This week the American Academy of Pediatrics softened its decade-plus stance on female genital mutilation as being a human rights violation that results in "life threatening health risks" for girls and women.

The AAP is calling female genital mutilation cutting a "tradition that has existed since antiquity" and only has issue with "all types of female genital cutting that pose risks of physical or psychological harm" to females*. Instead of opposing all forms of female genital mutilation, the organization now recommends that its members "decline to perform any medically unnecessary procedure that alters the genitalia of female infants, girls, and adolescents."

But the WHO and the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics have for years denounced FGM as a "medically unnecessary" procedure that has no health benefits for girls or women.

In 1997, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimated that over 168,000 girls and women living in the U.S. had been or were at risk of being subjected to FGM. Meanwhile, new bipartisan legislation—The Girls Protection Act—introduced last week would make it illegal to transport a minor living in the U.S. out of the country for the purpose of hacking off her clitoris. Now, with the AAP's new policy stance, health experts (who aren't batshit crazy) fear that more girls in the U.S. will be at risk of being mutilated.

To recap, a decade ago the AAP:

1. Opposes all forms of female genital mutilation (FGM).
2. Recommends that its members actively seek to dissuade families from carrying out FGM.
3. Recommends that its members provide patients and their parents with compassionate education about the physical harms and psychological risks of FGM.
4. Recommends that its members decline to perform any medically unnecessary procedure that alters the genitalia of female infants, girls, and adolescents.

Today, the AAP:

1. Opposes all forms of [female genital cutting] FGC that pose risks of physical or psychological harm.
2. Encourages its members to become informed about FGC and its complications and to be able to recognize physical signs of FGC.
3. Recommends that its members actively seek to dissuade families from carrying out harmful forms of FGC.
4. Recommends that its members provide patients and their parents with compassionate education about the physical harms and psychological risks of FGC while remaining sensitive to the cultural and religious reasons that motivate parents to seek this procedure for their daughters.

How is that progress?


*What the fuck? We're talking about mutilating the clitorises of young girls and women. How could that not be physically or psychologically damaging?