If children lack rights, adults don't have them either

Female genital cutting is a highly variable procedure, ranging from a scratch on the clitoris or vulva to clitoridectomy and infibulation, with many grades in between. It is also true that male circumcision is a variable operation, depending on the method used and the quantity of tissue removed. Obviously, the more extreme forms of FGM are physically worse than male circumcision, but these forms are relatively rare, and many instances of FGM are less damaging than male circumcision, which always involves the excision of the foreskin – sometimes more, sometimes less, and sometimes so much that permanent disablement results.

This was admitted by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2010 when it sought to introduce a policy on FGM which recommended that doctors perform "mild" forms of FGM on female infants and girls if parents wanted it done for cultural/religious reasons; they defended their policy against critics by asserting that since the proposed "ritual nick" was much less extensive than the average circumcision, it must be perfectly acceptable. Male and female genital cutting, in other words, are not so physically different as is commonly supposed.

But the greatest similarities between male and female genital cutting lie in the realm of culture and ethics. Because we are used to the former and unfamiliar with the latter we regard the one as a harmless adjustment and the other as a barbaric mutilation. As they evolved in tribal societies, however, male and female circumcision had very similar cultural meanings, usually performed around puberty to signify the transition from childhood to adult responsibility, and indelibly marking the person as a member of the group.

In nineteenth century Britain and United States circumcision of boys was first introduced as a means of discouraging masturbation, and there was a push by some doctors to extend the benefits of the surgery to girls and women – defeated only because it was believed that the "masturbation problem" among females was not sufficiently serious to warrant such a radical step.

The outcome of this debate was a double standard that has persisted to this day, allowing and encouraging circumcision of boys, but legally prohibiting circumcision of girls. Ethically this position is untenable: if it is OK for parents to circumcise their boys for cultural, religious or other social reasons, why is it wrong for parents to do the same to girls, for equally valid reasons? If it is wrong for parents to perform genital cutting (however mild) on girls for any reason at all, why is it OK for them to do it to boys (however severely) for any reason at all?

These are among the big questions in contemporary bioethics, and to which hectoring ideologues such as Mr O'Neill have no answer. And how odd to find a 21st century libertarian defending parental power with arguments once used to assert the divine right of kings.