The Cutting
Posted by TMF on September 11, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Dear Pen Pal,
How have you been? I received your letter and I’m finally getting a chance to apologize for not responding. As I was telling you last time my father has been more and more insistent that I “become” a woman. My mother was resistant at first. After the long nights of fighting and her seemingly never ending crying hadn’t stopped until she finally came to talk to me. I thought my mother was going to take me away. I thought she was going to protect me. When she told me that my father was right and I had to get the surgery done, she still had a tear running down her cheek. I saw my reflection in that glass ball of sorrow and I’ve never been so afraid. Save me! Please my dear friend, I don’t want to lose a part of me. I’ve heard so many bad things about other girls that have been “cut”. It’s not fair…it’s just not fair. I hate my father! I hate him! I’m sorry for being so negative, but I’m so emotional right now. The next time I’ll be able to write you will be after the surgery. I hope God saves me.
Your far away friend in need,
-Kate
London, England
The Cutting:
Genital mutilation has been held as a sacred right for far to long. Should we allow this kind of cultural influence to be our standard practice? Of all the moral choices of right and wrong, are we really going to continue to approve of the body disfiguration of children and adults, of people in general? There must be something wrong in our moral conscious, if we allow this practice to continue on the grounds of social necessity. A parent forcing their new born to such torture is a level of malice that the devil, himself, envies.
Here enlies the problem;The justification for removing something from the genitals of a child at birth or as a right to passage, is religious/cultural in nature. They aren’t arguing about the safety of the little girls. They aren’t ensuring the necessity to mutilate the boys. They’ve arguing that it is a custom in their faith and/or culture that must be preserved. Circumcision, male or female, is not a better alternative to the natural human form. Accepting that divine purpose as the reason to just make a snip in the private parts of a person is not a humane option.
For both genders the procedure is an extreme encroachment on human rights. “Removing any part of a newborn’s body (or the body of a child of any age) without compelling medical justification is a clear and breach of that individual’s rights.”(1)
“Female genital mutilation and cutting is a violation of the basic rights of women and girls,” said Carol Bellamy, executive director of the UN’s Children’s Agency (UNICEF), on February 7 2005, the International Day of Zero Tolerance of FGM (2)
Female circumcision is very much the more harmful of the two genders’ prescribed augmentation. It leaves a girl unable to feel the ecstasy of love, while a man probably wouldn’t know the difference. A female genital mutilation procedure consists of maybe just removing the clitoris, up to an entire removal of such and the two labia, leaving the girl with nothing more than a small hole, devoid of all pleasure sensations. Would you want to this to happen to you? Or your daughter? Sister, mother, the women in your life do not deserve such persecution from experiencing reality. A jealous husband, her father or a priest of God should not be allowed to rob a girl of her womanhood.
The case for the males’ safety is not as much of a tragic failure in humane decency as a females but never the less a cry to protect the weak. Forcing a defenseless child to go through a painful procedure during their first days on this planet, is it a moral outrage or just a sadistic proclamation to our sons that “Life is not fair, just walk it off”? Medical justification of such persecution against the human form is hard to come bye.
“By 1999, the AAP had formed a task force on circumcision that decided the procedure shouldn’t be routinely recommended. The task force based this policy on 40 years of studies of both circumcised and uncircumcised boys.” (3)
The medical benefits/side-effects of a male circumcision comprise of mixed variants of good or bad. In all the research there is no solid reason to grant permission for your son to be tortured. I believe this is why, the dawn of a new age in America however, in which male genital mutilation is commonplace with 60% men having been robbed of foreskin(4), the impure procedure is on a decline.
“A precipitous drop in circumcision, to just 32.5 percent in 2009 from 56 percent in 2006 was based on the calculations made by SDI Health, a company in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., that analyzes health care data; they do not include procedures outside hospitals (like most Jewish ritual circumcisions) or not reimbursed by insurance.” (5)
The fight can not be won alone with just statistics sadly. Logic does not pierce religious zealots as much as it may be so desired to. Here is where the philosophical claims made by rabbis and the like must be addressed. Adding fire to a bonfire won’t bring down the fire but maybe it will help people see why we shouldn’t continue to add more and perhaps, it is a better idea to let the coals go shivering cold.
Being good to be good has no doubtingly become a fully embraced mind set of a secular world. This attitude towards your fellow species makes you more of a humanitarian. You’re more likely to want to help and protect random strangers that have no more connection to you than a common evolutionary ancestor.
If you believe however that people must be made to suffer. If blind faith embodies your guidance. If the very reason that you which to bestow an unnecessary medical procedure on a child is because your faith tells you so, then you’re in the wrong. Humans should not be those whom you can just dictate the condition of their bodies.
This fight for protecting the children and end all forms of genital mutilation is a humanitarian act. Unfortunately like abortion this procedure has been known to go underground. Back alley mutilation is far worse than professional mutilation. This is a war that must be fought on moral grounds because legal will only encourage parents’ apathetic nature to their children’s safety. IF people believe this MUST HAPPEN, then they’ll make IT HAPPEN.
Just because traditions die hard and it has always been doesn’t mean it always has to be. Change is never ensured to result in destruction. We must start to look at things in a new light, a hopeful light of ensuring the safety of all. Protect mother earth, your fellow animals and anything else that is a spawn from illogical assumptions . Protecting our children in their first days on our home world must be more of a priority in the human races’ lives.
-TMF
Reply: Your Rites
(Thank you for reading this week’s post. Please comment below and let me know what your opinion is on the matter.)
