American Academy of Pediatrics reverses course, no longer accepts "symbolic" female genital mutilation

"The Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians will next month discuss backing "ritual nicks", a modified form of genital mutilation."
----------------
Seems we take three steps forward, then 2.5 steps back.

I wonder what a "modified" form of genital mutilation would be for boys, if that ever became as controversial an issue as FGM is (it ought to be but it isn't)?

Will groups like the AAP someday say:

"We won't amputate the foreskin, we will just pinch and slightly crush said foreskin with clamps -- we'll call it a 'male nicking procedure.' That will allow us to be able to say that at least we did SOMETHING to his genitals in order to please his parents/culture/Rabbi/Imam/whomever/whatever needs to be satisfied by such a medically useless and demonstrably harmful 'procedure' that is, in fact, a sexual assault and mutilation performed on a child by an adult."

IMO circumcision for anyone, female or male, should be outlawed worldwide -- except in cases of REAL medical necessity, which would be exceedingly rare.

"IMO circumcision for anyone, female or male, should be outlawed worldwide -- except in cases of REAL medical necessity, which would be exceedingly rare."

I agree, Eleanor ...it is a barbaric practice.

American Academy of Pediatrics reverses course, no longer accepts "symbolic" female genital mutilation
............

Finally—some sanity. I was looking for us to see the American Medical Association (AMA) next approving "wrist nicks" as an alternative for full amputations, and "throat nicks" as an alternative for full beheadings.

Zulu wrote:

The Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians will next month discuss backing "ritual nicks", a modified form of genital mutilation.
............

Ahh—the dhimmitude never ends, does it? Zulu, please keep us posted on how this goes.

"Old Nick " is an excellent observation, swami.

"The most absurd aspect of the original AAP policy enunciation was that "ritual nicking" by American pediatricians would help lead to the eradication of FGM?"

Another example of magical thinking by dhimmi doctors. We probably should feel lucky that AAP did not propose the eradication of peadophilia by legalizing marriage to Pree- matured girls. That would have made the dickheads in the cult of Mo overexcited with joy and caused dancing in the streets. And more raped children of course.

Eleanor, I just wanted to express my thanks. It hasn't happened on this particular thread yet (and I'll pray that trend continues), but when I read horror and indignation at the thought of FGM in the same breath as endorsement or even praise for male cutting, I nearly throw up.

"If people do not wish to be circumcized, then they should not do it."

Respectfully, Hillel--that's just the problem. When you're a matter of hours old and can't tell the Torah from a phonebook, it's oftentimes difficult to express that no, my genitals are not in fact public domain, and you're just too helpless to break the restraints and stuff the blades into their eyes. So if you're truly satisfied with your cutting, I'm genuinely happy for you. Still, isn't there at least some small part of you that wishes it was YOUR call?

Be that as it may, if we're going to justify it as a religious requirement, that may be too close for comfort from the very thing we're vocalizing against on this thread than we'd probably care to admit. And as I've commented once before, if we're supposed to be made in His image, well...... isn't cutting off the best part of the male sex organ blasphemous, then?

You'll have to pardon me for putting it like this, but to defend genital mutilation for either gender and deny any child their birthright of intact, functional genitals is like trying to argue FOR rape. There simply aren't "two sides to the story" when it's a matter of what's right versus what's wrong.

That's interesting.

Since male circumcision is under discussion, I have to say that - being married to a Gentile Christian male who (like many of his generation in the early 1960s) underwent the procedure in infancy, just like his Jewish fellow-citizens, only in his case done by a doctor not a mohel - it does not appear to me to be in any way equivalent to FGM.

It does not appear to affect male sexual response in any obvious way, let alone having any appreciable effect on the man's ability to urinate, or his general health.

Whereas all forms of FGM covered by the Shafii school of sharia, involve *total excision of the clitoris*. A circumcised man can climax; a woman who has had her clitoris sliced out, right down to its root, simply cannot. The additional mutilations that are usually combined with the sadistic, permanent destruction of the woman's centre of pleasure, damage or wholly destroy the rest of the woman's external genitalia, rendering intercourse painful and difficult; they make childbirth far more dangerous (with increased risk of severe injury, such as fistulas); and often cause the woman to suffer from retention of urine and menses, which in turn inflicts pain and promotes nasty chronic pelvic, bladder and kidney infections (I doubt that any normally-circumcised male has any difficulty urinating nor suffers increased frequency of UTIs; my husband certainly has never suffered from anything of the sort).

