NOTE THE HAUNTING SIMILARITY TO ABORTION:

Female circumcision focus of ferocious debate in Egypt (Michael Slackman, September 19, 2007, NY Times)

Circumcision, as supporters call it, or female genital mutilation, as opponents refer to it, was suddenly a ferocious focus of debate in Egypt this summer. A nationwide campaign to stop the practice has become one of the most powerful social movements in Egypt in decades, uniting an unlikely alliance of government forces, official religious leaders and street-level activists.

Although Egypt's Health Ministry ordered an end to the practice in 1996, it allowed exceptions in cases of emergency, a loophole critics describe as so wide that it effectively rendered the ban meaningless.

Ah, that old feminist standby: the emergency exception.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 19, 2007 7:17 PM