(Detroit News) Legal experts say Congress could revise the federal ban on female genital mutilation to pass constitutional muster, but lawmakers are unlikely to consider the issue a priority.
A Detroit federal judge last month ruled unconstitutional the 22-year-old federal ban on female genital cutting, tossing out related charges against a Michigan doctor accused of performing the procedure on two 7-year-old girls brought to a Livonia clinic.
U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman concluded that lawmakers “overstepped” when they passed the 1996 law, in part because cutting girls’ genitalia is a “local criminal activity,” and criminal law is generally regulated and enforced by the states.