In terms of the scale and nature of the physical trauma involved, the percentage of those undergoing the procedure who die as a result of it either at the time or because of the damage done to their system, and the long-term major negative effects on sexual function and general health, I think FGM is far, far more destructive than male circumcision.

DDA, for the record, I've enjoyed reading your thoughts for a quite a long time now (long time lurker, and it takes something like this to get me to sign up, it seems). I respect you as a brilliant woman, and as such, I would IMPLORE you to please re-examine your position on male cutting. We simply know better in America these days, and thankfully fewer and fewer parents are buying the outdated myths, half-truths and outright lies of male mutilation. And it IS mutilation, and it's really getting my goat to see this fact denied--to mutilate is to damage or remove a normal, healthy, functioning part of a penis. It leaves a scar, a sign left after the wound has "healed." Therefore, this is a form of mutilation.

If you would humor me on this, here is a very brief yet to the point place to look for an overview:

http://www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org/DOC/circumcision_quiz.htm

Perhaps male cutting is indeed lesser of an evil than FGM. However, to condemn one yet let the other slide is a cop-out. In both cases, the procedure is unnecessary and extremely painful. They both can (and DO) have adverse sexual and psychological effects. They're both generally performed by force on kids with no anesthesia. The practices tend to both be supported by local docs. Pertinent biological facts are denied in both cases. They're both defended with reasons such as tradition, religion, aesthetics, cleanliness and health ("that's just how we've always done it"--some traditions need to be pissed on from a great height). The rationale in both started from the need to control sexual pleasure. They're both believed to have no effect on normal sexual function. The practices both tend to be accepted and supported by their victims. The decisions for both tend to come from men. Critical public discussion is generally taboo where they're done. They can both lead to death, and the short and long term effects are kept repressed and denied.

While I know I'm probably getting off topic by this point, I have to include this quote from Paul to the Galatians when it comes to the notion that ripping, crushing and cutting the most sensitive part of a boy is somehow a "Christian" thing to do.

Gal. 5:6: "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love."

WoW! I never knew before that the great "DDA" is a woman! I am heartened by this revelation!

Now, on to bizzness:

I agree that FGM is far, far worse and more destructive than MGM, but the bottom line, for me, is that NO CIRCUMSCISION would be the ideal policy.

A little boy is born perfect -- except for that highly erogenus and sensitive appendage that serves to protect his penis...?

I myself have no sons and so I've not been faced with the decision, but I've heard mothers say: "I want him to look just like his daddy."

That's been the excuse in my family, at least.

Well, if his daddy has multiple piercings and tatoos all up and down his trunk, arms and legs (think Jesse James), would it be okay to pierce and tat the newborn boy as well, so that he continues to "look" like his daddy?

Or, should a decision involving the amputation of a significant portion of the skin on his penis -- many times for purely cosmetic purposes -- be left to the boy himself when he's old enough to understand and make his own decision?

I also understand, though I cannot find the link to the article I read, that male circumcision and foreskin "production" is a very lucrative business for hospitals, and that could be a reason its still so commonplace and not actively discouraged (yet).

Anyway, back to FGM: It is horribly destructive in any form whatsoever, and really should have been abandoned long ago as an embarassingly barbaric practice of primitive peoples in ancient times.

I don't know if there are intelligent aliens out there somewhere, but if there are and they ever visit earth wanting to learn all about all the things our species does, I surely wouldn't want to be the human who has to explain Genital Mutilation (in any form) to them.

As Hugh might say,

Errata sheet:

"erogenous" not "erogenus"

Hi again, Eleanor. Would this happen to be the article you were thinking of?

http://www.drmomma.org/2009/10/foreskins-in-oprahs-facecream.html

Maybe I'm supposed to feel honored that perhaps it's MY foreskin that someone decided I didn't deserve to have that's keeping Ms. Winfrey's face "beautiful" and youthful. Guess that's the closest to cold comfort boys of my generation can hope for. 100% "cruelty free."

And once again, I thank you for calling out the BS on the notion that the father wants the child to "look like them." Papas, check your ego at the nursery door. Frankly, I'm pleased to report that I got most of my looks from mom's side anyway, thank God for small favors.

"Or, should a decision involving the amputation of a significant portion of the skin on his penis -- many times for purely cosmetic purposes -- be left to the boy himself when he's old enough to understand and make his own decision?"

