Please read my comment. Your reply is making assumptions about me that were not even implied in my comment. Infantile circumcision is normally done with a dorsal injection of local anaesthetic before the procedure is done. ... No more pain than that associated with a vaccination, no more distress to the infant than changing a nappy. [ They often make a noise or two during the restraint associated with that activity as well! ]

I reiterate in no attitudinally biased way, given an option and comparing to the other situations I described that I have experienced [ ?have you ] the least physically, emotionally, practically traumatic option for the procedure is the one done, for whatever reason, on an infant.

Obviously whether or not the practice is easier in children doesn't justify the violation of rights, but I've seen this argument brought up in a number of medical journals, saying it's easier (and therefore justified) in children, so here's a few unanswered questions brought up by this statement:

Is it really easier in children, or is it just a question of practice and medical equipment?

Medical equipment - Having conducted circumcisions I'm sure you realize there is quite an array of medical devices which are used to assist in the process - these are patented and good source of income for the companies which produce them. Most of these 'circumcision devices' are geared towards infant circumcision.

Practice - In addition, the vast majority of circumcisions are carried out in infants (as mature males rarely voluntarily undergo the procedure, and it is very rarely medically indicated). Therefore, almost everyone who conducts circumcisions would have performed more on infants than males, and learnt from a practitioner more practiced in performing the operation on children.

Biologically, the anatomy of the penis would suggest that the procedure is simpler in adulthood - infants have non-retractile foreskins, meaning that it is adhered to the glans penis and needs to be forcefully separated. In adulthood the foreskin is not only completely separated from the glans, but the penis has obviously reached it's full-grown size, meaning the foreskin could be removed leaving sufficient tissue behind (substantially reducing the risk of 'over-circumcising' which can happen in infants).

I really do have to wonder when I see statements like this, whether this isn't actually simply saying 'we're better at infant circumcisions, so we should just keep doing it that way...'

I defer to your obviously much greater experience & knowledge and I thank-you for your assessment of my skills etc. and you inferred criticism of my training & trainers.

I am rapidly becoming sorry that I tried to offer a little balanced, objective experience to the debate.

It wasn't a personal attack - you may well have found circumcising infants much easier in practice, and it's perfectly legitimate for you to say so. Like I said, you're not the first person I've seen mention this.

I was just trying to ask if this is due to biology, and therefore unable to be changed, or whether it's due to medical practice. I think there's an argument that the latter could play a big part in this.

"the least physically, emotionally, practically traumatic option for the procedure is the one done, for whatever reason, on an infant."

This fact is completely irrelevant to the issue of Claire and Alexandra's article.

Sorry I spoke!! A small practical perspective obviously carries no value in this forum.

Dear Kim,

I am surprised that a professional surgeon would rather suggest that the opposing viewpoints aren't being 'practical' with regards to the issue.

Instead, I invite you to speak on the issues being raised:

1) The human rights issue: Should people not have the right whenever possible not to have their bodies altered without their consent (except in the case of life-saving or re-constructive surgery? why should girls be protected from prophylactic genital cutting and boys not? Don't you consider this sexist?

2) The complication rate of RIC is significantly higher than the rate of penile cancer. Why cause more problems to prevent just a few? (and incidentally, the cause of penile cancer is the same as the cause of cervical cancer, so why not just vaccinate boys, like we do girls?)

3) Almost all of the 'benefits' people list are things that can be prevented by wearing a condom.

Do you, in your practice, try to minimise the need for surgery by other methods? For example, should you have a patient with a partial rotator cuff tear, would you always advocate surgery or do you first send them to physiotherapy to see if they can recover their mobility and strength without invasive intervention? The reason I ask this is that some surgeons don't always see the other options, because they are trained to operate. It's what they do. I am not saying you are one of them, but it's possible that, in your profession, you might not recognise all the times when cutting is not the answer.

Please don't be sorry. At least not for (currently) being on the other side of a very passionate topic. I think it would be much more constructive if you were to participate and focus on the issues, rather than becoming overly defensive and running away.

I totally agree. As one previously circumcised as an infant I can quite honestly say that I in no way feel violated or traumatised by an event that I cannot recall. And let's be honest here, recall is key. It's why hospitals use Rohypnol as well as a pain killer when resetting bones.

For me it is all about health benefits. My wife and I had decided to have the procedure performed on any male children, not to emulate daddy but as a health benefit. Much like we have had both of our girls immunised against HPV even though that meant they had the trauma of a needle stick.

