In a recent article, Dr. Kavita Shah Arora and Dr. Allan J. Jacobs argue that "minimalist" excisions to respect cultural traditions without endangering women's health should be tolerated.
We are not saying that interventions on women's genitals are desirable, but rather that some interventions should be tolerated by liberal societies
Write the two authors in a journal, the Journal of Medical Ethics.
Their medical intervention would be to respect cultural and religious obligations, while prohibiting forms of excision that are dangerous for reproduction or sexual fulfillment.
But is the idea of a "compromise" between tradition and intervention even acceptable?
Especially since it would seem to be difficult to perform a surgical removal that has no effect on the sexual development of women. Septic and indignant, Danielle Mérian, president of SOS Africaines en Danger, an association that fights against excision and marital rape, reminds us that the oath of Hippocrates commits doctors to treat and not "to mutilate!"
And to these two gynecologists who make a connection of medical intervention for tradition, between circumcision and excision, she also points out that:
excision and circumcision have absolutely nothing to do with it. In circumcision, there is a hygienic perspective and it does not affect the sexual sensitivity of humans.
The scandal of the proposal of minimalist excision
A scandal that lies primarily in the "medieval acceptance" of a tradition that prevails over the sexual freedom of women. To accept "minimalist excision" would be to put the weight of customs on women's health, and well before their rights. Worse, legalizing "excision to a minimum" would ruin all the efforts of Western countries, but also some of the countries concerned, to prohibit and ban this practice of mutilation.
What is excision?
Recall that excision covers all interventions including the partial or total removal of the external sexual organs of the woman or other lesion of the female sexual organs. Excision was instituted in "habits and customs" supposedly for the salvation of the woman who after intervention no longer feels sexual desire ... for the greatest relief of the husband.
Genital mutilation plunges many women into distress in Africa but also in some Asian countries (Indonesia) and several Arab countries.
