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Cheers - AE

Friday 28 May 2010

Nicking something that can never be given back - UPDATED

They can't be serious, can they?
Australian doctors are considering introducing a controversial form of genital mutilation carried out on baby girls.

The Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) says the practice of "ritual nicks" could meet the cultural needs of some women and potentially save some people from drastic surgery.

Although illegal in Australia, female genital mutilation is common among some African, Asian and Middle Eastern communities but has been known to leave some young girls scarred for life when not carried out in proper clinical facilities.
What the fuck? They are serious? Jesus Christ on a fucking pogo stick, my eyes popped when I saw the Ambush Predator's blog on the American Academy of Pediatrics giving thought to the same thing, but reading that a second self-proclaimed civilised country is doing the same thing raises it to head-pop territory.
RANZCOG secretary Gino Pecoraro told News Ltd, "We will need to start to think about [its introduction] but we would have to speak to community leaders from Australia."
And when you do, Gino, I suggest you say that if they want to mutilate their daughters they should give some serious thought to staying where they are. When in Rome you don't set about some poor infant girl's groin with a knife when the Romans not only don't but specifically ban the practice. And yes, that means even a little bit.
"But we need to make sure we do not legitimise the ritualistic maiming of children."
Oh, really? So what the fuck do you think you're doing by offering the concession of "ritual nicks" if not legitimising it?

For fuck's sake, I'm all for legalising a lot of things that are banned but invariably they all have one thing in common: they're victimless crimes. There is no way you can describe the process of ritual child circumcision to me (and, with apologies to my Jewish neighbours, who I do really like, I include the ritual circumcision of boys - just because it rarely does any lasting physical harm doesn't make it right) that doesn't include a victim of a medically unnecessary procedure, because by it's nature the act takes place when the individual can't possibly understand, make an informed decision or offer up any meaningful resistance. I can understand that those in the medical profession who are toying with the idea of allowing just a little symbolic mutilation, er, nicking of the female genitals are probably looking at it as the lesser of two evils, that the small concession of allowing a little nick might be enough to reduce the numbers of badly maimed girls as well as the obviously unsafe environments in which the 'operations' are currently performed. And you know what, I'm prepared to believe it could work. However, I'm also prepared to believe that chaining school children to their desks would prevent them nicking off at lunchtime and lacing cheap takeaway food with oral contraceptives would eventually solve the housing crisis (as well as destroy the audience for at least one soap opera and, if tried in the UK, probably bankrupt the other Iceland as well), but that doesn't fucking mean we should actually do it.

The same goes for allowing infant girls to be just a little bit maimed for reasons of cultural sensitivity, but it's even worse than that. You might reduce the absolute number of badly maimed girls at the expense of increasing the number of lightly maimed ones both through people who would otherwise have obeyed Australian law and done nothing at all taking advantage of the option to "circumcise them a bit", and through allowing the fucking practice to continue instead of encouraging it's rapid and permanent demise.

So, for what it's worth, and speaking as a migrant who's also adapting to the way things are done in Australia*, here's my suggestion. If Australia is such a tempting place to come and live then it must also be worth giving up the idea that one somehow has a right to mutilate one's offspring and accepting the more western concept of the individual being free from the threat of a parent setting about their crotch with cutlery. But if mutilating children is more important then don't fucking come here in the first place, because if you're caught doing it we'll send you away for fucking decades, you sick fuck.


UPDATE - and this morning there's a... retraction, clarification, call it what you will (also mentioned by Wakefiled Tolbert in the comments, who saw it in the SMH). Whatever, an entirely different RANZCOG bod is now quoted as saying the first was misquoted, that really they have no intention of a change in policy (which is good because they don't fucking make public policy - not their job), and that the issue is just "likely to be discussed" next month as a result of the AAP story the Ambush Predator blogged on.

