It takes the heat off the Muslim establishment if that is where the sourcepoint of perserverance lies. I think what is valuable is to where each may lead. Calling them 'type I, type II, type III, and type IV' is so neat, so clean. Type II' just does not communicate the pain and trauma of 'Clitoridectomy'. I'd think some combination would be effective, so perhaps focussing on which terms are used should be left to workers in the field, the FGM agent aware of both systems of reference in the case of tactful and compassionate persuasion.
Terminology is very important.
Yes, this has been a point of discussion all along. I was concerned at first for the controversy of the language. I wasn't alarmed so much for myself as much as I thought others might be at its usage. Given this, I am easily persuaded toward either set of terms, since it seems most important to me that movement be made towards cessation of the practices and terminological squabbles do not always assist this. For the moment I'm personally going to continue to refer to it as FGM and as blatantly descriptive and technically accurate as I can get.