Posted on 05/06/2007 6:27:51 PM PDT by Pokey78
A debate is raging among doctors over Muslim women who demand operations to reconstitute their hymens before marriage and medical certificates stating that they are virgins.
The controversy has flared in France, where gynaecologists say that they are facing a growing number of requests from women desperate to avoid the repudiation that can follow the loss of chastity.
The phenomenon, which is also dividing doctors in other European countries, America and Africa, is denounced by critics as a sign of social regression driven by Islamic fundamentalists.
Jacques Lansac, Chairman of the French National College of Gynaecologists and Obstetricians, is leading the campaign against what he describes as “an attack on the dignity of women”. He has also issued advice against hymenoplasty – a surgical operation that involves reconstructing the membrane usually broken during the first act of sexual intercourse.
Professor Lansac told The Times: “We get more and more women coming in and saying that their brothers or fathers will kill them if they find out they’ve slept with a man. But it’s important to say no, because if we don’t we’re giving in to the fundamentalists.”
However, he said that some doctors were ignoring his advice in the hope of protecting patients from ostracisation or violent beatings.
Isabelle Lévy, an author who studied the issue for her book Religion in the Hospital, said that the search for chastity certificates and hymenoplasties stemmed from conflicting pressures among the five million French Muslims.
“On the one hand, young Muslim girls born in France go out a lot more than they used to. They are modern and they have adventures like other Europeans – which never happened in the past.
“But on the other hand, fundamentalism is spreading and these girls are getting sent back to their countries of origin to marry. And they will be rejected if it is found out that they are not virgins.” The plight was evident from the account of one woman of North African origin on a French internet chat forum.
She slept with her boyfriend because “he said that he was mad about me and wanted to marry me and I believed him because I was madly in love with him”.
But he left her when she fell pregnant. The woman had an abortion, which she kept secret from her family until her mother discovered a letter from the clinic.
“She fainted and afterwards it was total despair – tears, insults, blows, disappointment and finally a dressing down.
“She has asked her gynaecologist to redo my hymen because she says that if not it will ruin my future.”
Several private French clinics carry out hymenoplasties.
But some doctors agree to undertake the operation in public hospitals, where it is funded by the welfare state, a practice that is not in theory authorised by officials.
Dr Stéphane Saint-Léger, head of gynaecology at Aulnay-sous-Bois hospital, outside Paris, refuses virginity certificates because “it’s not a medical problem whether you’re a virgin or not”.
But other doctors are prepared to deliver them. Jacques Milliez, head of the department of gynaecology and obstetrics at Saint-Antoine hospital, Paris, told Le Monde: “I worked in Algeria as a junior doctor and when I was on call at night I saw these young women whose throats had been slit because they were suspected of having lost their virginity. So if someone asks me, I sign the certificate.”
OK, but again, is this procedure killing anyone? - no.
Will it stop someone from being killed? Most likely yes
I don’t see the comparison.
Also remember, in many cases these women are being forced to marry tribal savages when in many cases they’d probably rather marry some nice European guy and possibly get out of the whackjob religion they’re in.
I'd say more like regression to the stone age, but that would be insulting to stone age people everywhere.
GeicoMan would need years of therapy.
Still, stories like these really make me think they all need to get bombed back to the stone age where they obviously want to be.
They're BEGGING for it. It's like they're screaming "Please, please Kill Us! We're INSANE", or like the Monty Python Gumby: "MY BRAIN HURTS!, IT MUST COME OUT!"
It's too bad there isn't the equivalent of a neutron bomb for regressive Muslims. It would only wipe out the blood lusting Islamofacist homicidal terrorists and leave the rest still standing.
Islam is a total lie.
A teen abortion without the parent's consent destroys another life.
If the future husband is a ROPer, being a non-virgin is tantamount to a death sentence. Not the same as deceiving a future husband who isn't a ROPer.
The minds of Muslim men all over the Middle East are blowing right now. The paranoia must be incredible. The best case scenario is that they’ll be so scared of marrying someone whos not a virgin that they’ll just stop breeding.
Moral dilemma: Reconstruct the hymen, or death by stoning? It’s a tough choice for any Muslim doctor.
You know the most disturbing part to me? Rather, the hardest part to understand of all it?
It’s that the woman is seen as sinning when losing her virginity before marriage but that the putting to death of a human being is seen as perfectly fine and no sin at all. So she lost her virginity. What gives another the right to take her life?
God created us all, whether we posses a Bible or not, to know that murder is wrong and to know that life is His gift to us and is precious and sacred. I don’t care what one’s professed religion is, He made sure he equipped each and every one of us with this knowledge.
Crap (for lack of a better term) like this angers me to no end. There’s no excuse under the sun for this horrendous treatment of another human being.
“Possessed” is the only word that comes to mind right now.
Virginity credits? Hello Algore?
Probably most men want to marry a virgin. But people sometimes make mistakes and no one is perfect. If he loves her, he should marry her. If her not being a virgin becomes such a strong consideration then he should move on. The mindset of Muslim male culture is, regardless, disturbing, and is rooted in the falseness of Islam.
In any civilized society, intentional, premeditated murder of another human being has always been a crime... well, except when the human being is a slave, or a serf, or another unwanted low-class person.... which may explain why Muslim women get treated that way, eh?
"Possessed" implies that the person is under unwanted evil influence. I don't think so. I think most Muslim men who carry out these horrendous acts are entirely at ease with their beliefs and the evil acts that follow from them.
Therefore, in my mind, they are just as evil as anyone who seeks out and kills any other innocent person intentionally. I can only hope that these evil bastards eventually face judgment they cannot escape, whether earthly or divine. They deserve to rot in Hell.
“He took my chastity from me Akhmed, all he said was that his first name was Buster.”
The common male desire for a virginal wife is quite simple biology -- it means that when the wife delivers a baby, it is more likely the man's rather than a former lover's. These days, if you don't trust your beloved's word, it's pretty easy:
Men who did not make sure that their beloved was a) a virgin, and b) not fooling around, often had the misfortune of thinking they were the father, when they were not (see: Howard K. Stern)
Unfortunately, in these modern times of easy and readily-available pregnancy and paternity tests, Muslim men still rely on the old methods of oppression and restriction, enforced by murdering those who women dare do otherwise.
Personally, I don't find any great attraction in a virgin -- you have to teach them everything. I'd rather be with somebody who can teach me a thing or two. But that's for a different thread...
I should clarify. I don't mean that ALL societies developed identically oppressive restrictions or used murder as punishment (although many did). Many were more subtle. A few were moderately enlightened. But most were pretty awful.
I'm rather proud that modern America is pretty enlightened, though the high degree of promiscuity of the past 40 years is a price we pay for that enlightenment not being tempered with self-discipline. One can hope, though, that it will come with time.
Plenty of this women are victims of “honor” killings while still in Europe.
Only in Islam....
Abstinence education has no chance...
Islam is the “religion” that just keeps giving. Just when you think you have heard every crazy thing about it, something like this hits the news.
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