Please see my reply to Grant.

Are you suggesting that Rohypnol be used in RIC? The 'date rape' drug? Seriously?

Your waking consciousness of the event in infancy does in no way reflect the unconscious trauma of what happened to you.

The health benefits of RIC are trumped up and your daughters will be immunized at an age when they can at least understand what is happening to them. since both the supposed benefits of circ and the benefits of Gardisil are only 'benefits' once the person becomes sexually active. Given that fact, wouldn't it be prudent for circ to be put off until the age of 12 or 13: then at least the boys could be given general anaesthesia so as to really no be able to remember... oh, but all the benefits could also be gained by his using a condom during sex. And those benefits aren't 100%, so even circ'd guys need to use condoms. So what benefit is there in that?!?

I don't have a strong stake in this discussion, but I have observed that what William Ferguson said is certainly a common attitude. In mainstream life, away from this polarised discussion, there are many, many circumcised men who don't spend much time thinking about it, and don't have any "unconscious trauma" at all.

The ethical argument is a legitimate one - but one can lose credibility by over-empahsising either physical or psychological harm. Laurel, Rohypnol (flunitrazepam) is a common oral benzodiazepine. This class of drugs is commonly used to sedate people for medical procedures, with the advantage of some short-term amnesia (for the event). Calling it "the date-rape drug" is specious - it's a very safe sedative.

I can see the logic in an argument that says it is illogical to remove a healthy bit of tissue in anticipation of later disease. This is a practice with cultural or religious origins, which has gained its public health benefits retrospectively. However, I also know that there are millions of circumcised men who feel no violation or regret. And, amongst these people, there are lower rates of certain health issues. A balanced argument recognises all of these aspects.

It is likely that the best answer is a variation of what we are doing now: leave the decision up to the parents, but don't promote it, except in areas of high HIV rates or other medical indications.

Thanks, Robin, but I think you have misunderstood my comment.

William Ferguson was arguing that a pain un-remembered may have less effect on the person experiencing it, which is why broken bones are reduced under sedation. ANother poster responded aghast, saying Rohypnol is "the date rape drug". I merely pointed out that it is a common-garden sedative of the benzodiazepine variety. I did not suggest (and nor did William) that it be used for infant circumcision.

The only analagous procedure I could imagine having done to myself as a baby might be ear piercing. It would hurt at the time - I would probably have to be held down. I wouldn't remember it later. I might regret it later - but that is highly unlikely.

As I said above, there is a real ethical question here. But the discussion isn't help by exaggerating the harm for the vast majority of men.

Have a done a survey on the attitudes of circumcised males? Not formally, but I have followed this discussion in many places, and there are always multiple posters who wonder what all the fuss is about.

If you regretted having had your ears pierced, you could leave the earrings out and the holes would close over. Circumcision, not so much.

Sure, some circumcised men wonder what all the fuss is about. Others don't, and intact men don't.

"Errol Morris, the filmmaker, was born with strabismus and subsequently lost almost all the vision in one eye, but feels he gets along perfectly well. "I see things in 3-D," he said. "I move my head when I need to - parallax is enough. I don't see the world as a plane." He joked that he considered stereopsis [3D vision] no more than a "gimmick" and found my interest in it "bizarre."

"I tried to argue with him, to expatiate on the special character and beauty of stereopsis. But one cannot con­vey to the stereo-blind what stereopsis is like; the sub­jective quality, the quale, of stereopsis is unique and no less remarkable than that of color. However brilliantly a person with monocular vision may function, he or she is, in this one sense, totally lacking.
...
With prismatic spectacles and exercises, Sue Barry recovered stereo vision after a lifetime of using her two eyes separately:

I went back to my car and happened to glance at the steering wheel. It had "popped out" from the dash­board. I closed one eye, then the other, then looked with both eyes again, and the steering wheel looked different. I decided that the light from the setting sun was playing tricks on me and drove home. But the next day I got up, did the eye exercises., and got into the car to drive to work. When I looked at-the rear-view mirror, it had popped out from the windshield.

Her new vision was "absolutely delightful," Sue wrote. "I had no idea what I had been missing."

- Oliver Sacks, The Mind's Eye

Men who have restored their foreskins, and their partners, report something similar, and that is without even replacing the missing nerves. I suggest that a poll of circumcised men would tell you no more about whether a foreskin is worth having than a poll of people with strabismus would about whether stereopsis is worth having.

Hugh - you may well be right.

