In a video produced by conservative activist Pamela Geller for the human rights group American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), students at Ivy League Columbia University were asked if Planned Parenthood, a government-funded entity, should fund and support female genital mutilation (FGM). Nearly all the students interviewed condoned the barbaric practice, leaning on faux “tolerance” as their rationale for the inexcusable promotion of misogyny.
FGM, sometimes called female circumcision, “involves cutting the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. Depending on local customs, it could also include additional modifications ranging from cutting away part of the clitoris to removing the inner and outer vaginal lips before sewing the remaining skin together, leaving a small hole for urination and menstrual blood.”
The practice, which is currently performed in 29 counties, will void female sexual pleasure, intending to keep girls and women chaste and sexually pure or to prevent cheating. It often leads to medical complications and is even linked to increased death in newborns.
It is illegal to perform FGM in the United States. And human rights groups have rightfully condemned the gruesome practice, activating to stop the cultural ritual largely associated with Islam. Even the United Nations, as morally bankrupt as it is, launched an “International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM” back in 2015.
But to the intellectuals at Columbia University, mutilating a girl’s genitals is okay. Supporting it shows tolerance, actually.
AFDI reporter Laura Loomer went on campus to ask Columbia students if they would support Planned Parenthood funding FGM. Of the 20 students asked, only one unequivocally condemned FGM. Most students contended the ritual was all about “choice,” completely missing the misogyny attached to the practice young girls and women are pressured into. Most disturbingly, one student argued that age was no issue.
“Regardless of their age?” Loomer followed up, after the student condoned the practice of FGM.
“Oh, absolutely,” he answered.
Regardless of their age. Let that sink in.
Watch the AFDI video, below:
Though FGM remains illegal in America, girls and women at risk of the practice has doubled in the last 10 years, according to available 2015 data. As noted by Newsweek, “Immigration to the U.S. from African and Middle Eastern countries—where the practice of FGM is a deeply entrenched cultural tradition—is the sole factor for the rise in numbers, says Mark Mather, a demographer at PRB who led the data analysis. There has not been an increase in the practice happening in the U.S. itself, he says.”
The ADFI video contends that FGM is exclusive to the religion of Islam and is not cultural, but religious.
