Is It Time for Your State to Ban Female Genital Mutilation?

• This month, a federal judge dismissed criminal charges against two doctors in a landmark female genital mutilation case, that Congress had “overstepped its bounds” by passing a law banning the procedure.
• The case centered on two Michigan doctors and six others charged with arranging to perform female genital mutilation on nine girls, four from Michigan and five who were brought to the state from Illinois and Minnesota.

FGM facts

Female genital mutilation (FGM) has affected more than 200 million women around the world living today, and involves partial or total removal or cutting of the clitoris and/or other external elements of female genitalia, sewing together of the vaginal opening, or other harmful procedures for nontherapeutic reasons. It can lead to infections, severe pain, bleeding, painful menstruation and intercourse, childbirth complications, shock, post-traumatic stress disorder, and death.

A 2016 Government Accountability Office report estimated that half a million girls in the U.S. were affected by or at risk for mutilation in 2012, a threefold increase since 1990.

The law

FGM has been a federal crime in the U.S. for two decades, but the charges in this case were the first to be brought under the law.

The judge’s ruling didn’t question whether FGM took place or even whether it was “despicable”: indeed, the judge described it so.

Rather, he determined that FGM is a “local criminal activity” that must be regulated by the states, not Congress. He agreed with the defendants’ lawyers, who argued that the federal law banning FGM could not be permitted under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause.

The judge said the government failed to show that the procedure is a commercial activity or interstate market that would be subject to federal law, such as the markets for illegal drugs and pornography, and that regulating FGM should thus be left to individual states.

Activists contest this reasoning, noting that parents intent on cutting their daughters often travel across states to do so, as happened in this case.

Numerous states have since sought to ban FGM.

The Stopping Abusive Female Exploitation (SAFE) Act, among other provisions, expresses the sense of Congress that states should have laws in place that require healthcare professionals, teachers, and other school employees to report to local law enforcement any instance of suspected female genital mutilation.

What do you think?

Is it time for your state to ban female genital mutilation? Why or why not? Tell your reps what you think, then share your thoughts below.

—Sara E. Murphy

(Photo Credit: iStock.com / Tunatura)