Abstract

Recent events in the United States and beyond have brought debates over the practice of female genital cutting back into public, academic, and policy discourses.1 In April 2017, Jumana Nagarwala, a Michigan-based emergency medicine physician from a small Shia sect known as the Dawoodi Bohra, was charged with performing female genital mutilation. The procedure is prohibited by federal law and defined as the circumcision, excision, or infibulation of the whole or any part of the female genitalia under the age of 18. Nagarwala argues that she did not mutilate, but rather performed a variation of a religious ritual, termed Khatna, which involves the nicking...