Female Rights Violations or Human Rights Violations?

Last Sunday, The Washington Post published a story about female genital mutilation in Kurdistan. The story is disturbing, as one should expect when dealing with FGM. The pictures – particularly number seven – show the violence involved. I’m going to let most of the story speak for itself, but I have a few comments on the larger topic.

…. In at least one Kurdish territory, 95 percent of women have undergone the practice, which human rights groups call female genital mutilation.

Any regular reader will know that I use the term “female genital mutilation”. Rarely will I use any other, and then it’s likely to be diminished only to “female genital cutting” if I reference a voluntary action an adult undertakes on her body. But many people incorrectly get caught up in the terms and miss the issue highlighted in the last sentence of that excerpt. Human rights are at stake. It’s critical to describe our world as accurately as possible, but it is more important to prevent further violations. To the extent that focusing on terminology helps, let’s focus on terminology. But where it prevents us from addressing the correct issue, we need to let it rest.

When I write about male circumcision, I generally prefer to label it “male genital mutilation”, its more accurate term. However, I don’t use that when I think it will distract from the core message. Being semantically correct helps move the discussion closer to the solution, but being stuck on semantics is stupid if I’m not connecting on the human rights issue.

The Kurdish region’s minister of human rights, Yousif Mohammad Aziz, said he didn’t think the issue required action by parliament. “Not every small problem in the community has to have a law dealing with it,” he said.

This brings up the prominent argument too many libertarians deploy. (Read through the comments on the story at Hit & Run.) Notice the use of an adjective to dismiss the need to protect each individual. This is a common tactic among libertarians and non-libertarians alike. The speaker means to convert the subjective into an objective based solely on the his or her opinion. “Small” problem to whom? Clearly not the 7-year-old now-mutilated girl described in the article, Sheelan Anwar Omer.

But she became more animated when asked whether it was worth it to have the operation so her friends and neighbors would be comfortable eating food she prepared. “I would do anything not to have this pain, even if meant they would not eat from my hands,” she rasped slowly.

“I just wish that I could be the way I was before the procedure,” she said.

The issue is individual rights. All tastes and preferences are subjective, a core lesson a libertarian must understand. It is not enough to suggest that parents are acting in what they believe to be their child’s best interests. Objective standards exist for evaluating parental behavior. The article describes an elderly (mutilated) women describing how genital mutilation makes a woman “spiritually clean so that others can eat the meals she prepares.” Our ability to reason suggests that’s ridiculous. In the unlikely event that it’s true, it is subjective. Each individual should decide for herself.

The struggle against all genital mutilation, female and male, is primarily about the violation of forced cutting where no medical need exists for the victim’s genitals. That’s a basic human rights concept. It transcends nationality, culture, gender, and degree of harm. Either we defend the principle or we don’t. A selective defense based on nationality, culture, gender, or degree of harm is also a selective endorsement of the underlying violation.

———-

From the article, a complication in the flawed “FGM is always perpetrated by men on women” argument:

… The circumcision is performed by women on women, and men are usually not involved in the procedure. In the case of Sheelan, her mother informed her father that she was going to have the circumcision performed, but otherwise, he played no role.

The article stated that one of the reasons it’s performed is to control the female’s sexuality. Of course. Arguing as I have in the past that FGM is not always performed for this reason is not a denial that control is the dominant excuse in most cases. I merely highlight this fact from the article because the issue is more complicated than what too many anti-FGM activists argue.

———-

From the blog entry at Hit & Run:

As readers of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s memoir, Infidel, can attest, among the most disturbing elements of such practices are the explicit urge to violently control female sexuality (even when the act is mostly symbolic, that’s the function it performs) and the way it is enforced by other women. (Read Reason’s interview with Hirsi Ali here). Say what you will about widespread male circumcision in the West (and elsewhere, for that matter), but it is not performed as a ritual of punishment defined to rigidify unequal standing in sexual, cultural, economic, and political matters.

I’m only arguing here against the violation of cutting a healthy individual without that individual’s consent, not the physical damage caused or the excuses used to justify the violation. The violation is a universal principle. In that context, the argument in that paragraph – particularly its last sentence – is problematic factually and ethically, the latter being embraced with the myopic, haphazard application of individual rights too many libertarians use. (The entry’s author, Nick Gillespie, doesn’t exhibit that flaw here, in my opinion. But it is pervasive in the comments.)