My comment was about the exaggeration of the physical and emotional trauma tha is allegedly caused - which no doubt exists, but (from many articles I have seen) appears to be rare.

So yes, you might like the sensation better if you had never lost your foreskin - or not. And yes, you might have a lower chance of UTI or balanities, but you might not have had an infection at all.

My point is that absolutes on either side merely dramaticise the discussion. SUre there is a legitimate ethical argument to be had, but it should be able to be had without exaggerating the magnitude of the harm.

I agree that circumcision is not necessary and should be a choice for males when they are old enough to make a reasoned decision.

The only reason for an young male to have a circumcision is in cases where the foreskin does not, eventually, achieve the flexibility to be pulled back, thus inhibiting adequate hygiene.

"The foreskin is thus not fully separable from the glans in about 96% of newborn boys. By 1 year of age, the foreskin can be retracted in 50% of boys and by 3 years, the foreskin can be retracted in 80%-90% of uncircumcised boys...

...Circumcision may be considered for the following health conditions:

paraphimosis – a condition where the foreskin gets trapped under the tip of the penis
severe cases of phimosis – a tight foreskin that can't be retracted
recurrent balanoposthitis – inflammation of the tip of the penis and foreskin
balanitis xerotica obliterans – an uncommon condition causing hardening and inflammation of the tip of the penis"

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Circumcision/Pages/Introduction.aspx

Therefore, healthy boys do not require circumcision.

Where I differ is with your opinion that female circumcision is given greater protection than for males. There is a reason - clitoral circumcision has a direct impact on a female's sexuality - makes it difficult to achieve orgasm - even the removal of the tip of the clitoris lessens biological sexual response.

"There are three main types of circumcision:

The removal of the tip of the clitoris
Total removal of the clitoris and surrounding labia
The removal of the clitoris and labia and the sewing up of the vagina, leaving only a small opening for urine and menstrual blood - a process known as infibulation."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/physical_health/conditions/female_genital_mutilation.shtml

Removal of the male foreskin does not inhibit sexual fulfilment. I will repeat that I am not in favour of male circumcision - simply that there is a significant difference between male and female circumcision.

My intention is not to start yet another gender war, simply to illustrate that males and females have equal rights to a healthy sex life, that female circumcision directly violates this human right.

You say that, Grant, because that is what you know. That is what you have always known. If you had grown up with a foreskin, you would also feel pretty attached to your state of being as an intact male.

"Come on, have you ever seen an uncircumcised penis?" Is a rhetorical question which implies that it's an unpleasant sight. It's this kind of mockery of others that hinders rational conversation on this matter. The "Let's make fun of the other guy until the issue goes away and we don't have to think about it any more" absurdity.

I don't know how many *intact* penises you have observed (uncircumcised would imply they had once been circumcised and now are not - a feat which is literally impossible since the tissue of the foreskin, when cut off, can never be replicated by stretching or surgery) but I have seen both intact and circumcised penises, both in my professional and personal life, and my personal aesthetic can be summed up by *Meh, they're all penises*

Here's the thing: when erect, they look roughly the same, except the intact males have smoother, silkier glans because it's protected by the foreskin. The whole 'intact men don't need to use lubricant' thing is not only true for masturbation but also in copulation.

And it's nice of you to say your parents are 'off the hook' with you, but there are so many men who are saying that they wish their parents had not allowed circumcision to happen to them. Even the ones who didn't end up undeniably maimed. There is a tangible, measurable complication rate with RIC: one that can be nearly eradicated if we were to deem circumcision to be, like breast implants or tattoos, something people can choose once they turn 18.

Should RIC be no longer practised, there would be no more glans amputation or other horrifically blood curdling surgical mistakes due to the small size of the baby's penis, vs. that of an adult male. No more 're-circumcisions' due to the remaining tissue trying to reattach itself to the glans due to that being the natural innate function of the pre-pubescent prepuce (foreskin). And, more importantly (in my view), it would never be necessary to rip the foreskin from the glans before cutting it off. Many people seem to forget that an infant's foreskin is NOT retractable.

Just imagine: if something had gone undeniably wrong with your circumcision: had you lost the head of your penis, suffered de-gloving, repeated surgeries, skin grafts, amputation, or had contracted an infection, the effects of which will be borne on your body for the rest of your life= would you be so happy with your circumcision? Certainly if you were one of the many boys who bled out after circumcision and died, you wouldn't have an opinion, one way or the other.

