profession
Pediatricians retract policy on "ritual nicks"
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted June 14, 2010
The American Academy of Pediatrics has withdrawn a policy statement that said federal laws should allow physicians to offer parents seeking to cut a girl's genitals a "ritual nick as a possible compromise to avoid greater harm" caused by more severe forms of the practice.
The statement, produced by the academy's Committee on Bioethics, said "pricking or incising the clitoral skin" could satisfy "cultural requirements" and constituted "no more of an alteration than ear piercing." The policy was published in the May Pediatrics (link).
The organization's statement outraged human rights and women's rights groups, as well as survivors of the practice, which persists in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. On May 27, the AAP replaced the policy with guidance stating that female genital cutting "can be life-threatening" as practiced.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/06/14/prbf0614.htm.