Circumcision in America has been a tool to rigidify unequal standing in sexual matters, in males and females. (We could debate the other matters, but that’s unnecessary here.) The surgery gained its acceptance in America – for male and female children – in the late 19th century as a tool to prevent masturbation. Regardless of how unsuccessful that’s been, that is its origin, both medically and theologically. The lingering effect from that is essential to understanding the complete issue.

Then there are the parents who circumcise their sons because mom prefers circumcised partners. Would we accept fathers forcing breast implants on their daughters because dad likes large breasts? The revulsion at the mere hint is obvious. The conclusion with respect to male circumcision is also obvious.

There is little comparison in the degree of inequality typically imposed by male and female genital mutilation. I readily concede the point. But both involve placing the individual’s desires below that of another who has physical power over him or her. That is the flaw, the violation of a universal human right.

For reference, Ms. Hirsi Ali states in this documentary that male circumcision is genital mutilation. Again, I’m not equating the typical degree of mutilation. They are different. But the core issue is the violation. That is the same. It’s possible to focus on FGM without minimizing MGM.

The Ethics of Vanity, Part III

Even though blogging has been sporadic recently, I’m paying attention. I realize I’ve given far more attention to circumcision than any other topic lately. Rolling Doughnut is not turning in to “all circumcision, all the time,” I swear. But the backlog is there right now. So, a little bit more, and then other stuff will return.

Last week I saw news links similar to this article.

It sounds like just another uber-meltable cheese product, but Vavelta is actually miles away from anything you’d want to put in your mouth. It’s a radical new treatment for facial pitting, scarring, and wrinkles made out of—what else?—newborns’ foreskins.

I didn’t write about it because it’s just a new example of something I’ve discussed before. And, while I’m happy an ethical issue appeared in the article…

There are also ethical issues to consider, especially if the folks behind Vavelta start paying parents for their sons’ severed sheaths.

… it hints at the wrong ethical issue. Parents do not own their sons’ foreskins. That’s why they don’t have the right to cut them off, much less demand payment for them. If a similar value worked for freshly circumcised adult foreskins, adult males should be free to sell for the highest price. They’re not, because the state thinks selling parts of your body is “wrong”. But taking healthy, functioning body parts from a child for no objective reason without his consent? That’s somehow a valid parental choice. It’s madness.

———-

The link came from Hit & Run where I expected to encounter juvenile nonsense, the normal trend of comments there. To my surprise, my fellow libertarians came through in shining glory. Before that, this from commenter Dello:

f I had male children, they’d all get the cut. In the end (of life, that is), it’s for their own good.

This is the dumbest excuse I’ve encountered, although this is not the first time. Dello explains further:

….wait until you’re 75, incapacitated, and in a nursing home. Since none of the aides will wash your genitals, having a foreskin means you won’t even get fresh water around the head of your penis.

It had to get worse before it got better. The good stuff, from SugarFree:

Yes. Mutilate your penis because you might end up in a crooked rest home. There’s a winning argument.

Right. Except, it needs a clarification, provided by Episiarch:

NutraSweet, you have it wrong. It’s mutilate your son’s penis because he might end up in a crooked rest home. That’s even more full of ethical win.

Bingo. Really, how hard is it to understand that most adult males will not end up debilitated in a nursing home that won’t care for them properly. Anyway, if it’s causing problems at 75, that’s a medical necessity. Circumcise then. This is not complicated.

———-

Naturally, someone had to begin the path to logic with an unquestioned regurgitation of simplistic propaganda, as if this dismisses ethical concerns. From J sub D:

A serious note –

Circumcision Gives Men up to 60% HIV Protection; WHO, UNAIDS Urge Adult Surgery

First, condoms. This is not complicated. They’re more effective and cheaper. Second, what part of urge adult surgery involves newborn foreskins? The studies used adult volunteers, not infants who can’t consent.

Denmark proposes equal rights.

[Update: I’ve fixed grammar in the opening sentence. Also, the comments provide a critique and clarification on my point about Islam as it may or may not relate to this proposal.]