Make of that what you will, but the phrase
"We will need to start to think about [its introduction] but we would have to speak to community leaders from Australia."
is a hell of a thing to misquote. Sure, there's the parenthesis and the intent of what was really said might have been different, but then why speak to community leaders from Australia if the concession of ritual nicks is completely off the table to begin with?


* Okay, being a Pom there isn't really anything major and I can't pretend any real upheaval, but all the same I'm not going around demanding that the pubs serve warm bitter and that the country becomes crap at sport in general and cricket in particular. Yes, in the last few years Australia not only was beaten in medals at the Olympics by Britain but lost the Ashes and the Twenty20 to England, but I never asked for that to make me feel more at home.

9 comments:

JuliaM said...

"...but has been known to leave some young girls scarred for life when not carried out in proper clinical facilities."

Errr....

Now, I'm no medical whiz or anything, but even WHEN carried out in 'proper clinical facilities', it's going to leave them scarred for life.

In fact, scarring them for life is pretty much the object of it, no?

Angry Exile said...

Good point. Akubra doffed.

Chuckles said...

Well Said JuliaM, no two ways about it. Given this 'totally coincidental' surfacing of this across the Western World, how deep do you think we have to dig before we find the leaden hand of the WHO or similar driving this?

And AE, regarding your postscript, they're little pleasures, but we take them where we can get them.

Anonymous said...

You might reduce the absolute number of badly maimed girls at the expense of increasing the number of lightly maimed ones both through people who would otherwise have obeyed Australian law

Uhh, if the parents weren't going to do it anyway, why would they suddenly ask a doctor to do it? I don't think anyone considers "the law" when doing any sort of "cultural" practices (positive and negative)

Wakefield Tolbert said...

I always enjoyed Mark Steyn's rehash of the local Brit overseer (whatever the hell his title) who reminded the locals in one India provence about how he does the "multicultural sensitivity" gig back in the days when what is now the UK had a couple of dangling nuts.

Go ahead and perform the "sutee" (said he). Yes. You do that.

Burn a maiden on a pyre of wood and fire as is your beloved tradition.

But our tradition as Brits is that when you burn a woman alive for any reason imaginable, we build a gallows, and after a fair and impartial trial just hang your ass in the wind.

...or, so the story goes.

Come to America. We have a score of issues, yeah. The current occupant at 1600 Pennsyvania Avenue is putting global lawyers on the Supreme Court and declaring that we're not defined by borders or any of that old school stuff.

Nontheless here is where the line in the sand for freedom might just get scratch out after all.

Join us.

Chuckles said...

Wakefield T,

As I coincidentally cross posted at Ambush Pred, yes, Sir Charles James Napier can definitely give us some guidance in such matters. 'You have your customs, and we have ours...'

Wakefield Tolbert said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Wakefield Tolbert said...

CHUCKLES:

*clap*

LOL

Then you're on top of it, brother!

Yes, I remember the name now!

Good show.

An aside:

Ya know, I actually like Brits and Aussies--sometimes even the ones I don't always agree with.

(Well, OK, I don't like that tavern mutt also known as Home Secretary Jacqueline Jill "Jacqui" Smith.)

It's really a shame what all our Anglophile nations are going through these days, mostly at the hands of multi-culti idiot politicians and other cultural ne'er-do-wells. Oh yes, and not to mention the Little Green Footballs phase when people just flip out after claiming to be conservative, for example.

Thanks for helping us all give them the finger. One last act of defiance on the battlefield.

Ya know, "fortunes of war", and all that sort of thing.

On another aside, Mark Steyn, the undocumented global Euro take-down artist du jour, linked to a story pointing out that there is now a retraction to the clip nip story:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/no-support-for-female-circumcision-20100528-wkz4.html

Angry Exile said...

"Well, OK, I don't like that tavern mutt also known as Home Secretary Jacqueline Jill "Jacqui" Smith."

Tavern muttt - heh. That's unkind, uncalled for, and wholly appropriate for Jacboot, so I love it.

Thanks for the comments WT.

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