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In reply to the discussion: Federal judge finds female genital mutilation law unconstitutional [View all]jmowreader
(50,447 posts)FGM is one of the worst atrocities religion has inflicted on the human condition. It must be stomped out everywhere. And (insert deity here) it will be stomped out everywhere.
This law is unconstitutional not because anyone thinks FGM is a good thing - if you do, please report to an all-female boxing gym to have your lights punched out - but because in America's legal system, the feds can only write laws that affect relations between the states or that affect interstate commerce. Anything that stops at the state line belongs to the states to regulate. If they would have written up a model anti-FGM law, presented it to the states, and told them "pass this law or we'll cut off your highway funds" - which they do a lot - that would have been okay. Writing a federal law instead of having the states write their own laws is not okay.
About all the feds could do is write a Mann Act-style law that criminalizes transporting someone across state lines for the purpose of receiving FGM. It would probably be unenforceable...for one thing, you'd have to prove that someone traveled to another state for the express purpose of FGM.
With any luck, the feds will go back and talk the states that don't already have anti-FGM laws in place into writing some.