I suspect Danish politicians are proposing a ban on male child circumcision because it’s an accepted part of Islam. That’s the wrong approach, since individual rights achieve the same results without intentionally creating hostility to faith. As long as sanity prevails in the (potential) implementation, the risk is small.

For a thread of comments on this topic, I spent part of my weekend commenting at Amy Alkon’s Advice Goddess Blog. I can’t say I’m surprised by what’s been written there, but Ms. Alkon and a few commenters have been logical and accurate in assessing the issue. I recommend the thread because there are many examples of the thought processes leading to infant circumcision that I’ve written about.

———-

About the proposed protection of children itself, it would apply to males under the age of 15, the age of majority for bodily decisions in Denmark. It’s entirely sensible and consistent with principles of liberty. Naturally, some people oppose it.

While the Social Democrats, Red-Green Alliance and Liberal Alliance have come out in support of a ban, the Danish People’s Party called it ‘tyranny’.

‘It’s completely ridiculous to compare the circumcision of girls – which is a barbaric mutilation – with that of boys, where it’s just the removal of a skin flap,’ said the party’s Jesper Langballe.

I don’t expect much from any group “People’s Party”, and this doesn’t disappoint. Unfortunately. Ethically, male and female genital mutilation are the same violation. But the issue always gets stuck at the physical results. Anyone who thinks that all FGM is the most extreme version is uninformed, especially if that person doesn’t recognize that anti-FGM laws make no such distinctions about results. (Again, correctly, as I’ve stated many times.) Anyone who thinks that the foreskin is just a “skin flap” is also uninformed. Langballe achieves a perfect score, I suppose.

Yet, the Danish People’s Party’s health spokewoman, Liselott Brixt, gets it right.

‘A lot of parents want it done to their children because they themselves had it done. But we’re living in the present and it isn’t fair to expose healthy children to religious circumcision.’

Healthy children is a reasoned fact. Religious adherence requires faith. One need not reject faith to recognize that it is not a reasoned approach to medical intervention. The latter must prevail because human rights belong to the individual.

Ethics does not require medicine. Medicine requires ethics.

I finally figured out how to explain the flaw in the thinking I challenged last week, the flaw that believes male and female genital mutilation are not morally equivalent. The path to missing the truth is clear. The blogger who claimed that gender is a valid surgical distinction assigned his entry to a category – “Medicine” – that misses the point. It’s a category that he would explicitly refuse to assign any discussion of female genital mutilation. He would file any such post to “Ethics”. That’s where he should’ve posted Wednesday’s entry.

In his mind, and in every encounter I’ve had on this topic, the assumption informing the lapse in reason always rests on the mistaken notion that the claimed potential benefits from male genital mutilation inform the ethics of imposing the procedure on another. It can be helpful, so it is acceptable. Obviously it’s desirable for the patient. Obviously. Also obvious, because it’s now acceptable and presumptively desirable, it must be desired by the patient. We assume that every male who can’t consent would consent if given the option, so there’s no need to bother with waiting. Waiting only increases the likelihood that one of the scary possibilities from being intact will affect the male.

But that misses the subjectivity of potential benefits and the evaluation each individual might undertake if he retains his normal choices. There is no medical need at the imposition of the surgery. Ethics must dictate a refusal to impose unnecessary surgical procedures, which is most often nothing more than tradition and conformity masquerading as medicine. The key word is impose. That requires legitimate ethical consideration, a test that cultural and ritual male child genital mutilation fail.

With female genital mutilation, our society recognizes no potential medical benefits. We do not consider the silly idea of chasing any. We assume no benefit and understand the obvious harm. We invoke only ethics, rejecting any hypothetical encroachment of speculative, preventive medicine into the ethics. Everyone in western society accepts that it is morally objectionable to impose unnecessary genital modification on a healthy individual who can’t consent, if the healthy individual is female. We know females would not consent to genital modification. Yet, we have evidence that seems to contradict this in societies that practice FGM. In the United States some adult females willingly choose cosmetic surgical alteration of their genitals. We refuse to accept the former and willfully ignore the latter.

