Running scared of religious ‘child abusers’
Female genital mutilation (FGm) is barbaric. Over recent years, many celebrities, such as the actress angelina Jolie, have put pressure on the authorities to ‘do something’ about the horrific practice — and quite right, too.
This led to a government inquiry two years ago to investigate why there has never been a single prosecution under the anti-FGm legislation in the UK.
But the ineluctable fact is that the authorities are too scared to offend cultural sensitivities to look to the communities where this awful practice is a custom and, therefore, routinely carried out.
Thus, instead of prosecuting those who make young girls and women undergo such operations, the authorities cowardly target the medical profession.
last year, there was a farcical legal case against a doctor who was accused of stitching a mother who had just given birth, effectively re-doing the FGm she had suffered as a six-year-old in Somalia.
The jury took less than 30 minutes to find him not guilty.
It was a depressing example of legislation becoming politicised, with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), in my view, conducting what was little more than a show trial on the flimsiest of evidence.
It helped no one and caused untold misery to a dedicated doctor, who was suspended from the medical register for simply being accused.
Now, the CPS is considering prosecuting doctors who undertake cosmetic vaginal surgery.
While I do not like this type of surgery, if adult women wish to have the shape of their genitals altered (doing so for personal reasons), that is entirely their choice.
The idea of criminal prosecutions over adult cosmetic surgery is particularly absurd when baby boys can legally undergo religious circumcision — a painful operation that can have life-long consequences — without anaesthetic, carried out by someone who isn’t medically qualified.
In any other circumstances, this would be denounced as child abuse. Why is it any different because it serves a parent’s religious beliefs and it’s done on a boy?
The latest wheeze by NhS managers for cutting costs is STPs — ‘sustainability and transformation plans’ — management-speak for closing beds and wards. STPs are shrouded in secrecy, but the few that have been leaked have involved proposals for shutting A&e departments or maternity units. It is thought about half of all health trusts that have drawn up such plans intend reducing bed numbers, while a third anticipate A&e closures. In total, this is hoped to reap £22 billion in cuts. Yet two-thirds of doctors are unaware this involves the very wards where they work. This is utter madness. Of course, the NhS needs to make savings. But bed cuts and A&e closures will only hurt patients — the very people the NhS is supposed to serve.