(VTDigger) An anti-female genital mutilation organization is urging Vermont lawmakers, and those from 15 other states, to enact laws banning the procedure.
While female genital mutilation, or genital cutting, was outlawed in the United States for two decades through federal legislation, the law was ruled unconstitutional in 2018 by a federal judge. That case prompted anti-genital mutilation activists to turn to state legislators to fill the current federal void to deter the procedures. A bill to ban female genital mutilation in Vermont passed in the House during the last legislative session, but is now stalled in the Senate.
Judge Bernard Friedman, who sits on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, ruled in 2018 that the federal law enacted in 1996 banning female genital mutilation was [unconstitutional] because Congress did not have the authority to pass it. Because genital mutilation is considered a “local criminal activity,” the procedure should be regulated by states, Friedman determined.