This adherence to a gender-based relativism is the ethical myopia that leads to the mistaken belief that male and female genital mutilation are not the same immoral human rights violation. They are morally indistinguishable because humans possess human rights, not just female humans. Society errs every time it sanctions parents imposing surgical genital modification on their healthy child. We’ve reasoned our way to the proper understanding of female genital mutilation. We need to stop rejecting reason the same proper understanding of male genital mutilation.

Morality: Gender and Violence

I want to add a thought to last night’s post on whether or not male genital mutilation is morally equivalent to female genital mutilation. (It is.)

Is domestic violence perpetrated by a woman against a man morally equivalent to domestic violence perpetrated by a man against a woman?

The latter occurs far more frequently. Men are generally stronger than women. These do not matter in judging the immorality of the violence because the attack violates the individual. The outcome informs the decision on punishment, but it does not change the original fact that a crime occurred.

What’s the difference with male genital mutilation, if not gender and tradition? Neither are effective counter-arguments against facts and individual – human, not just female – rights. Each person owns his or her body from birth. We must permit proxy consent to maximize liberty. Liberty isn’t much good if the child dies. But the possibility of future medical problems is not the existence of a medical problem warranting the exercise of proxy consent to surgical intervention.

Any claim that current and future religious/cultural problems may result from normal human genitalia fails the test for permitting the exercise of proxy consent to surgical intervention. Fails it miserably.

Low Nutritional Value Politics

Last week I saw both of these Tom Toles editorial cartoons, but never together.

Toles_11052008.gif

And:

Toles_11072008.gif

The second cartoon, from Friday, is much more effective because it’s correct. The first cartoon, from Tuesday, is full of sentimentality but devoid of truth. (To be fair, we moved closer to truth, although not as much as everyone believes.) The success of California’s Proposition 8 demonstrated that “All men are created equal” isn’t fully realized yet. Maybe it will never be. And there are many issues where our society falls short of the ideal. Denying those because we want some warm, fuzzy feelings for a day is unproductive.

Theft is theft.

A post at denialism blog claims that male and female genital mutilation are not morally equivalent. After some buildup, the gist of the entry:

Independent of how you may feel about male circumcision, it does not normally, or even more than very rarely, lead to long-term medical consequences. FGM nearly always does. FGM is not usually as “simple” as a pinprick. And who performs it is irrelevant. If women are co-opted into torturing each other by the dominant male culture, that is most emphatically not a mitigating factor, but a sign of how deeply disturbed gender relations in the culture are.

There are many long-term medical consequences that are discounted or ignored. Scarring is a long-term (permanent) consequence. An asymmetrical incision is a long-term consequence. But those are not what the author implies, so I’ll consider it on his strict terms that those should be ignored. Would the removal of too much skin constitute a long-term medical consequence, since it leads to painful erections? Or are we just considering a negative result such as loss of the glans and other extreme outcomes?

Regardless of the answer, the ethical question looms larger. Who decides which medical consequences matter? Risk aversion and personal preferences are subjective to the individual. If the decision-maker is someone other than the individual whose body is altered, the intervention must be medically necessary. Otherwise, the surgery is immoral. Gender is irrelevant.

Notice, too, how the margins are ignored. Some male genital modification results in devastating consequences. Some female genital modification is physically insignificant. Those cannot be tossed aside as irrelevant. They inform the discussion. Why is it that the latter is legally prohibited under all non-medical circumstances, yet the former is considered an acceptable risk in the same non-medical circumstances? We do not get to dismiss inconvenient details.

The last part about who performs the mutilation flows into the author’s next paragraph, which I’ll break into segments:

Male circ is not a method of controlling males and their sexuality.

This is incorrect. Genital mutilation – of males and females – began in America as a method to prevent masturbation, among many grand claims by its advocates. Today we have the constant defense of the practice for males¹ based on a reduced risk of female-to-male transmission of HIV. What is the justification for modifying the genitals of infant males if it is not an attempt to control their sexuality? The undeniable assumption is that they will not be competent enough to practice safe sex. Remember that the studies from Africa involved only voluntary, adult circumcision. Transferring such findings to infants requires assumptions.

