I see this has become a hot issue lately among those who claim to care about global human rights. What an outrage to circumcise these females at birth against their will. We have to protest them and make sure they know how to live according to Western ideas of child rearing (where men get to be circumcized instead?). Paradoxical taking into account that these same people deny Western superiority of customs in many other instances: greed, Christianity, Wal-Mart, sexism, racism, etc (all connected, of course).
What do you bet that the next administration uses this as an excuse to invade Sudan or some other African country as an excuse for stealing oil? And then when we oppose the war… “why do you want all these women getting their hoo-haws cut up? Why do you hate America?”
I don’t know much about the history or safety of the procedure. But it seems to me that the campaign to stop is part of a naive movement that seems to think that health is a recent phenomenon and without government regulating every action people will just die or drop off the face of the earth. People will never survive if health is up to the individual or unenlightened parents.
Just because the left is ofteninconsistent and insincere, it doesn’t mean that they don’t get any issues right. Personally, I agree. I think it is a human rights violation. It’s an invasion of property. Female circumcision goes beyond a parents right as a trustee.
Now, I don’t think government or anybody else has a right to intervene. The criminals and victim’s estates are all part of the same (usually extended) family and issues of justice should be solved internally.
Now, I might be wrong, but my understanding is that the main motivation for the custom is to improve fidelity in women by decreasing sexual drive and pleasure.
Personally, I think the whole practice is backward and immoral and should be seen in a similar light as pedophilia is seen. It is after all an invasion of a child’s body. These types of barbarians ought to be criticized and ostracized.
Just a point on sematics: female circumcision is the removal of the clitoral hood, and as far as I know, it isn’t practiced on children in any culture.
Seems funny that male circumcision it not high on the issue list, considering it is done primarily for the same reason, (the foreskin has the most nerve endings).
Both are used to deny pleasure, one seems not so much of a problem because it is part of a backward and immoral act of a widespread religion, instead of one being part of a backward and immoral act of a minority religion and culture in remote ares around SA, Africa, and Asia.
At what age is this exactly done, because that greatly differs the situation?
But anyone who had their boy circumcised has no right to protest female circumcision.
I disagree. Male circumcision is done for hygenic purposes. Female genital mutilation (“female circumcision” is a misnomer) is done to deprive the girl of sexual pleasure. The first is merely misguided; the second is malicious.
Be it moral or not to us, it doesn’t differ from anything else that is outside of our jurisdiction. Or any of our government.
Even a petition, I think, should be no way to undermine a parent in this culture’s authority. We can’t sit and judge what they do from afar. What if all choice in the third world were monitored and controlled from here? I think the end result would be us either fighting with them or put on sanctions to make the problem for the third world even worse.
Women are considered property and so if they don’t enjoy the act of sex then they won’t ‘stray’. It’s really as simple as that, to keep girls from cheating on their husbands when they get older.
I don’t imagine that you would have a problem with castrating a male child so they can sing the soprano when they grow up then?
You seem to be mixing up the idea of a parents rights when it comes to the ‘ownership’ of their children with the issue of if one people can tell others how to live. Intentionally too I would imagine so as to prove a point after people object to something that is obviously against the non-aggression principle and turn it into a religious rights issue.
I’d suggest you read up on female anatomy versus male anatomy and then the difference in the two procedures
Do you have any idea how different male circumcicions are from female circumcisions? Male circumcisions are primarily done for hygiene. Female circumcisions have absolutely nothing to do with hygiene. It is merely a procedure done in “3rd world countries” where women are seen as men’s property.
Female circumcition is a procedure that hundreds if not thousands of women die from every year. It causes difficulty in urinating and later on when having to give birth.
I would be against this procedure being done here (though I doubt it will ever become popular). But I don’t see the point in caring if other nations are libertarian or not. It’s not really about religious freedom.
Whether it’s hygienic or not is irrelevant to whether or not it is a rights violation, unless you’re a consequentialist of some sort. I should add, though, that outside of the US circumcision of non-Jewish/non-Muslim males is very rare and many medical organisations do not condone it. As far as I’m aware, the touted medical benefits of the procedure are more prevalent in popular culture than in scientific research, in which opinions are much more divided (read up on, for instance, the benefits of smegma [warning: slightly rude diagrams]). Of course, there is nothing wrong with an adult choosing to undergo circumcision, but I find the attempts to legitimise circumcision of children under the banner of religious freedom are inconsistent with libertarian principles.
My response was to the comment that “if you have your boy circumcised you can’t critizise female circumcition” and as a woman, I can defintely say that there is absolutely no medical benefit to female circumcision and plenty of women die from the procedure.
Stuff and nonsense! The nerve endings are in the glans (head), not the foreskin. As an uncircumcized male (probably more information than you wanted, but it’s pertinent to this situation), I can tell you there isn’t that much sensation in the foreskin at all. It’s mostly there to protect you while youre running through bushes or some such. Circumcision does reduce sensitivity, but only because of drying and skin thickening because of rubbing against underwear and the like. Male circumcision is not as bad as female circumcision, but it is still a lifelong mutilation done without consent, and should be condemned by all freedom-minded folk. Any health benefits it confers can easily be replicated by simple hygiene.
In any case, female “circumcision” is a barbaric practice wherever it’s done (quite prevalent in “civilized” Egypt, for instance). It is a terrible act that basically precludes female orgasm and with some methods can make any future sex painful. In many places, it is done in dirty hovels with broken pieces of glass.
As per the sentiment that we ought not try to impose our way of thinking on others, I say that you’re wrong. We ought not try to impose the American way on people, but liberty is a universal right that respects no borders, and people ought to be free whether they want it or not. No one, anywhere in any culture, has the right to mutilate an infant.
I hope you won’t be surprised when your Global Anarchist Freedom Army gets the same sort of blowback as the US Army, and you have to institute all sorts of security regulations to guard against terrorist attacks by the enemies of freedom.
I’m being sarcastic. The dialectic of middle/upper-middle class anarchists horrified at the barbarity of the Hottentots and therefore proposing a Freedom Army to liberate them is identical to that employed by the current US government.