Having your genitals mutilated is bad for your health

A new study has found that female genital mutilation (or as the New York Times article so delicately puts it "genital cutting") is dangerous and significantly increases the risks of childbirth for both mother and child.

According to the president of the International Women's Health Coalition: "This should greatly help advocates overcome arguments that genital mutilation is an untouchable cultural practice." Really? Are the same people who think it is okay to remove a girl's clitoris and sew up her labia without the benefit of anathesia or sterile instruments, all in order to protect her virtue, really going to be swayed by medical evidence?

Why do we have to be so politically correct about this issue? If your culture believes that it is necessary to mutilate a girl's body so that she not only derives no pleasure from sex, but that it also becomes torturously painful, then your culture is wrong. Not all societies are equal, those that recognize that women are human beings, with the same rights as men, are superior. Sadly for the young girls who live in these societies, the women's movement has largely abandoned them. For some reason whenever women's rights comes into conflict with traditional cultural practices, culture wins out. Afterall, there are bigger issues to contend with. Somewhere on Bay Street right now, while your life goes on as normal, a rich, well-educated woman could be hitting a glass ceiling!