Also consider two very common defenses given for mutilating infant boys in America. Proponents claim that circumcised men take longer to orgasm than intact men. First, consider what that suggests about the long-term consequences on male sensation from the foreskin and the loss of the foreskin. Although I am not making the claim here that this is true, advocates of circumcision always deny this logical conclusion. But it is very clearly meant as the preferred expression of male sexuality. And it is most often imposed on infants. Second, the assumption is that he wouldn’t last long enough, however long that might be, without the removal of his foreskin. Another decides for him. I refuse to redefine the concept of control.

The other common claim is that women prefer the circumcised penis. A male’s future partner’s assumed preference matters exclusively, even though he may prefer to be intact and might choose to reject any woman who would reject him for having the body he was born with. Think of the corrollary. If men prefer large breasts and we forced breast implants on females, would we view that as an attempt to control female sexuality? What is this, if not control?

Continuing:

In nearly every culture that has ever existed (and one might argue that this is even more true of cultures that circumcise), males are dominant. FGM is always—always—a method of controlling women and their sexuality.

If we’re establishing that societal attempts to control an individual’s sexuality through surgical alteration is immoral, and we are, then we’re done. We can wrap potential benefits around the procedure for males, but it is not the least invasive option for any of its claimed benefits. The conclusion is the same. The surgical alteration of a healthy, non-consenting individual’s genitals is immoral. Gender is irrelevant to the fundamental moral claim. The extent of the damage is irrelevant to the fundamental moral claim. We may decide that legal punishment should differ based on actual results (including the uncommon extremes for each, which means minimal punishment for lesser forms of FGM), but the act itself is immoral. Every victim – female or male – is a victim.

For a similar analysis applied to religious male genital mutilation, see this entry from my archives.

Adjective-filled headlines aren’t objective reporting.

I wish I could send a memo to every newspaper headline writer. It would be brief, saying only “This headline is not clever.”

The kindest cut — AIDS-ravaged Swaziland rolls out male circumcision to prevent AIDS

First, notice how – once again – voluntary and adult are left out of the headline. The studies in Africa that have caused the world to lose its capacity to think rationally researched voluntary, adult male circumcision, not forced circumcision of boys. That’s an entirely different study, with impossible-to-overcome ethical hurdles.

Next, most dangerous complaint: the studies did not find that male circumcision prevents HIV infection. They concluded that male circumcision reduces the (short-term) risk of becoming HIV-infected. There is a significant difference, clearly lost in the current marketing. Somehow the correct interpretation appears in the story. I suppose the truth isn’t sexy enough for the headline. Marketing, folks, marketing.

Finally, regarding male circumcision being “the kindest cut”, the implication clearly implies that it’s kind on the part of the cutter. Shouldn’t the concern be for what and why the individual chooses for himself? For the cutter, it’s should be nothing but an objective medical procedure. Hacking away at the body of another for your reasons is unreasonable.

I allegedly have a reduced risk of being infected with HIV through sexual intercourse. I don’t engage in risky behavior, so my risk is zero. I do not care about any potential HIV risk reduction. For that reason, and many others, I do not consider my circumcision to be “kind”. It’s the rudest, most inhumane act as yet committed against me. My opinion is all that matters.

Or, all that should’ve mattered.

Finland should legalize honor killings, too, since the individual doesn’t matter.

I don’t know the intricacies of Finnish law. I don’t need to know them to know that this is obscene.

A circumcision performed on a Muslim boy in Finland was not a penal offence, Finland’s Supreme Court (KKO) decided Friday in a precedent setting case.

However, according to the Supreme Court a circumcision done for religious reasons helped the son in the development of his identity. The operation also helped him to become attached to his religious and social community.

How does the court know it helped him in his identity? What they mean is that they assume it will help him develop his identity as a Muslim because Muslim’s circumcise. That is an appeal to subjugating the individual to the group. It is anti-liberty. At some point, preferably sooner, tradition must be analyzed for what it is, not how long it has been around, or which non-legally-binding books demand it.

It gets much, much worse:

The court decided that the child’s parent was allowed to decide on the operation as it was not against the interests of the child. The boy’s bodily integrity was violated only a little and as the operation was conducted under local anaesthetic, it did not cause the child unnecessary suffering.

Why not say it’s okay to rape women, as long as the rapist wears a condom? I mean, it’s not like he’ll get her pregnant or give her a disease. It only violates her bodily integrity a little. Some counseling, a bit of time, and voila, the problem disappears.