Any man who is 'pleased' with the result of a procedure that was done before he could remember what the alternative might have been: I respect your opinion. But I ask this of you, in the name of all those who weren't so lucky. I ask you to consider those boys who will suffer and die (even if the percentage is small, the real numbers are staggering) and I ask you to defend the rights of boys born in the future. So that they might not suffer.

Hear, hear. and don't forget the the forced imposition of mind altering religious education and for that matter schooling of any sort onto children! Parental decisions made in the light of certain 'religious' convictions that prohibit the administration of blood or blood products to children in situations of severe trauma resuscitation ..... a very slippery slope indeed.

These arguments by bad analogy are so tedious. If you can't see the difference between teaching a child and cutting a part off them, I hope they never let you inside a school.

I am troubled by much of what you say Hugh. Your understanding of anatomy, embryology, the physiology of healing especially in the young & growing child, the practicalities of surgery [I manage not to do too much damage to 2 mm diameter nerves and blood vessels when doing microscopic re-anatomoses of traumatised blood vessels and nerves - a little smaller than infant genitalia!] seems somewhat at odds with my own.

Bad analogy!! - I think not. Informed decision making & by whom is the vexed question that we should be tackling. One problem is:- when do parents have the right to make decisions about their child's welfare ...... up until age 16? up to age 8? never? after they have passed a societal IQ test [culturally sensitive of course]?

The blood product analogy is all about a parent often advised by a member of the JW church whether or not the treatment should be used. The child has no chance of being involved in the decision making - may well never have even the opportunity to grow up if their "basic human rights" are upheld in the same way that we are conducting this debate. I suppose that all readers will now add a rather large number of "unconstructive" hits to my comment. Sobeit!

http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope
http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem
http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority

I don't claim to know a lot about doing surgery. My specialty is NOT doing surgery. (And just as well for all the people I don't do it on!)

The blood product analogy works againsst you. Jehovah's Witness parents are NOT allowed "to decide for their children" to withhold lifesaving blood: in the US they have a convenient legal fiction by which the child is made a ward of the court for as long as a transfusion takes. I suspect parents are secretly relieved when this happens.

I'll turn your question on its head. At what age may parents no longer be allowed to decide to cut (the best) part off their son's genitals? After age 8? After age 16? Must a 35-year-old man fear his mother's knock at the door, doctor in tow, to say she's changed her mind and he now has to be circumcised?

A court in Oregon ruled that a 14-year old had a right to an opinion. (The boy was very clear not only that he didn't want to be circumcised, but didn't want to live with his controlling and litigious father. He was lucky though. The case had dragged out since he was nine. Is there any reason to suppose that he would have wanted it when he was younger - or been better informed then?)

Hugh, your depth of research is illuminating & interesting reading. You also clearly declare by your enthusiastic responses and attitude a clear lack of contact with practical reality and the real world of decisions and consequences.
Another analogy - if you can quote 200 articles on the principles of flight and the design of aircraft, would you be able to land [& survive] a 400 ton jetliner without practical training? ... I think not. Theoretical discourses & research help provide the background knowledge but they do not ensure that you make the 'right' decisions when you have to.
We could go on forever about the wider problems around JW & blood transfusions but that is for another time.

A relevant question that I would like answered is - what decision-making rights do parents actually have to make decisions about their children? I must admit that I am confused after being engaged in this conversation.

"what decision-making rights do parents actually have to make decisions about their children? "

Parents hold their children's bodies (and their minds) in trust until they are adults. Then they are morally obliged to relinquish them to their owners, as far as possible in original condition (though clearly, both should have been encouraged to develop in age-appropriate ways). Both are to be protected from harm and abuse as far as the parents are able.

There is no other "parental decision" quite like this one, to cut a normal healthy, functional, non-renewing part off a healthy baby. It is illegal to tattoo or genitally pierce a baby, or to make even a token ritual nick to her genitals. The infant male foreskin is uniquely fair game. So the wider question about parental decision-making is barely relevant: infant circumcision is a unique loophole in wide-ranging child protection laws. As they found in Germany, the law already bans it, it was just a matter of interpreting existing law.

mmmmm - the lack of real world perspective and narrow viewpoint continues unfortunately.

