Female circumcision in Indonesia and the Philippines

 When I worked in Liberia, we delivered women who had had the full Pharonic circumcision done. Most were Muslim women from the Northern (non Bantu) tribes.

This not only interfered with sexual satisfaction but could obstruct the second stage of labor.

from Wikipedia  

this predates Islam, and although scolars say it started in Egypt, Ancient Origins states male circumcision is probably originated in Africa.

Given the problem of balanitis, phimosis and paraphimosis (not to mention penile cancer and an increased risk of STDs since sand/dirt under the foreskin causes microabrasions for these diseases to enter).

But why female circumcision, with the full removal? 

Well, anyway what got me started on this was an article by Ann Althouse that mentioned Schroeder helped stop this being done legally in the USA>:

Had I ever blogged about Patricia Schroeder? You'd think this topic of crying in politics would have come up some time in the last 19 years, but no.

And yet her name did come up once before on this blog, in a post from 2004 that began "An Italian gynecologist of Somalian descent, Omar Abdulcadir, proposes an alternative to female genital cutting/mutilation...'a piercing of the tip of the clitoris that would draw just a drop or two of blood and would be largely symbolic'":

The first problem is, as the Times article reveals, perhaps no one would move to the middle ground: 

Several opponents said immigrants who were deeply invested in tradition would probably deem the alternative insufficient, while immigrants who were liberated from that tradition would feel no need for a substitute. 

Sometimes there is no middle ground. The second problem is that becoming involved in developing a middle ground seems to legitimate the evil extreme, and it participates in evil. So we can't trust that everything else would remain equal. [Jacob] Levy has written a book on multiculturalism, which I haven't read, but I rankled at his blogged comment "A Seattle hospital considered doing precisely the same thing a number of years ago, until it was bullied out of it by activists and by Patricia Schroeder." 

There is at least a basis for principled disagreement here about whether compromise is acceptable....

Sometimes you need to cry and sometimes you need to do what somebody's going to call bullying.

The prophet did not order this: indeed, it predates Islam.

From an article discussion female circumcision in Indonsia, where a minimal snip is done:

Masitoh Chusnan, from the women's wing of Muhammadiyah, one of Indonesia's two biggest Muslim organisations, says the circumcision of girls is regarded in Islam as an honourable practice. "The Hadith did not say it's obligatory, but it is recommended to have it done," she says. "There is the Prophet's words saying girls must be circumcised but you should not cut too much."

....and there is a worry that moving the procedure to a hospital will result in actual cutting of the clitoris area:

It listed the most common forms of circumcision as "rubbing and scraping; stretching, pricking and piercing; incision; and excision", and the cutting instruments used as "penknife; scissors; bamboo knife/razor blade and needles".

While blades of some sort have long been used, traditional practitioners used a knife only to rub or scrape in a symbolic exercise that often did not draw blood. The concern is that circumcisions in hospitals are changing that because health professionals use scissors in more than 75 per cent of cases and using scissors invariably means cutting flesh. "Where scissors were used, cutting was almost always involved including incision (22 per cent) and excision (72 per cent)," the report said.

"One midwife in Padang [West Sumatra] described how she usually cuts the clitoris, either directly or by pinching it first with tweezers, and then cutting the tip with scissors. Another said she only scratches the clitoris."

the Muslim tribes in the Southern Philippines also have midwives who do this minimal type of circumcision. Described here.