Vietnam War Just or Unjust Essay - 1044 Words

Matthew-Donald Toombs C D Block 12-5-12 Vietnam, Just or Unjust? Some ask the question, was the Vietnam War just? Some may say yes it was just,and others say that it is unjust. However,Certain people view justice as slippery concept. There are always ways to get aroud justice, and that is why people believe that justice is a slippety concept. Even Plato one of the brightest of his time could not figure out whether war was just or unjust. A Certain individual, by the name of Aquinas, also attempted to elaborate his view on the war through the document Summa Theologica. His reasons consisted of, First, the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged(Article 1). The second reason being, a just cause is†¦show more content†¦The first reason being, the authority of the sovereign by whose command the war is to be waged(Article 1). It is important to note that the sovereign is the leader or overseer of a certain project. Aquinas believes that the people themeselves can not wage a private war on a country, but if the sov ereign say its okay, then they are allowed to wage a war. The second reason that Aquinas gave is that, a just cause is required, namely that those who are attacked, should be attacked because they deserve it on account of some fault(Article 1). Here, Aquinas attempts to explain that war is just as long as you have a cause to attack someone,and that they did something wrong to you or others around you. It’s the famous line â€Å"and eye for an eye.† An example of this reason would be, if someone were to get hit , it would be okay for them to go back and hit the person back. Although this may be bad like in school accoriding to Aquinas it is completely legal to attack someone if they attacked you. The third reason he gives is that, it is necessary that the belligerents should have a rightful intention, so that they intend the advancement of good, or the avoidance of evil(Article 1). Intending to demosntrate that it is okay to wage war, Aquinas says that it is always okay to wage war as long as the person you have rightful intentions. Later in the document of Summa Theologica, Aquinas goes over whether it is lawful to lay ambush onShow MoreRelatedWars Throughout Our History and Our World Essay1377 Words   |  6 Pages There have been ongoing wars throughout history. They all have the prevailing theme, which is, this just and unjust war, or is it just revenge? Although what is the technical legal term for a war? A war is defined as, ... an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities†¦,† (Just War Theory). Along with the statement of the definition of war, the Just War Theory also includes theories such as Jus ad bellum, Jus in Bello, and Jus post bellum. All of theseRead MoreWhen is war justified715 Words   |  3 Pagesï » ¿When is War Justified? 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Although there is the case where one country goes to war with another becauseRead MoreSocrates As A Moral Man1531 Words   |  7 PagesAthen government disallowed this from occurring because the youths were raised to become warriors. The Athen government did not want them to think or have outside distractions, while they were at war. The government could not afford for them to form any negative opinions they had, while they were at war. Overall, the City of Athen believed that Socrates had a huge influence on the people, and were afraid that he would lead a revaluation against the Athens government. The government threw SocratesRead MoreThe Conflict Of The Civil War968 Words   |  4 PagesThroughout the history of the United States, nothing has served as a catalyst of societal restructuring and reform as war. Following the internal conflict of the civil war, the country experienced a state of peace with a focus on reconstruction and betterment of the overall public. 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The Vietnam War started as a disagreement between communist North Vietnam and anti-communist South Vietnam. Before this disagreement was a war between Vietnam and the French. Vietnam received 2.6 billion dollars in financial support from the United States between 1945 and 1954. Nixon, who was President of the United States at the time,Read MoreMarvin Gaye Whats Going On Analysis795 Words   |  4 PagesWritten towards the end of the Vietnam War, What’s Going On would touch on subjects including war protests, unification of the American people, and the poor treatment of veterans. Gaye’s brother served in Vietnam, and much of this album shows the brother’s thoughts and feelings when he returns. Throughout his album, Marvin Gaye uses his own experiences to give us a look at why he and many others had a dissatisfaction with society and the government during the Vietnam War era in the United States. 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The war had multipleRead MoreBetter to Betray My Country and Not My Friend541 Words   |  3 Pagesbrother Polyneices, when Tim DeChistopher outbid many corporations in a land drilling auction to protest global warming, Martin Luther King’s civil disobedience to end segregation, and the Weather Underground’s violent acts of terror to â€Å"bring the war home† were all courageous acts (justified or no t) of disloyalty to the federal government. Antigone disobeyed Creon’s law and buried her brother Polyneices, putting her personal loyalty over that of her country. Her intent was not to cause chaos.

