A disturbing video is exposing what students at Columbia University think of the gruesome practice of female genital mutilation, which is illegal in the United States but common in Islamic countries.
The American Freedom Defense Initiative, an anti-Islamic human rights organization, posted a video to YouTube Tuesday featuring responses from students at the New York school who were asked whether Planned Parenthood should support female genital mutilation.
“FGM involves partial or total removal of the clitoris causing injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons,” AFDI President Pamela Geller said. “It has no health benefits for girls and women, and removes all possibility of sexual pleasure. It is the worst kind of misogyny.
“Procedures can cause severe bleeding and problems urinating, and later cysts, infections as well as complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths,” she said.
The World Health Organization contends that “more than 200 million girls and woman alive today have been cut in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where FGM is concentrated,” and asserts that “FGM is a violation of the human rights of girls and women.”
Of the 20 students questioned about the ghastly procedure, only one flatly rejected the idea.
“Would you support Planned Parenthood funding for clitoridectomies?” AFDI reporter Laura Loomer asked two students.
“Of course,” one student replied.
“I believe it’s up to whoever wants to perform that,” his classmate said, “I definitely think it’s up to that single person.”
“Regardless of their age?” Loomer countered.
“Absolutely,” the student said.
Other students seemed indifferent to the idea.
“So if the families are choosing they want to do this, it’s ok?” Loomer asked two female students along a sidewalk outside of the school.
“I mean, who am I to say no to what somebody wants to do?” one woman replied. “It’s their body, right?”
Another woman suggested the practice – which is often performed on young girls as part of the Islamic religion – fits well with Planned Parenthood’s focus on “a woman’s right to choose.”
“If that’s what somebody’s choice was, I would say sure,” she said. “I think Planned Parenthood is all about a women’s right to choose.”
Others seemed to have the same perspective.
“If it’s pro-choice, it’s up to everyone,” another female student said. “To each their own.”
The ADFI video pointed out that “female genital mutilation is most commonly carried out on young girls between infancy and age 15.
“The number of women and girls at risk for FGM in the United States has more than doubled in the past 10 years, according to the Population Reference Bureau.”
At least one male student suggested that standing against FGM could be construed as “insensitive.”
“It think it’s sort of, any way you fall out on that, somehow you are going to be a little bit insensitive,” he said.
Ironically, the one student who rejected the notion of Planned Parenthood funding female genital mutilation also cited a woman’s “right to choose.”
“I think it’s part of a woman’s right to own their own sexuality, and to have pleasure about it,” the female student said, “and it’s something they should have the right to choose.”
Geller is a well-known anti-Islam advocate who founded the American Freedom Defense Initiative in 2010 with the aim of “exposing the truth about the jihad threat and encroachments that Islamic supremacists and their leftist allies are making in our culture,” she said in the video.
“We thought it was time now to show the truly shocking reality of support for jihad on campus, the ignorance among college students of the basic principles of our nation and our civilization,” Geller said.
She opined on her website that the Columbia students likely support FGM “because of fear of being called ‘racist’ or ‘Islamophobic’.”
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