# How Long Until American Pediatricians Are Cutting Off Clitorises? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 15, 2010, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541 "2010-05-15T14:04:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/21 "2010-05-15T19:00:39Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I have a better compromise. Any inquiry into this is met by a swoop by CPS, who remove the girl from her parents so that they can’t mutilate her. Well then parents wouldn’t go to doctors in fear of being reported and would have it done overseas or in a back alley. ---
**Author:** ![flickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7bcc69/32.png) [@flickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flickster)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/22 "2010-05-15T19:05:02Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > Well then parents wouldn’t go to doctors in fear of being reported and would have it done overseas or in a back alley. Why do I keep looking back to make sure I didn’t click on an abortion debate link? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/23 "2010-05-15T20:02:47Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > I think the better option on the APA’s part would be a statement decrying male genital mutilation as well. Mutilation is a loaded term. You could just as well call it genital aerodynamic correction. A boob job isn’t mutilation, for example, it just changes the physical shape of the apparatus into a fashion that is perfectly acceptable as a boob and still perfectly functional. Something which is purely cosmetic, safe, and doesn’t create something ghastly or even unsightly just doesn’t seem worth quibbling over. A fully functional clitoris with a dent is just as much my and her friend as one without a dent. If it makes the family happy and otherwise has no appreciable consequences on any scale but the squeamishness of people to whom the whole issue is irrelevant, then personally I’d have to vote for it. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/24 "2010-05-15T21:06:10Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Mutilation is a loaded term. You could just as well call it genital aerodynamic correction. A boob job isn’t mutilation, for example, it just changes the physical shape of the apparatus into a fashion that is perfectly acceptable as a boob and still perfectly functional. Am I alone in thinking that boob jobs are ugly as sin and therefore not perfectly acceptable as a boob? Besides which, there’s a difference between an adult woman choosing to [del]mutilate[/del] aerodynamically correct herself in this manner and doing the same thing to a child without their consent. > [@](#): > > If it makes the family happy and otherwise has no appreciable consequences on any scale but the squeamishness of people to whom the whole issue is irrelevant, then personally I’d have to vote for it. Maybe it’s just me, but if that’s the sort of thing that makes them happy I’d say they’re a bunch of sick bastards. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/25 "2010-05-15T21:09:52Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Am I alone in thinking that boob jobs are ugly as sin and therefore not perfectly acceptable as a boob? Besides which, there’s a difference between an adult woman choosing to [del]mutilate[/del] aerodynamically correct herself in this manner and doing the same thing to a child without their consent. Agreed. Personally I am quite fond of my un-dented clitoris and don’t really care whether it would have made my parents happy to have a doctor cut a notch in it when I was an infant. It’s not their clit, now is it? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/26 "2010-05-15T21:24:00Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Am I alone in thinking that boob jobs are ugly as sin and therefore not perfectly acceptable as a boob? It depends on the work. A breast implant is something that can vary in size and how it settles under the skin seems to vary a bit on the woman. A clitoral dent should appear almost the exactly the same regardless of the woman, just as circumcised penis A looks the same as circumcised penis B. > [@](#): > > Besides which, there’s a difference between an adult woman choosing to [del]mutilate[/del] aerodynamically correct herself in this manner and doing the same thing to a child without their consent. But there isn’t any difference with a circumcision or piercing a baby’s ears. > [@MsWhatsit](#): > > Agreed. Personally I am quite fond of my un-dented clitoris and don’t really care whether it would have made my parents happy to have a doctor cut a notch in it when I was an infant. It’s not their clit, now is it? Sure, but at the same time circumcision isn’t going anywhere nor is the ability to pierce a baby’s ears. And ultimately, it’s not something that matters. My circumcised penis looks like a penis. I’ve never seen it look any other way and I would be impressed to find a woman who gave a damn one way or the other. If my parents chose to have me born with red hair instead of brown, would I really care? So far as I’m concerned, it’s always been red. