I was reading this Mark Steyn article (sent by Maggie and two other friends), Nicking Our Public Discourse when I came across this:
Last week, the American Association of Pediatricians noted that certain, ahem, “immigrant communities” were shipping their daughters overseas to undergo “female genital mutilation.” So, in a spirit of multicultural compromise, they decided to amend their previous opposition to the practice: They’re not (for the moment) advocating full-scale clitoridectomies, but they are suggesting federal and state laws be changed to permit them to give a “ritual nick” to young girls.
This is a total affront not only to women’s bodies, but also a negation of a physician’s duty to report abuse when found.
Steyn continues:
A few years back, I thought even fainthearted Western liberals might draw the line at “FGM.” After all, it’s a key pillar of institutional misogyny in Islam: Its entire purpose is to deny women sexual pleasure. True, many of us hapless Western men find we deny women sexual pleasure without even trying, but we don’t demand genital mutilation to guarantee it. On such slender distinctions does civilization rest.
Look the rag heads mutilate millions of girls a year and the physicians simply want a cut of the action. I mean if you can ethically kill a girl before she is born, what is wrong with mutilating her after she is born. It all just business.
a) Not that it matters, but Steyn does have a trivial part wrong, and that is that it’s the American Academy of Pediatrics. Just FYI.
b) Here’s the policy in question Feel free to go there and, in their “contact us” section express your opinion of this barbaric practice, and anyone who condones it to any level.
c) Not to start an abortion debate, david, even if one doesn’t AGREE with it, there is at least a potential distinction between an unborn fetus below a certain point and a full grown child. It’s a rational one, and the vast majority of arguments in favor of the dividing line being where you would have it are religious in nature. Last I checked, the law wasn’t supposed to be explicitly based on religion.
d) I want to know where the hypocrites like NOW are when crap like this comes up. The silence is deafening.