Family law in England and Wales draws a fundamental and categoric distinction between female genital mutilation (FGM) and male circumcision (circumcision). The former is a criminal abuse of human rights which, for the purposes of section 31 of the Children Act 1989, can never fall within the ambit of reasonable parenting. The latter is, in principle, reasonable and is therefore not in itself a basis upon which the state can seek to intervene in family life.1 It will be argued that the reasons given for this distinction in the authorities to date (reasons based on precedent, culture/religion and health/medical issues) are problematic and are not ultimately capable of explaining the distinction satisfactorily. Nevertheless, it will be further argued that a distinction can be properly justified but only when we consider some core underlying features of family law in our contemporary democratic society and that it is only with those features in mind that the different treatment can be explained and viewed as acceptable.

中文翻译：

---

为什么家庭法对女性生殖器切割和包皮环切区别对待：一个解释

英格兰和威尔士的家庭法对女性生殖器切割（FGM）和男性包皮环切术（割礼）进行了根本和明确的区分。前者是侵犯人权的犯罪行为，根据 1989 年《儿童法》第 31 条的规定，绝不属于合理养育的范围。原则上，后者是合理的，因此其本身并不是国家寻求干预家庭生活的基础。1 有人认为，迄今为止当局给出的这种区分的理由（基于先例的理由） 、文化/宗教和健康/医疗问题）是有问题的，并且最终无法令人满意地解释这种区别。然而，有人会进一步指出，只有当我们考虑到当代民主社会中家庭法的一些核心基本特征时，这种区别才是合理的，并且只有考虑到这些特征，才能解释和看待不同的待遇可以接受。