FGM: Female Genital Mutilation Essay, Research Paper

FGM: Female Genital Mutilation

Female genital mutilation has been practiced in country’s around the

world for thousands of years, and will continue to be practiced, until those

that practice it decide to stop.

Many people who live in country’s that are more industrialized, like the

U.S.A., tend to think that no ones believes on right and wrong is correct,

except their own. That is what comes up in conversation about FGM.

Personally, I am not pro-FGM when it comes to its practice. However, I believe

people who want to practice it, should be allowed to, without a bunch of

“activists against the practice of FGM” telling them to stop, or even

“informing” them about the potential health risks. The reason I am against

even explaining the health risks to the people that practice this is, because

whenever you have people that believe enough in something to base their entire

life around it, there is nothing you can do or say that will get them to change;

it would be like talking to a wall. They will only change when the people

themselves that live by these traditions get fed up with all the side-effects

caused by the practice of FGM. It is every person and community’s right to

decide for themselves, without the intervention of outsiders, to decide to do

whatever they want to do to their bodies and minds.

I know, “these women that are being circumcised, aren’t freely deciding

on this to be done to them, they don’t know any better, they’ve been

brainwashed”. I have two responses to this. The first is, if they have grown

up in this culture all their lives, and this procedure has been done to their

mothers, sisters, great grandmothers, etc. on the fear that if it is not done,

something tearable will happen, there is no way they would not want it done; no

matter how much pain it causes, and besides those that are able to break away

from the thought of why it must be done, will do so with or without the help of

outsiders. But if they’re that committed to the tradition, they will change

for no one. The second point is, when you decide you are going to educate

these people about how their traditions are wrong and unhealthy, that is saying

you know better. You may think they are stupid for preforming FGM, but you

must remember, they think you are just as stupid for not performing it.

Perhaps, these people that perform FGM have philosophy classes too, where they

decide if they should try and make the western countries, like the U.S.A., see

the great health risk they are taking when they do not perform these

circumcisions; “after all that is probably why babies die and men are impotent

in those countries”.

That is why I believe it is wrong to intervene, in any way when it comes

to FGM. These people believe what they are doing is right and OK, thus, what

we do is wrong and not OK; to them we are just as wrong, as they are to us.