I wonder if these two Ugandan MPs have ever spoken to each other. First:
THE parliamentary food forum has asked the Government to provide funds for the a campaign against female circumcision. Addressing journalists at Parliament on Friday, Bukwo Woman MP Everline Chelangat urged the Government to establish vocational institutions for girls to fight the custom.
THE chairman of the parliamentary HIV/AIDS committee has appealed to men to embrace circumcision to reduce the risk of contracting the virus.
“There is nothing to lose when you remove the fore skin of the penis. Men who are not circumcised are more prone to HIV/AIDS,” Dr. Elioda Tumwesigye said on Saturday.
Dr. Tumwesigye is wrong about what a man loses from circumcision, and he is too broad in his declaration of the benefit against HIV because he ignores the necessary contributing factor, an HIV-infected female partner and condom-less sex. But where he accepts the distinction of choice in losing his perceived nothingness, these statements on male and female genital cutting are reasonably congruent, if slightly tone-deaf. As I’ve always advocated, I do not care what an adult – male or female – chooses to do to his/her genitals. Leave it alone or hack away. MP Chelangat is clearly arguing against forced cutting. I just wonder whether or not that distinction of choice exists in Tumwesigye’s intent:
Tumwesigye noted that attempts to make circumcision compulsory for men had failed because of the misconception that it was a practice only for Muslims.
I won’t read that as a statement that Tumwesigye isn’t interested in choice, although I think such an inference makes sense. Where are those attempts originating? If that’s what he’s saying, I’m not surprised. Respecting the science makes many doctors forget the ethics. I don’t know why, but it does. I think I’ll have more on that idea in the near future.
There isn’t much more to say than, from a marketing perspective, it’s fascinating that these two articles appeared on the same day in the same news outlet.