(February 18, 2019 at 6:18 pm)Grandizer Wrote: If FGM was legal in the Western world, there'd be people advocating for it, doctors encouraging it, and parents requesting it for their daughters. And in the past, people used to defend slavery and even argue that it's good for the economy. Doctors had "good" motives when they conducted the disastrous Tuskegee syphilis experiment, and today we have doctors publishing studies that purportedly show the benefits of being circumcised as a boy/man.
What history tells me, and what can be seen in a few posts in this thread is that human beings are really good at rationalizing all sorts of practices, and there seems to be no such thing as a truly indefensible practice (as there will always be people to defend it, even providing very intellectual arguments for it).
Fine, arguments can be made for and against. But how about placing priority on the bodily and autonomy rights of the individuals most affected by these policies? I think it's fair and very reasonable to leave it up to the person most affected to decide for themselves, short of medical necessity.
wyzas, "medically unnecessary" in this case means if the individual involved is otherwise healthy and suffers no serious complications that may cause considerable and obvious risk for them later in life if left untreated, then the surgery is medically unnecessary. In this case, wait for the child to be able to consent in an informed manner and let them decide.
The thing is, you are a guy who watched a television show about a very complex issue that you really don't know much about, and then started telling everyone how things should be. You just watched a television show. It didn't endow you with the expertise.
We do not inherit the world from our parents. We borrow it from our children.
