http://womensrights.change.org/blog/view/female_genital_mutilation_performed_at_cornell_university

 

Female Genital Mutilation Performed at Cornell University

by Pema Levy June 23, 2010 12:26 PM (PT) Topics: Girls Rights, Women's Health

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has appeared in the form of "corrective surgery" at a premier American hospital. While we lambaste the practice abroad, some doctors are justifying its use and performing FGM in the United States.

In 1997, it was estimated that 168,000 women and girls had been or were at risk of undergoing FGM. This isn't just immigrants bringing their cultural practice to the U.S.; as it turns out, FGM is being performed at an Ivy League university. This story demonstrates how our image-obsessed culture is encouraging the mutilation of young girls.

Dr. Dix P. Poppas, head of pediatric urology department at Cornell University's New York Presbyterian Hospital, one of the premier hospitals in the nation, has been performing clitoral reductions — a.k.a. female genital mutilation — on young girls. The abhorrent practice, according to the good doctor, is humane because it spares girls from the humiliation of having an "oversized" clitoris. He claims the practice is "nerve-sparing" and that he runs tests by prodding and using a vibrator on the young girls after the surgery.

Surgeries, especially ones as delicate as this, can easily go awry, injuring young girls permanently, impeding their sexual lives, reproduction, relationships, and possibly other health complications. And prodding a six-year-old with a vibrator probably won't tell you whether or not the thousands of nerves in the clitoris that lead to orgasms have really been spared. Not to mention that these follow-up "tests" sound a lot like traumatizing molestation to me.

 

 

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