Thursday 19 March 2015

The British Civil Service, Folks! Give It A Big Hand!

The mandatory reporting regulations, sent to medical staff by the Department of Health, say that any woman whose labia or clitoris has been pierced must be classed as suffering FGM.
But surely this won’t apply to…

Oh.
The rules will apply even when women have consented to the piercing and had the procedure in the belief that it will improve their sex lives and enhance their attractiveness.
As Tim Worstall points out: “The very same people who insist that a woman can and should be able to do anything she likes with her own pregnancy seem to be the same people who insist that she cannot do what she wants with her own fanny.”

Indeed. But that’s the price you pay for insisting on blanket legislation to avoid pointing fingers at the people who are doing things you want to stop, isn’t it?
It means that each of the women will also be classed as a potential crime victim and that those responsible for carrying out the piercing could be deemed guilty of an offence under legislation banning FGM.
/facepalm
A Department of Health spokesman confirmed the move and said that piercings were a form of FGM even when performed on consenting adult women.
He added: “While there are challenges in this area and adult women may have genital piercings, in some communities girls are forced to have them.
“The World Health Organisation has quite rightly defined this as a form of FGM. We are taking every precaution to record genital piercings that have been done within an abusive context.”
And that’s subject to interpretation and over-zealousness and all the other things we’ve come to expect from agents of the benevolent State, isn’t it?

10 comments:

Mark In Mayenne said...

It means that the government will be able to claim successful prosecutions under this law, without actually having solved the problem.

Anonymous said...

Would this also criminalise gender reassignment surgery? They really are going out of their way to offend all the peripheral "victim" groups. Couldn't possibly be because the biggest group they are protecting from finger pointing are a bunch of violent humourless tribesmen they imported.

Anonymous said...

What about the scourge of FEM? All those pierced ears hanging out in full view? I want to give all my money to the Department of Health to protect these poor women from a disfigurement as bad as flap enhancement. Oh help me mighty doctors, protect me from anything voluntary but non-standard and not my business anyway. No tampering with nature!
" All women must have fannies which resemble the nest of an eagle owl for their own good, with armpits to match" by order of the Chief Medical Officer.

NickM said...

Wow,
I have never heard of any culture in which genital piercing is forced or indeed expected. This is just a pathetic attempt to avoid the idea that campaigning against FGM (real FGM) is racist or something. It is pathetic.

Bucko said...

After reading that, the rebel in me really wants to get my fanny pierced.
It's just a pity I don't have one

DAD said...

What about circumcision ?

I can imagine certain communities would be (literally) up-in-arms about a ban on this.

Lord T said...

It is just a simple way of fudging the figures. They list the items, with piercings being top of the list, then don't actually count them individually and, viola, we have no idea how many real cases of FGM there are we just know that there are hardly any.

Statistics.

JuliaM said...

"It means that the government will be able to claim successful prosecutions under this law, without actually having solved the problem."

I suspect we have a winner!

"Would this also criminalise gender reassignment surgery?"

I haven't seen any concerns, so I would suggest this identity group has done its lobbying well...

"I have never heard of any culture in which genital piercing is forced or indeed expected. "

Me neither!

JuliaM said...

"What about circumcision ?"

Quite!

"...and, viola, we have no idea how many real cases of FGM there are we just know that there are hardly any."

Fiendish!

Karen said...

This is not what the Serious Crime Act 2015 states - the media reporting has been inaccurate and scaremongering. The mandatory reporting requirements relate only to FGM performed on under 18s. You can read the relevant section of the Act here: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/9/section/74/enacted