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/27 "2010-05-15T21:34:12Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I point out that a very large medical organization has just taken a step toward accommodating a practice they were calling barbaric not long ago. > > Even if the doctors now tell themselves, “Oh, we’ll just do a TINY nick, not a full removal,” there’s no getting around some troubling facts: > > 1. The doctors have blinked. They’ve decided to try to compromise I’m not sure that a tiny nick in the clitoral hood, _ **assuming that it carries no more risk of injury or infection than male circumcision does and that it does not materially affect the functioning of the genitals in any way** _, counts as a “compromise” with respect to clitoris removal. If the procedure really **is** , as your link indicates, limited to “taking a pin and creating a drop of blood”, I can’t see that as being automatically on the slippery slope to clitoridectomy. Similarly, male circumcision is not a “compromise” with, say, cutting off the glans of the penis. They’re both mutilation, of varying degrees of severity, but they’re entirely different in their outcomes for the subject. Logically, I don’t see any way around the conclusion that if male circumcision for religious or cultural reasons is okay, then clitoral-hood nicking for religious or cultural reasons is okay. I personally wouldn’t choose to have a child undergo either of them, but I can’t see any valid reason for permitting the former but not the latter. > [@MsWhatsit](#): > > Seems like a pretty clear violation of “Do no harm” to me. Well, pediatricians pierce the ears of children and infants all the time at the parents’ request, and that doesn’t seem to run afoul of the “do no harm” principle. And ear piercing is arguably a much more significant mutilation, with much higher risks of subsequent infection, than clitoral-hood pinpricking. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/28 "2010-05-15T21:38:38Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Sure, but at the same time circumcision isn’t going anywhere nor is the ability to pierce a baby’s ears. And ultimately, it’s not something that matters. My circumcised penis looks like a penis. I’ve never seen it look any other way and I would be impressed to find a woman who gave a damn one way or the other. If my parents chose to have me born with red hair instead of brown, would I really care? So far as I’m concerned, it’s always been red. It is good that you’re not upset or distressed about it, but that doesn’t mean it’s all right to perform a procedure like that without the child’s consent. The fact that “circumcision isn’t going anywhere” doesn’t make it all right, either. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/29 "2010-05-15T21:45:42Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > The fact that “circumcision isn’t going anywhere” doesn’t make it all right, either. But it’s legal. If a cosmetic form of ritual genital mutilation is legal for infants of one sex, then we have to have a logical argument why it shouldn’t be allowed for infants of the other sex. I agree with you that just because a practice is legally condoned doesn’t automatically mean that it’s morally right. But if a practice is legally condoned for one sex, then we need to show a valid reason why it should be legally forbidden specifically for the other sex. The argument “well, it’s a bad thing in **all** cases” doesn’t work as a reason to forbid it only in **some** cases. ---
**Author:** ![MsWhatsit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eb8c5e/32.png) [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/30 "2010-05-15T21:47:32Z")
You’re right, and it logically follows that both should be illegal. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/31 "2010-05-15T22:14:32Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > You’re right, and it logically follows that both should be illegal. Personally and ethically, I could certainly live with that. I’d feel bad for Jews and Muslims who would see the outlawing of infant/youth circumcision as an attack on their cultural and religious identity, but I think ultimately they could come to terms with it (by having merely nominal circumcision rituals for children, for example, and deferring actual circumcision to legal adulthood). But pragmatically, I don’t see it being within the bounds of possibility for our society to reject the notion of legal male infant circumcision, certainly not within the next hundred years or so. Consequently, I don’t see any way around the conclusion that female clitoral-hood-nicking should be legal too. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/32 "2010-05-15T22:49:07Z")
Astorian, your OP is very little more than a textbook case of the slippery slope fallacy. Why don’t you have a look at [this Wikipedia entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope)and get back to us. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2010, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/33 "2010-05-15T23:53:59Z")
