Katie Drummond
AOL News
5/7/2010
The American Academy of Pediatrics has moderated its policy on female circumcision — a decision that quickly spurred widespread denunciation from advocacy groups and government officials.
The academy’s committee on bioethics released a new position paper last week, suggesting that doctors perform a “ritual nick” to prevent families from going overseas for full circumcision procedures.
Right now, federal law in the United States prevents “any nonmedical procedure performed on the genitals” of females.
The position statement describes the nick as “a compromise” that could limit the number of young girls forced to endure female genital mutilation in their family’s native country.
An estimated 100 million to 140 million girls and women in 28 countries have experienced female genital mutilation, according to the World Health Organization. In Africa, 3 million girls are still operated on each year.
In the U.S, the change to the American Academy of Pediatrics’ stance occurred just as a members of Congress proposed a bill that would make traveling overseas for the procedure illegal.
The article continues at AOL News.
Read also Pamela Geller’s excellent article, Sanctioning Barbarity: American Academy of Pediatrics and the New York Times.
