Doctors face moral dilemma over restoring Muslim brides’ virginity-News-World-Europe-TimesOnline Quote:
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.”
|
There is a difference between standing against fundamentalism and providing a death sentence over a girls previous folly.