BMJ defends FGM

This is indefensible. What is wrong with the doctors who wrote this appalling article?!

I think the article is more nuanced than The Mail, Telegraph and Times would have you think. It doesn't defend it, but discusses the difference between cultures and the lack of trust in medical professionals. It opens with commenting on the health risks as well as human rights failures.

I’m going to try and find the full article before outrage gets the better of me. FWIW, I remember discussions thirty years ago, involving health and children’s services about whether prosecution or attempting to engage with relevant communities would best protect children

I think it’s the anthropologists who are defending this.

Saw this and I was beyond shocked.
Not only the DM. Celia Walden writes in the DT

It turns out that the widespread condemnation of female genital mutilation (FGM) is based on “misleading, often racialised, stereotypes” and “Western sensationalism”. We, the World Health Organisation and Unicef have got it all wrong! If it weren’t for the “ethnocentric framework” around this conversation, we might be a little less censorious about the ceremonial butchering of women.

“Cultural suppression? Western sensationalism?” - aye, right, try telling that to all the women who have suffered, those who still suffer and the little girls who face it.🤬🤬🤬🤬

Grandmabatty

I think the article is more nuanced than The Mail, Telegraph and Times would have you think. It doesn't defend it, but discusses the difference between cultures and the lack of trust in medical professionals. It opens with commenting on the health risks as well as human rights failures.

I have read a lot of articles on this issue. It’s not as black and white as the OP suggests.
I support 2 charities who fight this barbaric practice.

No, the BMJ (British Medical Journal) group has not defended female genital mutilation (FGM). A recent paper in its Journal of Medical Ethics (JME) critiqued the global anti-FGM campaign for potential harms like stigmatization and cultural insensitivity, but it did not endorse or defend the practice itself.[1][2][3]

## Paper's Actual Argument
Researchers from 25 institutions argued that anti-FGM discourse relies on a "standard tale" of universal trauma, which may obscure diverse experiences and cause unintended harms like community alienation or backlash, while rejecting the term "mutilation" as pejorative in favor of "female genital practices." They emphasized evidence gaps in assuming all forms cause equivalent harm and called for nuanced policy, not abandonment of opposition to non-consensual cutting.[2][4][5][6]

## Media and Criticism
Critics, including Telegraph columnists, accused the JME of "defending FGM" by platforming these views, labeling it as relativistic or culturally biased, amid broader condemnation of FGM as child abuse by WHO, UNICEF, and UK law. BMJ Publishing has not retracted or explicitly defended the paper, but prior BMJ content consistently frames FGM as harmful with no health benefits.[3][7][8][9][1]

[1](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2025/12/15/female-genital-mutilation-is-abuse-progressive-racist/)
[2](https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2025/12/14/jme-2025-110961)
[3](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12/14/british-medical-journal-article-female-genital-mutilation/)
[4](https://uk.news.yahoo.com/female-genital-mutilation-abuse-suggesting-193459752.html)
[5](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40953901/)
[6](https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/british-medical-journal-article-defends-185402046.html)
[7](https://www.bmj.com/content/364/bmj.l15/rapid-responses)
[8](https://gh.bmj.com/content/8/6/e012270)
[9](https://www.who.int/news/item/14-04-2025-new-study-highlights-multiple-long-term-health-complications-from-female-genital-mutilation)
[10](https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/6/e035039)
[11](https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p302/rr-1)

petra

Grandmabatty

I think the article is more nuanced than The Mail, Telegraph and Times would have you think. It doesn't defend it, but discusses the difference between cultures and the lack of trust in medical professionals. It opens with commenting on the health risks as well as human rights failures.

I have read a lot of articles on this issue. It’s not as black and white as the OP suggests.
I support 2 charities who fight this barbaric practice.

So I am wrong to be disturbed by this article?

I'd be grateful for a link to this article as I cannot believe the BMJ , which is a medical journal which reports medical news and research would "support" FMG, which in the UK and most other countries is a criminal offence.

As much as I can google from a Times article

"Laws that ban female genital mutilation (FGM) are harmful and “stigmatising” towards migrant communities, academics have claimed"

Yes, it is rage bait, classic example of.

I’ll never forget reading Waris Diries book ‘Desert Flower’ which highlighted the fgt she was subjected to as a child. It led to worldwide condemnation of the practice. I actually have some African beads that my landlord ( who had made all of his money in Africa) gave to me which he told me were given to young women when they were mutilated although, at the time ( I was in my late teens) I didn’t really take on board what he was telling me.I think it was only when I read the book years later that I understood what they represented.

As far as I am aware FGM is unlawful in the UK. Unlikely therefore that the BMJ is defending it.
The Daily Mail has form for 'misinterpreting' facts.
Could be today's 'clickbait' article?
Who owns The Times just now?
Yes, I remember that book 'Desert Flower'. Brave lady.

FGM is mutilation of little girls. There is no flowery language or ideological conceptions of it that can ever excuse it or explain it away.

Aveline

FGM is mutilation of little girls. There is no flowery language or ideological conceptions of it that can ever excuse it or explain it away.

And that's why they aren't explaining it away or excusing it.

I am horrified. Young girls should be protected not butchered.

Rage bait?

Who needs rage bait?

If you're not ENRAGED by cutting out little girls' clitoris do you even have a brain?

Nannee49

Rage bait?

Who needs rage bait?

If you're not ENRAGED by cutting out little girls' clitoris do you even have a brain?

You do realise that the BMJ did not defend FGM and I, like most decent people, absolutely abhor the practice. All I am saying is that the media is interpreting a thoughtful paper about the practice in some communities and the drivers to sustain it as condoning it is and egregious bit of rage baiting manipulation. And it's obviously worked on you.

Do you mean the article by nimco ali is rage bait, do you know who she is?

No, the BMJ (British Medical Journal) group has not defended female genital mutilation (FGM). A recent paper in its Journal of Medical Ethics (JME) critiqued the global anti-FGM campaign for potential harms like stigmatization and cultural insensitivity, but it did not endorse or defend the practice itself.

I presume Nimco Ali was paid for that article.

It's a research paper, the BMJ has published it not supported it and it is considered highly controversial. It questions the acceptance of circumcision and also the practice of labioplasty for non medical reason as well as suggesting the word mutilation should be changed for "practices". I haven't read the actual research paper but academics can write their opinions in this country even if most will disagree and surely making such opinions public enables debate.

foxie48

It's a research paper, the BMJ has published it not supported it and it is considered highly controversial. It questions the acceptance of circumcision and also the practice of labioplasty for non medical reason as well as suggesting the word mutilation should be changed for "practices". I haven't read the actual research paper but academics can write their opinions in this country even if most will disagree and surely making such opinions public enables debate.

Exactly this.

No love, directed at IOMgran, I was enraged by the practice long before some scholarly article, I don't need a peer reviewed, meta analysis paper to explain the pros and cons.

In any case, stop the practice, stop the stigma. Simple.

Just so people know who she is. She underwent fgm herself and has led an international campaign ( facing frequent horrendous abuse) against the horrors of fgm. But we need to put that aside because she wrote an article for a paper some people don't approve of.