Alabama State Rep. Prince Chestnut (D-Selma) wants to make sure that young women are protected from a dangerous procedure in the Yellowhammer State.
Last week, Chestnut introduced legislation that would establish the crime of female genital mutilation, provide criminal penalties, and provide an exception only under limited circumstances when medically necessary.
“I just don’t see any benefit to having it,” Chestnut said Tuesday on “The Rightside” with Allison Sinclair and Amie Beth by Yellowhammer News. “And so I think we need to ban that, and we need to create criminal penalties for the practice.”
The bill defines female genital mutilation as “the practice of partially or totally removing the external genitalia of a girl or young woman for nonmedical reasons and has been criminalized in the United States federally and in multiple states.”
A sobering fact most Alabamians probably don’t know is that while the state prides itself on protecting its most vulnerable, Alabama remains one of only a small handful of states with no law specifically criminalizing female genital mutilation.
Alabama, Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, and New Mexico — plus the District of Columbia — have yet to pass anti-FGM legislation.
Those states, for that reason, is not a club Alabama wants to be in, Chestnut says.
“I brought the bill forward because, for one, female genital mutilation really, the practice really doesn’t have any health benefits for the people that it’s practice on,” Chestnut continued. “And, you know, just from the literature that I’ve read, I don’t say that I’m an expert at this, but it appears that in some medium, in some foreign countries, they do this to take away, I guess, the maybe the sexual desires or urges of young women, so that they would be more compliant when they get with their husbands, etc.”
The state lawmaker is hopeful the measure will pass this year with bipartisan support.
“I would hope that it would be pretty easy, but we do know that this has been tried before in the state, and we haven’t been able to get it across the finish line,” he explained. “Representative Rod Scott brought this of, I think, two years in a row, and for some reason, it did not make it through. And I’m hoping that that this time we can, we can get this thing on through because I really didn’t change much from the bill that he drafted a few years ago, just a few minor edits. And so I’m hoping that there wouldn’t be, I can’t foresee any objection to it.”
The legislation would make it a Class B felony for anyone that does the procedure or if a parent, legal guardian, or has immediate custody or control of a female under 19 years of age and knowingly allows, authorizes, or directs another individual to do it.
“But of course, you know, sometimes it’s Alabama legislature, sometimes there’s lobbyists who get involved in things that maybe influence other legislators,” Chestnut added. “And so I’m hoping, though, that this, because this is just something that I think all of us can get on board behind.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on X @Yaffee