Correction of severe bat ears, removal and or straightening of misshapen teeth, removal of large 'birthmarks', especially facial, removal of extra toes or fingers, correction of leg - length discrepancies, etc., etc. are cosmetic, not medically necessary procedures done on infants, toddlers and young children. Surely these sorts of parental condoned or sought out medical / surgical interventions are even more infringing & controversial than male circumcision. Should we have laws forbidding these infringements of human rights until children have enough insight to be able to make their own decisions? [ And in many of these cases, the ideal time for the best cosmetic interventional outcome has been lost by the time adulthood has been attained ]

And how does one keep a young enquiring mind in 'original' condition until adulthood? Interesting concept.

Mmm - the ad hominems and vague generalisations continue, unfortunantely.

"Correction of severe bat ears, removal and or straightening of misshapen teeth, removal of large 'birthmarks', especially facial, removal of extra toes or fingers, correction of leg - length discrepancies, etc., etc. are cosmetic, not medically necessary procedures done on infants, toddlers and young children. Surely these sorts of parental condoned or sought out medical / surgical interventions are even more infringing & controversial than male circumcision."

No, they are not. A foreskin is not a birth defect. It is not diseased or misshapen, but a healthy body part, serving a protective function from birth and erogenous functions later. The latter may be disputed, but they are more so - and more obviously so - than for the earlobe. Would healthy-earlobe-removal be a legitimate parental decision? (And this is not decisive, but has ANY person EVER gone back to their parents or gone online to complain about having had their ears straightened or birthmark/s removed?)

I can answer your last question in one word. Open. But to elaborate, by not teaching them that anything is the last word on any matter, from which no deviant opinion is allowed, and especially by not teaching them that any thought is dangerous. Probably a parent's greatest gift to a child is the words "...but I could be wrong."

I am sure that you will only settle for the last word, Hugh. Your zeal blinds you to any other perspective. Such is the way of our world.

Hugh. How is removing extra toes or adjusting leg-length "cosmetic?" Both such surgeries must affect the patient's ability to walk and enjoy a healthier life.

And just to stir the pot a bit more: a few minutes ago, I asked my best friend and "intact" lover (we fell in love in 1993) the following question: "On the subject of circumcision, if you had your way, would you rather be an intact male?"

Without hesitation, he replied, "No. It's gross." For me, that says it all.

I think your first question is addressed to Kim Bulwinkel, not me.

I think you mean your lover is not ' "intact" ' but circumcised.

He is the victim of a fait accompli. If he were one of the 3/4 of the world's men who have all their genitals, and especially if he lived in a country where most men were like him - most of the developed world except the USA, and much of the rest of the non-Muslim world - then that is what he would have grown up with, and almost certainly what he would prefer to have.

"Gross" says only that he is unfamiliar with anything else.

No good studies have been done, but informal polls, such as this one, taken at the Burning Man festival last year - http://www.circumstitions.com/Resent.html#burning - strongly suggest that men are much more likely to be happy to be intact than to be circumcised.

Hello, Hugh. This comment thread is not well ordered chronologically. I did catch my mistake and posted my correction about an hour ago.

Several of my friends are huge fans of Burning Man festivals, and I question whether the age-range of attendees is representative of the male population. Certainly the mind-set of attendees is not representative of a larger cross-section of males.

I shall continue in my pursuit of greater knowledge re: benefits of circumcision, in addition to polling those I know, as to how they think on the subject. Meanwhile, nothing you have written is swaying me from my belief that circumcision is healthier, cleaner and more evolved.

As I say, no good studies have been done, but that is not the only such poll with such a result, and your polling (of circumcised men only) so far has an N of 1.

I suggest you research risks and harms of circumcision as well as benefits. But the original post was rightly about the ethics, and not everything that might be good for someone - like forcibly withholding chocolate from a fat person - is ethical.

I wonder if you can imagine anything being cut off female genitals that would make them healthier or cleaner, such as the clitoral prepuce or the inner labia, that would then justify doing it to newborn girls?

And "more evolved"? Evolution has had millions of years, and some men are born without foreskins - it's called aposthia - so there's no genetic reason we're stuck with it (unlike the appendix, whose absence imperils the development of the rest of the intestine). Yet those men have not become the norm, implying it is not in the least harmful.

Not all men suffer from PE, and you can't tell by looking at a baby whether he will or not. A man who suffers from it in his youth usually overcomes it as he learns more about his own reactions, and many men (you might say eventually all men) suffer from the reverse as they grow older and their nerves age.

