Female circumcision under consideration by Australian doctors

[bunkers]

here

I'm horrified and left a bit speechless by this, but felt compelled to share. Everything should be done to protect baby girls from this butchery, not legitimising it .

There was a thread about this in the States recently.

My heart says under absolutely no circumstances should it be acceptable for anyone to mutilate a baby, even if it is just a small nick.

I do wonder if it would stop full circumcision going ahead though - but I don't think even a small nick is acceptable.

I think this is outrageous.

The whole premise of 'well a little bit of mutilation is better than them doing it anyway' is abhorrent to me.

It should be stamped out in all it's forms.

And what, really is the thinking behind it? Evil minds pass on evil thoughts, these babes, young girls, and young women are not the evil thinkers here....

'nicks'

I really object to the misuse of the word circumcision here. Circumcision is the removal of the foreskin for reasons of hygiene, religion, medicine or tradition. Women don't have a foreskin so to refer to circumcision is misleading and reduces the impact of the true situation. This is mutilation, nothing less.

It's not under consideration. It's being discussed at a college conference because of the US decision (apparently since rescinded).

The college is not going to discuss backing it, they're going to talk about what happened in the US, what motivated it and why etc.

It's dreadful reporting and typical News scaremongering.

A link to RANZCOG's explanation.

www.ranzcog.edu.au/media/index.shtml

The original report was more about the insidious drip of anti-immigrant sentiment that some media organisations seem to thrive on.

Interesting that a side headine says "Dutch doctors urge ban on circumcision on young boys".

Sorry, forgot to do the linky thing.

RANZCOG statement

Excellent point, Harpsichord, and would also point out that RANZCOG always refer to it as female genital mutilation and not as circumcision.

It's not going to happen. But it did unleash a flood of anti-muslim comments below the story on a range of news websites, which I think is the reason the story was published in the first place.

This is a barbaric practice which must be outlawed in every country of the world. It must always be called female genital mutilation and not circumcision as this gives this horrible practice a whiff of acceptability.

Why do men think that this is an acceptable thing to do to a baby?

I don't think this is just a muslim thing though, it goes on in certain African countries too.

There should be a UN/UNICEF directive to stamp this disgusting atrocity out once and for all.

for what its worth its not a muslim thing at all...

Looks like some bad journalism going on.

If anyone is interested in the threads discussing the US Paeds view on this and subsequent U-turn then you can see them
here and here.

If anyone is interested there is a charity called Forward which is "dedicated to advancing and safeguarding the health and rights of African girls and women, in particular female genital mutilation (FGM) and forced and child marriage."

Circumcision is the wrong word and misleading, as HCC has pointed out. Female genital mutilation much more accurate.

. It is a disgrace that this is still going on. It is barbaric and unecessary. A friend of ours married an Egyptian woman, she had part of her missing. He ensured his girl children weren't subject to this. Her family were astonished and angry and they don't live in Egypt any more.

Certain female circumcision practices are far less invasive than the operation routinely performed on male babies.

Some practitioners make only a symbolic pinprick. Others cut the clitoral hood, which is in fact analagous to male circumcision.

It would indeed be better for doctors to perform minimal procedures for symbolic purposes than to tacitly allow the more barbaric procedures undertaken by unlicensed practitioners.

SomeGuy

IMO - It is completely unacceptable for doctors to perform "minimal procedures for symbolic purposes" - this type of thing normalises the abhorrant practice of FGM.

I am also against MGM (male circumcision).

I see that you have a history of "debating" FGM/MGM on MN and that the thread got a bit heated.

Do you have any evidence that people contemplating FGM for their DD would find "a symbolic pinprick" to be an alternative?

Have you read the threads I linked to where the orginial position statement of the AAP was discussed?

Not sure what you mean, as I pointed out in the post you've linked above, some people DO find a symbolic pinprick to be quite acceptable as a form of female circumcision.

So yes, there is evidence.

If we are going to tolerate and regulate ritual male circumcision, we should do the same with female circumcision; there is no way one should be allowed and not the other -a century or so ago, boys were castrated by the Catholic Church for the purpose of singing, we've got rid of that but still tolerate circumcision of boys; just as we wouldn't confuse castration with circumcision, it's damaging to conflate backstreet infibulation with minimally invasive medical female circumcision.

In an ideal world both would be eliminated, but that's not reality.

With regards male circumcision, I was amazed when we lived on the US east coast for a while how prevelant it was. Nice boys from nice families were all done. It certainly wasn't something reserved for those of the Jewish faith. In fact, it was a very Waspish affluent thing to do.

I wonder how this came about? Misguided ideas about Hygeine?

Jodevizes, sadly it's women who aid and abet in the case of MGM; they are presumably quite oppressed or they would not be clamouring for it for daughters, or performing the 'operation' (it's mostly done by some older woman).