Sources/References:
Filed under Anti-Religion, Social Commentary · Tagged with children, circumcision, Female circumcision, gender, Genital mutilation, god, immoral, inhumane, justification, male circumcision, protect the weak
TMF-isms
The Cutting
Posted by TMF on September 11, 2012 · Leave a Comment
Dear Pen Pal,
How have you been? I received your letter and I’m finally getting a chance to apologize for not responding. As I was telling you last time my father has been more and more insistent that I “become” a woman. My mother was resistant at first. After the long nights of fighting and her seemingly never ending crying hadn’t stopped until she finally came to talk to me. I thought my mother was going to take me away. I thought she was going to protect me. When she told me that my father was right and I had to get the surgery done, she still had a tear running down her cheek. I saw my reflection in that glass ball of sorrow and I’ve never been so afraid. Save me! Please my dear friend, I don’t want to lose a part of me. I’ve heard so many bad things about other girls that have been “cut”. It’s not fair…it’s just not fair. I hate my father! I hate him! I’m sorry for being so negative, but I’m so emotional right now. The next time I’ll be able to write you will be after the surgery. I hope God saves me.
Your far away friend in need,
-Kate
London, England
The Cutting:
Genital mutilation has been held as a sacred right for far to long. Should we allow this kind of cultural influence to be our standard practice? Of all the moral choices of right and wrong, are we really going to continue to approve of the body disfiguration of children and adults, of people in general? There must be something wrong in our moral conscious, if we allow this practice to continue on the grounds of social necessity. A parent forcing their new born to such torture is a level of malice that the devil, himself, envies.
Here enlies the problem;The justification for removing something from the genitals of a child at birth or as a right to passage, is religious/cultural in nature. They aren’t arguing about the safety of the little girls. They aren’t ensuring the necessity to mutilate the boys. They’ve arguing that it is a custom in their faith and/or culture that must be preserved. Circumcision, male or female, is not a better alternative to the natural human form. Accepting that divine purpose as the reason to just make a snip in the private parts of a person is not a humane option.
For both genders the procedure is an extreme encroachment on human rights. “Removing any part of a newborn’s body (or the body of a child of any age) without compelling medical justification is a clear and breach of that individual’s rights.”(1)
“Female genital mutilation and cutting is a violation of the basic rights of women and girls,” said Carol Bellamy, executive director of the UN’s Children’s Agency (UNICEF), on February 7 2005, the International Day of Zero Tolerance of FGM (2)
Female circumcision is very much the more harmful of the two genders’ prescribed augmentation. It leaves a girl unable to feel the ecstasy of love, while a man probably wouldn’t know the difference. A female genital mutilation procedure consists of maybe just removing the clitoris, up to an entire removal of such and the two labia, leaving the girl with nothing more than a small hole, devoid of all pleasure sensations. Would you want to this to happen to you? Or your daughter? Sister, mother, the women in your life do not deserve such persecution from experiencing reality. A jealous husband, her father or a priest of God should not be allowed to rob a girl of her womanhood.
The case for the males’ safety is not as much of a tragic failure in humane decency as a females but never the less a cry to protect the weak. Forcing a defenseless child to go through a painful procedure during their first days on this planet, is it a moral outrage or just a sadistic proclamation to our sons that “Life is not fair, just walk it off”? Medical justification of such persecution against the human form is hard to come bye.
“By 1999, the AAP had formed a task force on circumcision that decided the procedure shouldn’t be routinely recommended. The task force based this policy on 40 years of studies of both circumcised and uncircumcised boys.” (3)
The medical benefits/side-effects of a male circumcision comprise of mixed variants of good or bad. In all the research there is no solid reason to grant permission for your son to be tortured. I believe this is why, the dawn of a new age in America however, in which male genital mutilation is commonplace with 60% men having been robbed of foreskin(4), the impure procedure is on a decline.
“A precipitous drop in circumcision, to just 32.5 percent in 2009 from 56 percent in 2006 was based on the calculations made by SDI Health, a company in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., that analyzes health care data; they do not include procedures outside hospitals (like most Jewish ritual circumcisions) or not reimbursed by insurance.” (5)
The fight can not be won alone with just statistics sadly. Logic does not pierce religious zealots as much as it may be so desired to. Here is where the philosophical claims made by rabbis and the like must be addressed. Adding fire to a bonfire won’t bring down the fire but maybe it will help people see why we shouldn’t continue to add more and perhaps, it is a better idea to let the coals go shivering cold.
Being good to be good has no doubtingly become a fully embraced mind set of a secular world. This attitude towards your fellow species makes you more of a humanitarian. You’re more likely to want to help and protect random strangers that have no more connection to you than a common evolutionary ancestor.
If you believe however that people must be made to suffer. If blind faith embodies your guidance. If the very reason that you which to bestow an unnecessary medical procedure on a child is because your faith tells you so, then you’re in the wrong. Humans should not be those whom you can just dictate the condition of their bodies.
This fight for protecting the children and end all forms of genital mutilation is a humanitarian act. Unfortunately like abortion this procedure has been known to go underground. Back alley mutilation is far worse than professional mutilation. This is a war that must be fought on moral grounds because legal will only encourage parents’ apathetic nature to their children’s safety. IF people believe this MUST HAPPEN, then they’ll make IT HAPPEN.
Just because traditions die hard and it has always been doesn’t mean it always has to be. Change is never ensured to result in destruction. We must start to look at things in a new light, a hopeful light of ensuring the safety of all. Protect mother earth, your fellow animals and anything else that is a spawn from illogical assumptions . Protecting our children in their first days on our home world must be more of a priority in the human races’ lives.
-TMF
Reply: Your Rites
(Thank you for reading this week’s post. Please comment below and let me know what your opinion is on the matter.)
Sources/References:
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Filed under Anti-Religion, Social Commentary · Tagged with children, circumcision, Female circumcision, gender, Genital mutilation, god, immoral, inhumane, justification, male circumcision, protect the weak