Just like circumcision only removes a few thousand nerve endings and some tissue. So what if he’s healthy and surgery imposes objective risks. He¹ will be thankful, as long as his parents’ subjective opinion demands it. It’s minor, really. It’s not for the individual to complain. It’s merely his body, and what is that, really?

The only valid precedent set by the Finnish Supreme Court is that its judges are insane anti-liberty cretins. Demonstrated by Finland’s existing prohibition on female genital mutilation, they’re also disgusting hypocrites.

¹ Or she? Her opinion is also irrelevant, subject to whatever whim her parents hold, right?

No conspiracy. I think the media is lazy.

Here are three stories to demonstrate that media reporting on male circumcision borders on propaganda. First, from Aidsmap:

A meta-analysis of studies of circumcision in gay men and men who have sex with men (MSM) has not found sufficient evidence to show that being circumcised reduced their risk of acquiring HIV. Although it finds a small reduction in the risk of HIV infection in circumcised men, this is not statistically significant – in other words it could just be a chance finding. Furthermore, the study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that although circumcised men who were exclusively insertive for anal sex had a lower risk of infection with HIV, the difference with uncircumcised men was still not statistically significant and could have been chance.

Fair enough, and there are further possibly-relevant nuances in the article. Those aren’t my focus here (nor do they overcome my principled objection to forced circumcision). Rather, consider how the editor titled this news:

Jury still out on whether circumcision protects gay men against HIV

What would it take for the jury to finally be in? We see how quickly it’s in on unstudied results assumed from a study that appears to give the results the researcher wants. (The answer? Six days.) When the jury gives an answer you don’t like? Deliberate further. I don’t wonder why.

Note: We can debate the semantics of scientific investigation of the hypothesis and findings, but pro-circumcision researchers use only a very loose application of either.

Second, from Time (emphasis added):

Circumcision is believed to lower H.I.V. transmission in several ways. The inner surface of the foreskin is rich with cells that are more vulnerable to H.I.V. than cells on other parts of the penis; because they are also closer to the epithelial surface and at higher risk for tears during intercourse, they increase susceptibility to infection. Removal of the foreskin further lowers men’s odds of developing genital ulcers (from diseases such as syphilis), which in turn lowers their vulnerability to H.I.V. during intercourse. In theory, circumcision should be protective for all men who participate in insertive sex, including heterosexual men and men who have sex with men.

Believed to lower is accurate, because all studies involving (voluntary, adult!) male circumcision and HIV risk reduction look at results. None of them have shown what generates the results researchers claim. There are theories, but nothing concrete. It could be nothing more than flawed methodology, right? Yet, Time reported male circumcision’s claimed role in reducing HIV risk as its 2007 medical breakthrough of the year. Has the magazine changed its opinion to one of logically-defensible caution?

Third, from the Jerusalem Post:

Almost a third of male immigrants from the former Soviet Union are uncircumcised, according to a survey by the Geocartography Institute commissioned by the Jerusalem AIDS Project.

The survey also found that 2.2% of women who immigrated from the FSU “didn’t know” whether their partner was circumcised, and 72.8% of female partners of uncircumcised new immigrants would prefer that they don’t undergo ritual circumcision.

That 72.8% figure is interesting. It’s subjective, a point I actively make, even when it benefits me. But this is the type of irrelevant statistic pro-circumcision propagandists like Dr. Brian Morris love to spew when their carefully-chosen studies suggest that women prefer circumcised partners. We mark anyone who would argue in favor of compulsory breast implants for teen girls because their male partners prefer large breasts as intellectually ridiculous. The same applies here. What women prefer only matters if the male choosing circumcision for himself wants it to influence his decision. For the anti-intellectuals who don’t get this, the propaganda can work against them. They’ll never notice, of course.

Continuing, with emphasis added:

Research carried out abroad shows incontrovertibly that circumcision reduces by 60% the risk of a man being infected with HIV by a female carrier. In many African countries with high HIV rates, men are lining up for circumcision, and Israel’s experience in circumcising thousands of adult males has aroused interest in the UN and among African governments.

How does incontrovertibly reconcile with believed to lower? In the same way that “six in 10 circumcised men are immune to HIV infection”?