The concept of calling in CPS is one that would without doubt do more harm than good. Yup, parents come to you saying that I want to find away to satisfy what I perceive as a cultural demand but I want to do it in a way that avoids harm to my daughter, and you try to take away their child for their effort? Smart that. Making Female Genital Cutting illegal has not worked well. Paternalistically coming into these societies and saying “Bad people! You are doing something we Westerners don’t like!” doesn’t work. What [has worked](http://www.fgmnetwork.org/intro/fgmintro.html) is engaging the communities at a grassroots level and giving alternatives - preferably ones that actually leave the clitoris alone. > [@](#): > > In many cultures, FGC serves as an initiation rite, and any efforts to eradicate it must take this into consideration. Some of the most successful eradication efforts have taken place in areas where FGC was replaced with “initiation without cutting” programs whereas a girl still goes through some initiation rites but this time, without any blood. > > Alternative rituals are currently being implemented in countries like Ghana and Kenya, that do not include any bloodletting. A girl will still undergoes the celebrations and the rituals that usually accompany the circumcision ritual , however, the procedure itself is either replaced with a small pricking elsewhere on the body to let out a small drop of water, or bloodletting is completely done away with. > > Other successful programs have also experimented with giving midwives monthly salaries for putting down their knives and becoming health care workers. They are now trained in various aspects of female health, and go from village to village educating women about the harmful effects of female circumcision, and the importance of proper nutrition during pregnancy, how to protect from sexually transmitted diseases and HIV, and proper usages of condoms, among other health topics. … Female Genital Cutting can only be abolished by a grassroots approach which would take into consideration all aspects of a particular culture and try to work within that system of beliefs to eradicate this practice. My pediatric practice does not, to my knowledge, include those who would travel overseas to have this procedure done on their daughters if we wouldn’t do some sort of symbolic nick here, so perhaps I speak somewhat from ignorance. I would however be concerned that “blessing” the procedure, would allow pediatricians too easy of an out, compared to the time consuming hard work of exploring what it means culturally to this particular family and perhaps working within those American subcultures to get them to accept bloodless alternatives. But if people working at grassroots levels can gain acceptance of bloodless alternatives by those who live in native lands, then gaining acceptance for those alternatives here should be within the range of the possible. ---
**Author:** ![Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/22d042/32.png) [@Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/34 "2010-05-16T00:39:26Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > I’m disgusted by what’s done to these girls. > > But I can’t see how you’d support circumcision and be adamantly against clit-clipping. Male babies experience real pain when they’re circumcised for little medical benefit. But I guess I’m just a fanatic. Well, I can confirm that being a circumcised man isn’t even slightly traumatic. On the contrary, the knowledge that some other men have weird growths on the end of their dicks (and like it like that) is … not a worry either. Anyway, apparently the only logical conclusion is that it is okay to cut off little girls’ clitorises. When they’re grown up they won’t even know the difference. Now it’s been explained to me it all seems so clear. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/35 "2010-05-16T01:03:59Z")
> [@Sandwich](#): > > Anyway, apparently the only logical conclusion is that it is okay to cut off little girls’ clitorises. **Cutting off** the clitoris is certainly not comparable to male circumcision, as I noted in a previous post. However, the sort of minor nicking or pricking of the female genitals that’s described in the OP’s link does seem quite comparable to circumcision; in fact, it appears to be a significantly milder form of mutilation than cutting off the entire foreskin of the penis. I think what **AClockworkMelon** meant is that there doesn’t seem to be any logical way to defend the position that it should be okay to cut off the foreskins of male infants but not okay to slightly nick the clitoral hoods of female infants. Nobody’s claiming that that makes it okay to do something as radical as actually cutting off the clitoris, any more than your defense of circumcision means that you think it would be okay to cut off little boys’ penises. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/36 "2010-05-16T01:19:28Z")
I’m not sure that the slippery slope argument, as applied to this issue, is necessarily a fallacy–nor that a direct analogy with male circumcision is most helpful. To my knowledge, male circumcision, as presently tolerated in the Western countries which are home to most SDMB readers, _completely fulfills_ the religious ritual requirements of all the sects concerned with same. There is no constituency arguing that _more_ of the baby penis should be removed. And of course, as noted (and barring rare cases of mishap), circumcised men are perfectly healthy and functional. If there was somehow a procedure for foreskin restoration, it would find relatively few takers. On the other hand, this “pinprick” version of “female circumcision,” while it apparently satisfies some parents, is _clearly insufficient_ for others in the relevant sects. Some of these people _won’t_ be satisfied with anything less than clitoridectomy–and [some go farther still](http://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/fgm/overview/en/index.html). Moreover, the _purpose_ of these procedures, at least for some, is not merely ritual, but the permanent sexual disabling of the subjects. This _is_ a slope I’m nervous about slipping on, even a little bit. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/37 "2010-05-16T01:26:07Z")
