Circumcision is unquestionably a form of genital mutilation – but enforcing a ban would be abhorrent

The collapse on Thursday of a female genital mutilation (FGM) prosecution at the Bristol Crown Court has focused attention again on the curious and unsatisfactory state of the laws that govern how much parents may cut their children's genitals.

Debate has grown more heated after a Bill was put before the Icelandic Parliament which would criminalise male circumcision, leading for calls for the British Parliament to introduce a similar ban.

The parallels between female genital cutting and male genital cutting are often denied. Female circumcision – or mutilation as it is now often, perhaps inaccurately, termed – is usually characterised as the horrifying practice of slicing off the clitoris and the sewing up of most of the vaginal opening. Male circumcision – seldom described as mutilation – is presented by its defenders as quite different: it is a quick and harmless removal of a largely redundant piece of skin.

Yet matters are not so clear-cut. Some female genital cutting is very much less invasive than male circumcision. The “FGM” case that collapsed in Bristol on Thursday, for example, involved an allegation of a tiny ritual cut which left no scar and involved – even if the prosecution had managed to prove its case – at most a superficial lesion about 2 mm long, which quickly healed. As the judge observed, it is troubling that the case was ever brought against a man who all accepted was a loving father.