Essay on Case Study - 631 Words

1. How do frog’s activities affect its ability to (a) maximize the fit with customer needs, (b) minimize development cycle time, and (c) control development costs? a) As many products fail to produce an economic return because they do not fulfill customer requirements, involving customers in development process affect its ability to maximize the fit with customer needs. It can help a firm ensure that its new products match customer expectations. The customer is often the one most able to identify the maximum performance capabilities and minimum service requirements of a new product. Therefore, including the customer in the actual development team can help firm focus its development efforts on projects that better fit customer needs.†¦show more content†¦The Company is known for creating products with an aesthetic appeal that evokes an emotional response in the consumer and quot. The above statement indicates that, most of the designs of the company focuses on daily product or consumer product and not any custom, specific product such as medicine. On the other hand, the strategies used by company do not suit for customers who do not know what they want. In this case, creating ideas from questionnaires does not always guarantee a great success for a product. While the companys approach give a life for emotions and discard the experimental analysis, which can be risky of not taking any statistical probabilities into account. As these results will indicate the market performance and the chances of the product to get succeeded or fail. 5. Would frog’s approach to product development be effective in a firm that primarily manufactured, marketed, and distributed its own products? Frogs approach would be effective in firm such as primarily manufactured, marketed, and distributed its own products. According to frog process, it is organized into three phases including Discover, Design and Deliver. Firstly, the discover analysis as becomes insight, through design research, market, technology, and strategic analysis, frog design team member gain insight into a company’s brand, customers, existing assets, and key marketShow MoreRelatedCase Studies : A Case Study Approach Essay1157 Words   |  5 PagesA case study is a specific instance that is frequently designed to illustrate a more general principle (Nisbet and Watt, 1984). Hitchock and Hughes (1995) further suggest that the case study approach is particularly valuable when the researcher has little control over evens. Case studies strives to portray †˜what it like’ to be a particular situation, to catch up reality and ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1973) of participants’ lives experiences of, thoughts about and feelings for a situation. 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The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove Chapter 2~3 Free Essays

string(35) " arthritic finger joints replaced\." Two The Sea Beast The cooling pipes at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant were all fashioned from the finest stainless steel. Before they were installed, they were x-rayed, ultrasounded, and pressure-tested to be sure that they could never break, and after being welded into place, the welds were also x-rayed and tested. The radioactive steam from the core left its heat in the pipes, which leached it off into a seawater cooling pond, where it was safely vented to the Pacific. We will write a custom essay sample on The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove Chapter 2~3 or any similar topic only for you Order Now But Diablo had been built on a breakneck schedule during the energy scare of the seventies. The welders worked double and triple shifts, driven by greed and cocaine, and the inspectors who ran the X-ray machines were on the same schedule. And they missed one. Not a major mistake. Just a tiny leak. Barely noticeable. A minuscule stream of harmless, low-level radiation wafted out with the tide and drifted over the continental shelf, dissipating as it went, until even the most sensitive instruments would have missed it. Yet the leak didn’t go totally undetected. In the deep trench off California, near a submerged volcano where the waters ran to seven hundred degrees Fahrenheit and black smokers spewed clouds of mineral soup, a creature was roused from a long slumber. Eyes the size of dinner platters winked out the sediment and sleep of years. It was instinct, sense, and memory: the Sea Beast’s brain. It remembered eating the remains of a sunken Russian nuclear submarine: beefy little sailors tenderized by the pressure of the depths and spiced with piquant radioactive marinade. Memory woke the beast, and like a child lured from under the covers on a snowy morning by the smell of bacon frying, it flicked its great tail, broke free from the ocean floor, and began a slow ascent into the current of tasty treats. A current that ran along the shore of Pine Cove. Mavis Mavis tossed back a shot of Bushmills to take the edge off her frustration at not being able to whack anyone with her baseball bat. She wasn’t really angry that Molly had bitten a customer. After all, he was a tourist and rated above the mice in the walls only because he carried cash. Maybe the fact that something had actually happened in the Slug would bring in a little business. People would come in to hear the story, and Mavis could stretch, speculate, and dramatize most stories into at least three drinks a tell. Business had been slowing over the last couple of years. People didn’t seem to want to bring their problems into a bar. Time was, on any given afternoon, you’d have three or four guys at the bar, pouring down beers as they poured out their hearts, so filled with self-loathing that they’d snap a vertebra to avoid catching their own reflection in the big mirror behind the bar. On a given evening, the stools would be full of people who whined and growled and bitched all night long, pausing only long enough to stagger to the bathroom or to sacrifice a quarter to the jukebox’s extensive self-pity selection. Sadness sold a lot of alcohol, and it had been in short supply these last few years. Mavis blamed the booming economy, Val Riordan, and vegetables in the diet for the sadness shortage, and she fought the insidious invaders by running two-for-one happy hours with fatty meat snacks (The whole point of happy hour was to purge happiness, wasn’t it?), but all her efforts only served to cut her profits in half. If Pine Cove could no longer produce sadness, she would import some, so she advertised for a Blues singer. The old Black man wore sunglasses, a leather fedora, a tattered black wool suit that was too heavy for the weather, red suspenders over a Hawaiian shirt that sported topless hula girls, and creaky black-on-white wing tips. He set his guitar case on the bar and climbed onto a stool. Mavis eyed him suspiciously and lit a Tarryton 100. She’d been taught as a girl not to trust Black people. â€Å"Name your poison,† she said. He took off his fedora, revealing a gleaming brown baldness that shone like polished walnut. â€Å"You gots some wine?