Essay/Term paper: Fgm: female genital mutilation

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Philosophy Essays

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.