Actually, I’ve always wondered if people who think it’s OK to circumcise male babies (removal of the foreskin) would think it’s OK to remove just the clitoral hood, which is analogous. In my mind, foreskin removal doesn’t seem super icky while clitoral hood removal does but then maybe that’s because I’m used to the one idea. I guess when you get down to it, why not just leave them all alone? I know there’s the issue of the foreskin getting stuck with smegma, but I’ve heard that can happen with the clitoral hood, too. (I don’t think I’ve ever actively retracted mine…I hope it’s smegma free.) ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/38 "2010-05-16T01:40:24Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > On the other hand, this “pinprick” version of “female circumcision,” while it apparently satisfies some parents, is clearly insufficient for others in the relevant sects. Some of these people won’t be satisfied with anything less than clitoridectomy–and some go farther still. Sure, but that doesn’t add up to a logical reason to ban the “pinprick” procedure _per se_. Telling the parents of an infant girl “well see, it was okay for you to get your son’s foreskin cut off because nobody wanted to cut off his penis instead, but you can’t have your daughter’s clitoral hood nicked because some people would rather cut off her whole clitoris” is not likely to come across as making a whole lot of sense. It would be especially illogical in the case of subcultures that have **traditionally** practiced only a mild form of clitoral nicking rather than clitoridectomy. Why should they be barred from following their own essentially harmless practice because other groups elsewhere practice much more brutal forms of it? ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/39 "2010-05-16T02:10:30Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > I’m not sure that the slippery slope argument, as applied to this issue, is necessarily a fallacy–nor that a direct analogy with male circumcision is most helpful… Much of what you say is correct, but “slippery slope” is still not appropriate: there is no risk that American pediatricians are going to slip into doing clitorectomies. While it must be noted that male circumcisions _do_ have some medical justification (albeit debatable ones, and Lawd knows we’ve debated them), I would agree that _criminalizing_ a ritual nick of the clitoral hood performed for socioreligious reasons is hard to justify, given that I would strongly argue against the criminalization of male religious circumcision even if there was _no_ possible religious justification. But the AAP is going beyond arguing for allowing it as pat of our broad tradition of sociocultural tolerance so long as no provably significant harm is done; they apparently endorse that “pediatricians to reach out to families by offering a ritual nick as a possible compromise to avoid greater harm”; this is a mistake, and the rest of your post illustrates why. The fact is that Female Genital Cutting, as performed in most of the world, is not analogous to circumcision but to removal of the entire penis or more. Medicalizing the procedure may reduce infections in some but still ends up endorsing the practice overall, and may actually inadvertently encourage more severe forms of the procedure in the native lands as those are easier to perform on a sedated or anesthetized child. The most successful method for reducing the frequency of clitorectomies and infibulation is grassroots education to voluntarily accept _bloodless_ alternatives; by _promoting_ a less severe _surgical_ alternative instead, the AAP undermines those efforts. And the “simple nick” performed in the conditions found more often in the native lands, is still a procedure of great potential risk and harm. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541/40 "2010-05-16T02:29:04Z")
I think there are two distinct questions and we are often paying too much attention to the wrong one. It may be less harmful to do a clitoridectomy using modern techniques than letting it happen in a mud hut somewhere. But that is not at all the same as concluding that western doctors could ethically offer the procedure. After all, intentionally administering too much anaesthetic to cause an injured person to die to prevent them eventually returning to the street as a violent criminal may be less harmful than fulfilling the traditional function of healing all the people possible. It’s still failing to live up to an oath to do no harm. It would be a different strategy to try to prevent everybody from doing harm, but given how hard it must already be to practice medicine, fixing everything else too is probably the wrong plan. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-until-american-pediatricians-are-cutting-off-clitorises/539541.md?page=3)