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Saturday, May 29, 2010

Our doctors do not support "ritual nicking".

The college for Australia's obstetricians and gynaecologists says it does not support the "ritual nicking" of young Muslim girls and anyone suspected of performing such genital mutilation should be reported to authorities.

I am glad. It is out in the open and it is being discussed and we are looking at the issues, but the obstetricians and gynaecologists in Australia do not support female genital mutilation. I am glad because these are emotional issues as were the abortion issues in the 60s. Since this has come up then there are people questioning and discussing circumcision in male babies too. We need to look at these practices and we need to discuss them openly and with the facts before us. We are not going to rename things to make them sound more palatable and we are not going to avoid complex decisions. We need to take up the issue of abusing babies in this way and why we accept male circumcision and object to female mutilation. In my mind there is no comparison but I am female and am looking at it from my point of view. Facts. We need facts and information and we need to uphold our current laws. If the laws need changing we had better be doing it in a well considered, informed way. In the meantime, we just need to keep talking.

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