Well put. I hope to see this garbage made illegal within my lifetime, at least. As I've already told the long suffering woman that I love, if she puts up with me long enough for her to have a son from me, I will personally stand guard over him at the nursery until it's time to come home. I'm not even entirely sure how I'm going to react if they even dare ask (just in case I've been too subtle thus far, this and Islam are two major hot buttons for me).

I had just heard the other day from a pet shop proprietor that I chat with that it seems it's now illegal to dock the ears and tails of dogs for purely cosmetic purposes, and there are stiff penalties for vets caught doing so. Charming, I thought. Now that's a warm and fuzzy knowing that dogs, much as I do love them, are more protected than infant males in my country. There are just times I'm ashamed of us all.

(Thank you all for bearing with me.)

As always, that graphic of the banana at the top of you link is simply charming. Seems to me if I were trying to argue the case for male cutting, I'd leave that kind of stuff off my page. Then again, I suppose it does help lighten the mood and further trivializes things. After all, whatever we can laugh at, we can keep doing.

All trauma related to circumcision is purely anecdotal and must be discounted? This Aussie clown needs to join the 21st century already (or the 20th, for that matter). So childhood by its very nature is stressful and traumatic, fine--I'll buy that. So why do have to go and throw gasoline on the fire in the case of American sons? Would the author of this story similarly invite himself into a rape victims support group and inform them all that they weren't really victimized, either?

While I can't provide a handy link to it at this very moment, and since links are only so valuable to begin with (case in point, the "circinfo.net" conveniently provided above, which is page after page of the bullsh*t I was lamenting earlier), it seems there have indeed been attempts to study the short and long term effects of routine male cutting, and the results were predictably horrifying. However, the researching doctors were ordered to cease, and were reprimanded. Basically, what the hospital was saying was that we're going to just go ahead and continue to perform this atrocity despite the fact that there are no proven benefits--none, zero, zilch, nada, niente, but to look at it with enough of a critical eye to study the effects? Now THAT we simply can't have. And unfortunately, as long as this thinking goes unchallenged, seems it's all up to the parents to do what's right. And there really shouldn't be any question about what that is. Whose body is this? I really don't believe this is any different of a case from any other matter of basic human rights.

Just a Concerned Citizen:

I thought this was an interesting article about how infant pain was dealt with from the 19th century until about the mid 1970's. The standard medical thought was, apparently, that neonates were incapable of feeling pain (not "developed" enough). I talked to a retired doctor friend of my fathers once and he said that train of thought was standard years ago, and that even though he never performed circumcisions, he had colleagues who did, and they wonderded why the infants alway screamed bloody murder if they couldn't feel pain? (and that was when there was absolutely NO attempt to anesthetize anything)

http://www.tranquility.net/~rwinkel/MGM/blog/chamberlain.html

Thanks, Eleanor. Yes, it seems that for the longest time, American docs out to make that extra grand a week by skinning infants told us that the only reason for their "fussiness" was the restraints. Now while I'm sure that was no picnic, I'm appalled that it's taken this long for anyone to really call them on this obvious flat-out lie. While I really hate thinking of it in these terms (since believe it or not, I'm a actually more of a feminist than most of the XX-choromosomed I chat with), it seems that the underlying attitude in western society is that any amount of pain and violence is okay, just so long as it's boys who are the receivers. And after reading the book "Circumcision: The Hidden Trauma--How an American Cultural Practice Affects Infants and Ultimately Us All" by Ronald Goldman, Ph.D., I am convinced that it's been biting us on the collective behind the last century.

From your article: "Another 'medical' argument for circumcision is that it lowers the rate of cervical cancer in future sexual partners. the fact that nuns have a higher rate of cervical cancer than wives and other sexually-active women makes circumcision irrelevant." Now there's one I would love being able to throw back at the misguided, idiotic, or just plain sadistic individuals who still support this practice and want to play the 'hygienic' card. A shame that I wouldn't have anything else to back this up with, though........

Heh. Charming, Mike. Why not call me a "poopy face" while you're at it? Maybe it's just my paranoid nature, but seems you may be protesting a little too much?

So, standing up in defense of human beings who can't defend themselves nor their basic human rights means I'm going to be equated to the Nazis and the Commies. You'll have to pardon me for saying so, but I'd dare say that's kind of a stretch, but whatever, okey dokey. Been called worse, anyway. Because you know what, Mike? It's worth it. Chalk those right up there with "racist" and "islamophobe" for me.