Karma & Consequences

Wanted:  Leader of Vaginas.  Must be charismatic, smart, engaging, likable, motivated, well versed in collaboration, a great listener, savvy, media friendly, and most of all courageous.  Think Winston Churchill. Control freaks, manipulators, the power hungry, party planners and chickens need not apply.

On May 5th of this year, the American Academy of Pediatrics went to great lengths in a SIX PAGE Policy Statement, “Ritual Genital Cutting of Female Minors, to explain their need to allow pediatricians to perform a procedure called a “nick” to the clitoris of young girls in America whose parents requested the procedure.  This SIX PAGE document includes illustrations, extensive references, and uses the term FGC (Female Genital Cutting) rather than FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) to change the foundation of the debate.

Concluding, “it might be more effective if federal and state laws enabled pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ritual nick as a possible compromise to avoid greater harm.” The AAP has since removed the policy statement from the website but I have a copy and am willing to forward it along.

In short, Female Genital Mutilation is a cultural, not religious based practice, in which a girl’s vagina is mutilated to insure that the girl remain virtuous.   Varying degrees of FGM include the barbaric:  complete amputation of the clitoris, sewing up of the vagina, to the less sever:  ritualistic clitoral “nick.”   Immigrants from countries that practice this ritual have continued to maintain cultural ties to their motherland by practicing FGM in the U.S. even though many states have specifically criminalized this practice, the Federal Government is working on national legislation ban the practice and close legislative loopholes and the practice is in decline worldwide due primarily to the spread of AIDS.

So, women’s groups protested . . . to some extent, lawmakers got involved . . . to some extent, the media picked up the story . . . to some extent, and on May 27th, the AAP rescinded its own policy issued just 22 days earlier:  “American Academy of Pediatrics Withdraws Policy Statement on Female Genital Cutting.”  http://www.aap.org/advocacy/releases/fgc-may27-2010.htm

Below is just a sampling of why the AAP Rescinded Policy was at best, misguided, at worst shockingly negligent.  The fearless leader of the AAP, Judith S. Palfrey, MD, FAAP, should be removed for incompetence.  It is my experience that the AAP is merely a party planning organization, a coordinator of on-going medical education, refusing, quite belligerently at times, to take a firm stand on issues that impact the safety and well-being of children.

On a state level, I have watched the AAP refuse to take a stand on child endangerment legislation, Anti-Female Genital legislation, legislation regarding the drug, Gardasil, and the list goes on.  It is shocking that the AAP would issue a pronouncement on FGM that effectively does away with years and years of hard fought advocacy work.  I am speechless, breathless and believe that Dr. Palfrey should resign because it was under her leadership that this miscarriage took place.

Here is the link to Equality Now’s Press Release.  Equality Now is the leader on FGM domestically and internationally:

Press Release Regarding AAP Policy Statement:

http://www.equalitynow.org/english/pressroom/press_releases/usaap_20100505_en.html

Thought provoking quote from Equality Now Director:

Taina Bien-Aimé adds, “Throughout the ages ‘cultural’ practices like foot binding in China have caused lifelong physical and psychological harm to women and girls. If foot binding were still being carried out, would the AAP encourage pediatricians to execute a milder version of this practice?”

My additional thoughts:

I would add to Equality Now’s Press Release in opposition of the AAP’s Policy Statement that Anti-FGM legislation has been helpful in decreasing the ritual practice of FGM because it adds a definitive consequence to performing FGM–deportation as conviction results in a felony as well as possible loss of parental rights.

Allowing for any type of “cutting” opens the door for interpretation of “cutting” and allows for more aggressive forms of mutilation to take place.  Parents who are entrenched in holding onto their country of origins rituals will see the AAP’s acquiescence as fuel for adopting the long standing tradition of more aggressive forms of mutilation.

Adoption of the AAP’s recent policy statement will result in a slippery slop effect in which girls from “more traditional,” “better families” will be victims of the more extreme forms of FGM.  It is ludicrous to assume that maintaining a hold onto any form of this oppressive ritual will in any way facilitate it’s eradication as the AAP suggests.

Troubling language found in AAP’s Policy Statement under the heading “Education of Patients and Families”

“Most forms of FGC (Female Genital Cutting) are decidedly harmful, and pediatricians should decline to perform them, even in the absence of any legal constraints.  However, the ritual nick suggested by some pediatricians is not physically harmful and is much less extensive than routine newborn male genital cutting.  There is reason  to believe that offering such a compromise may build trust between hospitals and immigrant communities, save some girls from undergoing disfiguring the life-theatrening producers in their native counties, and play a role in the eventual eradication of FGM.  It might be more effective if federal and state laws enabled pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ritual nick as a possible compromise to avoid greater harm.”