The Political Correctness of Moral Equivalence

"It's my impression that we do get many requests for this, and almost all of them come from the husbands. They want their wives closed again."
[If a couple] is very insistent, and really are going to be very, very devastated if it (reinfibulation) can't be done [guidelines allow] for that decision to be made between the doctor and the patient."
Dr. Margaret Burnett, obstetrician-gynecologist, Winnipeg

"To hide behind 'cultural accommodation' to permit the practise of FGM [female genital mutilation], or any other practise that is unquestionably harmful, is a craven distortion of political correctness ... (and) is simply moral cowardice."
Dr. Beverley Chalmers, adjunct professor, department of obstetrics and gynecology, University of Ottawa

Infibulation represents the most serious form of female genital mutilation (FGM). It is a procedure where a woman's (or a girl's) vagina is sewn tightly permitting her a slight gap to allow for urination or menstrual flow. Over time scarring occurs as the vagina closes and the result is that the very small opening makes urination difficult, menstruation painful and sexual intercourse a dreadfully painful experience.

During childbirth the channel must be relaxed, but the procedure sometimes results in death for the child, and for the mother as well. FGM is common and part of the culture, widespread in Muslim Africa and the Middle East. It is the way that men can control their wives. And in that culture men will spurn a woman who has not been exposed to FGM; she will be considered unattractive as a spouse. Pain in intercourse is similar to wearing a chastity belt, in effect.

Despite the importance of bearing children in such societies the fact that FGM results in increased maternal and child mortality has no influence on the prevalence and insistence on FGM. Male 'honour' is closely aligned with the practise, and women become complicit; women concerned for the future of their daughters make certain they are made socially suitable, appropriately acceptable for the marriage market.

Crude implements are often used to achieve the effect, and children as young as five are exposed to the ritual, hugely painful, frightening and disorienting that can itself result in death through infection. The United Nations estimates there are 125 million survivors of female genital mutilation worldwide, with around 80,000 in Canada alone. As an insurance against promiscuity, the ritualistic mutilation is considered a 'purification' procedure.

Dr. Gamal Serour, past president of the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics speaks of reinfibulation, as a form of FGM violating human rights. Reinfibulation is the procedure whereby after giving birth a woman's vagina is once again closed, as it was after infibulation. The repeat process, according to Dr. Serour is "heartbreaking ... there are no benefits whatsoever for it. On the contrary, it is associated with immediate risks, delayed risks and long-term risks."

Dr. Burnett describes how women who have been infibulated must have their labia incised open to enable the baby to emerge, during childbirth. After which requests for reinfibulation become routine, since it is considered 'normal' for women who derive from those countries where FGM is widespread to return to their previous condition. The husbands of those women expect as much. Their honour depends upon it.

Dr. Chalmers feels that in an enlightened society such as Canada's where such primitive and destructive social-cultural-religious procedures are seen as anathema to medical science, the approach taken to satisfy the demands of those who wish to continue that cultural practise should take second place to the approach that in Canada such surgical procedures should be forbidden.

Whereas The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists' guidelines amended last November recommend that doctors explain the dangers of reinfibulation to patients, and that requests for the procedure "should be declined". An earlier policy statement stipulated that requests for the operation "must be declined".