First Female Circumcision Trial in the U.S.

What happens when a culture—its values, traditions and practices—collide with (western) public policy—a general set of values—in the United States? The United States is experiencing its first female circumcision trial: an Atlanta father is being accused of performing a circumcision on her 2-year-old daughter with scissors.
The father, an immigrant from Ethiopia, argues that female circumcision is practices widely in his home country; he argues that it is part of his culture; he also says “he never circumcised his daughter or asked anyone to do so” article
It is interesting to me how this is probably the first trial against female circumcision in the United States. Trials have been happening for decades in Europe, mainly in France; the fight, conflict between traditions and a country’s stated human rights. Is Universalism arrogance? Is Relativism indifference? (Cowan 56,58). Certainly, both the United States and France have many cultural groups, immigrants. But why is it that trials connected to cultural issues and public policy have been happening a lot more outside of the United States?
For an interesting case study, read the case study by Marie-Bénédicte Dembour : Erring Uncomfortably in Between: Female Circumcision as an Unlikely Illustration.

Cowan, Jane, Dembour, Marie-Bénédicte, and Wilson, Richard A., Ed. Culture and Right: Anthropological Perspectives. UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001.