the glans penis (the head). Some of these procedures are even much worse than that.
For the most part, though, most people commenting on this story are severely mis-informed. The author should have included a link to the actual policy paper which is freely available online. (you can get there by clicking on my name above).
Rich Rostrom| 5.26.10 @ 10:56PM
A few points in reference. FGM is not "Islamic". There is nothing in the Koran or the Hadiths about it. Dozens of prominent Islamic scholars have denounced it. Nor is it a general practice among Moslems. It is rare in Turkey and in Iran except among Kurds, and unusual in the Gulf States (except among African guest workers), unknown in Algeria, Morocco, and Bangladesh. It's found across a wide swath of north-east Africa, even in predominantly Christian Ethiopia. The extreme form (infibulation) is almost exclusively a Somali cultural tradition. Medical clitoridectomy is practiced in Egypt to desexualize girls, many of whom volunteer for it. It was revived by non-Moslem Kenyan nationalists in the 1950s as a defiance of "white cultural imperialism".
So it is not just a form of Islamic oppression. However, the extreme misogyny of Moslem culture often fosters FGM (vide Egypt), and results in lax enforcement of laws against FGM.
amin | 5.27.10 @ 12:39AM
Please read the actual policy statement and make up your own mind. (You can get there by clicking on my name.)
amin| 5.27.10 @ 1:00AM
Directly from the actual policy statement:
"Parents should reminded that performing FGC is illegal and constitutes child abuse in the United States."
soledadcross| 5.27.10 @ 2:07AM
Correction: There are about one to two million Muslims in the US not 10 million.
SOLIPSLIP| 5.27.10 @ 5:09PM
amin,
I read the full statement. What conclusions am I jumping to? The AAP allows some forms of laceration, but only those that don't cause harm.
What "precisely" are those types of cutting? Give an example, please.
solipslip| 5.27.10 @ 9:07PM
Probably a small incision much like what already circumcised males have to undergo when adopting Judaism. The policy clearly states that anything that has any negative health consequences is illegal and unethical. As a future pediatrician, I'm kind of insulted that so many people would assume that the American Academy of Pediatrics would do what the vast majority of commenters and the author of this article suggest. It's kinda ridiculous. The point is to save girls from mutilation, not to mutilate them ourselves.
amin| 5.27.10 @ 9:08PM
that last comment was from amin, not solipslip. (don't know how that happened but I was trying to address solipslip.)
Gerald Stephens| 5.27.10 @ 7:26PM
WHAT THE HELL...
is your problem? Pediatricians are highly educated folks just trying to scrape up a few extra bucks to pay their education loans. They also understand they must create new cash paying markets to offset Obama's 'brave new world' medical practice.
Have you no empathy? Please, lighten up!
amin| 5.28.10 @ 12:11AM
as a soon to be pediatrician I have to say that I'm much better off after the legislation that passed. Why? Better terms of my student loans and higher pay as a primary care physician. Seems like ignorance is not limited to Left-leaning people.
jfkd| 7.1.10 @ 4:04AM
beijing massage
Anupragamindi Sidharashithenum| 7.1.10 @ 1:14PM
I use my real name so that, perhaps, the anonymous racists commenting here will read my words carefully.
First of all, yes, the most extreme forms of genital mutilation are severe, and to be abhorred. And yes, many communities began the procedure as a means of sexually subduing their daughters.
Many commentators in this thread seem to be misguided past that. For instance, FGM is NOT A STANDARD MUSLIM PRACTICE!!! There are nearly a billion practicing muslims in the world, and they do often differ in their customs and practices. Lets stop the muslim bashing for the behavior of certain sects, lest I conclude that all Christians are weak-willed against pedophilia based on the inactions of one particular large flock.
Second of all, I will give pediatricians the benefit of the doubt on this one - I had one when I was little, I rather liked her. I'm sure many of you remember your pediatrician fondly as well. I doubt they are as uniformly immoral and greedy as some here profess to believe.
I assume they are doing their best to protect girls they see with grotesque injuries, or worse yet, terrible complications including severe infection or psycological trauma. And really, Is a needle prick, or nick, really that bad? We allow worse to happen to our boys.
We argue that the procedure is inherently sexist and oppressive, and perhaps it is, but trying to bury it will only perpetuate the harm done. Many Christians in this country wouldn't know, but when you believe, and someone trys to ban your traditions, you tend to hold on even harder. The Jews are experts on this subject.
Why is it that no one advocates for compromise anymore? And why do we assume that the ceremony, as practiced today, is necessarily oppressive? Many people who currently seek FGM do not want to harm their children, but do perceive the procedure as an important sign of membership in the community.
I'm sure many parents have had the same fears about letting their sons be cut. And while I'm on the subject, male circumcision is just as oppressive to women - what is it if not a celebration of a MAN joining the club? What do Jewish girls get upon their arrival on this Earth?
Compromise, reduce the harm, and make the practice into something celebratory, or oppress a practice and push the most severe forms ever further underground.
Judging from how America operates today, I think I know what you'll all choose. It's a shame too - no one will notice the mutilated girls in the decades that follow.
Anna| 1.7.11 @ 2:00PM
As long as the male parent is willing to undergo a complete castration, I see nothing wrong with it :)
Katie| 1.26.11 @ 5:12PM
Blind uhmerikan fools again! Most of Europe gave up circumcising male infants long ago and look at the US as a bunch of irrational barbarians for blindly doing it without having a good reason other than cultural identity. It happens everyday here and no one blinks an eye except for the boys. Just because it's not our practice, it must be soooo wrong, but how many of you have given the go-ahead to have your boys circumcised? Use your brains people - such violations of innocent bodies is violence anywhere.