Nor is the relation between the foreskin, circumision and PE a simple or obvious one. The >20,000 specialised nerves of the ridged band confer not just "more sensitivity" but more feedback and hence more control. Cutting them off is like ripping out his accelator pedal and leaving only an on-off switch (the frenulum, which circumcised men call "the male G-spot"). He can still get there (and remarkably many circumcised men seem to think that "reaching orgasm" is the be-all and end-all of the encounter) but he doesn't enjoy the journey so much. Many women complain that men are too goal-directed about sex, It would be interesting to study whether this correlates with circumcision. The proverbial Latin lovers are mainly intact.

There is also an effect on the female partner, as described here http://www.circumstitions.com/Horseheaven.html
and here
http://www.circumstitions.com/Sexuality.html#women

Don't be silly. No one said it was a "treatment" for premature (all one word, no hyphen) ejaculation.

However, there are men for whom p.e. is a problem. Perhaps a less sensitive penis tip would be better for such men. Kind of a no-brainer. Men have testified to the fact that their adult circumcisions have helped them in that respect. AND that they felt lovemaking was just as pleasurable and satisfying, if not more so, post-surgery.

"No one said it was a "treatment" for premature (all one word, no hyphen) ejaculation."

The implication of what you said is that it's a treatment.

"Don't be silly."

I think you should take your own advice before giving it to anyone else.

You seem to be responding to some other discussion altogether.

"Free-will adult decision making is a fundamental human right [with complex caveats]."
I couldn't agree more, which is why children need to be protected from having (normal, healthy, functional, non-renewing) parts of their genitals cut off before they can have any say in the matter.

"Prohibition zeal against alcohol didn't work in the US. The growing prohibition against smoking in Tasmania whilst laudable is fraught with potentially dangerous consequences."
Are you saying that circumcising is addictive? You could have something there. Yet it is an addiction that New Zealand managed to shake off, without any ill-effects, and Australia is coming along very well, especially Tasmania.

"The multiple prohibitions enforced by many religions in the world consequentially severely restrict our humanity."
Agreed wholeheartedly, and their various prohibitions against possession of intact genitalia are not the least of them.

"The prohibitive legislation that you all wish to see has consequences. Unbalanced [zealous] perspective is very dangerous indeed."
I hadn't actually mentioned any legislation, but Section 204A of New Zealand's Crimes Act 1961 happens to be in front of me:

204A Female genital mutilation

(1) For the purposes of this section,—

female genital mutilation means the excision, infibulation, or mutilation of the whole or part of the labia majora, labia minora, or clitoris of any person
midwife means ...
sexual reassignment procedure means ...
trainee health professional means ...

(2) Subject to subsection (3), every one is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 7 years who performs, or causes to be performed, on any other person, any act involving female genital mutilation.

(3) Nothing in subsection (2) applies in respect of—

(a) any medical or surgical procedure (including a sexual reassignment procedure) that is performed on any person—

(i) for the benefit of that person's physical or mental health; and

(ii) by a medical practitioner:

(b) any medical or surgical procedure that is performed on any person—

(i) while that person is in labour or immediately after that person gives birth; and

(ii) for the benefit of that person's health or the health of the child; and

(iii) by a medical practitioner or a midwife or a trainee health professional, or by any other person in any case where the case is urgent and no medical practitioner or midwife or trainee health professional is available.

(4) In determining, for the purposes of subsection (3), whether or not any medical or surgical procedure is performed on any person for the benefit of that person's physical or mental health, no account shall be taken of the effect on that person of any belief on the part of that person or any other person that the procedure is necessary or desirable as, or as part of, a cultural, religious, or other custom or practice.

(5) Nothing in subsection (3) limits or affects any enactment or rule of law relating to consent to any medical or surgical procedure or treatment.

(6) It is no defence to a charge under this section that the person on whom the act involving female genital mutilation was performed consented to that act, or that the person charged believed that such consent had been given.

(7) No person shall be charged as a party to an offence committed upon her against this section.

--------------------

I propose two small amendments, the deletion of the word "female" throughout, and the addition to (1) after the words "labia minora, " of "prepuce". This will have the benefits of protecting the clitoral prepuce (whose omission I am sure was unintentional) and bringing the Act into line with the Human Rights Act 1993, which says
21 Prohibited grounds of discrimination
(1) For the purposes of this Act, the prohibited grounds of discrimination are—
(a) sex, ...

I doubt this will be my last word.

Okay, I don't want a continual back-and-forth with you Kim so this is going to be my last comment.

We obviously completely disagree. My stance is one based on universal respect for human rights, so if that means taking away the (presumed) 'right' of someone to unnecessarily modify someone else's genitals, so be it.