† â€Å"Cheap-shit red or cheap-shit white?† Mavis cocked a hip, gears and machinery clicked. â€Å"Them cheap-shit boys done expanded. Used to be jus’ one flavor.† â€Å"Red or white?† â€Å"Whatever sweetest, sweetness.† Mavis slammed a tumbler onto the bar and filled it with yellow liquid from an icy jug in the well. â€Å"That’ll be three bucks.† The Black man reached out – thick sharp nails skating the bar surface, long fingers waving like tentacles, searching, the hand like a sea creature caught in a tidal wash – and missed the glass by four inches. Mavis pushed the glass into his hand. â€Å"You blind?† â€Å"No, it be dark in here.† â€Å"Take off your sunglasses, idjit.† â€Å"I can’t do that, ma’am. Shades go with the trade.† â€Å"What trade? Don’t you try to sell pencils in here. I don’t tolerate beggars.† â€Å"I’m a Bluesman, ma’am. I hear ya’ll lookin for one.† Mavis looked at the guitar case on the bar, at the Black man in shades, at the long fingernails of his right hand, the short nails and knobby gray calluses on the fingertips of his left, and she said, â€Å"I should have guessed. Do you have any experience?† He laughed, a laugh that started deep down and shook his shoulders on the way up and chugged out of his throat like a steam engine leaving a tunnel. â€Å"Sweetness, I got me more experience than a busload o’ hos. Ain’t no dust settled a day on Catfish Jefferson since God done first dropped him on this big ol’ ball o’ dust. That’s me, call me Catfish.† He shook hands like a sissy, Mavis thought, just let her have the tips of his fingers. She used to do that before she had her arthritic finger joints replaced. You read "The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove Chapter 2~3" in category "Essay examples" She didn’t want any arthritic old Blues singer. â€Å"I’m going to need someone through Christmas. Can you stay that long or would your dust settle?† â€Å"I ‘spose I could slow down a bit. Too cold to go back East.† He looked around the bar, trying to take in the dinge and smoke through his dark glasses, then turned back to her. â€Å"Yeah, I might be able to clear my schedule if† – and here he grinned and Mavis could see a gold tooth there with a musical note cut in it – â€Å"if the money is right,† he said. â€Å"You’ll get room and board and a percentage of the bar. You bring ’em in, you’ll make money.† He considered, scratched his cheek where white stubble sounded like a toothbrush against sandpaper, and said, â€Å"No, sweetness, you bring ’em in. Once they hear Catfish play, they come back. Now what percentage did you have in mind?† Mavis stroked her chin hair, pulled it straight to its full three inches. â€Å"I’ll need to hear you play.† Catfish nodded. â€Å"I can play.† He flipped the latches on his guitar case and pulled out a gleaming National steel body guitar. From his pocket he pulled a cutoff bottleneck and with a twist it fell onto the little finger of his left hand. He played a chord to test tune, pulled the bottleneck from the fifth to the ninth and danced it there, high and wailing. Mavis could smell something like mildew, moss maybe, a change in humidity. She sniffed and looked around. She hadn’t been able to smell anything for fifteen years. Catfish grinned. â€Å"The Delta,† he said. He launched into a twelve-bar Blues, playing the bass line with his thumb, squealing the high notes with the slide, rocking back and forth on the bar stool, the light of the neon Coors sign behind the bar playing colors in the reflection of sunglasses and his bald head. The daytime regulars looked up from their drinks, stopped lying for a second, and Slick McCall missed a straight-in eight-ball shot on the quarter table, which he almost never did. And Catfish sang, starting high and haunting, going low and gritty. â€Å"They’s a mean ol’ woman run a bar out on the Coast. I’m telling you, they’s a mean ol’ woman run a bar out on the Coast. But when she gets you under the covers, That ol’ woman turn your buttered bread to toast.† And then he stopped. â€Å"You’re hired,† Mavis said. She pulled the jug of white cheap-shit out of the well and sloshed some into Catfish’s glass. â€Å"On the house.† Just then the door opened and a blast of sunlight cut through the dinge and smoke and residual Blues and Vance McNally, the EMT, walked in and set his radio on the bar. â€Å"Guess what?† he said to everyone and no one in particular. â€Å"That pilgrim woman hung herself.† A low mumble passed through the regulars. Catfish put his guitar in its case and picked up his wine. â€Å"Sho’ ’nuff a sad day startin early in this little town. Sho’ ’nuff.† â€Å"Sho’ ’nuff,† said Mavis with a cackle like a stainless-steel hyena. Valerie Riordan Depression has a mortality rate of fifteen percent. Fifteen percent of all patients with major depression will take their own lives. Statistics. Hard numbers in a very squishy science. Fifteen percent. Dead. Val Riordan had been repeating the figures to herself since Theophilus Crowe had called, but it wasn’t helping her feel any better about what Bess Leander had done. Val had never lost a patient before. And Bess Leander hadn’t really been depressed, had she? Bess didn’t fit into the fifteen percent. Val went to the office in the back of her house and pulled Bess Leander’s file, then went back to the living room to wait for Constable Crowe. At least it was the local guy, not the county sheriffs. And she could always fall back on patient confidentiality. Truth was, she had no idea why Bess Leander might have hung herself. She had only seen Bess once, and then for only half an hour. Val had made the diagnosis, written the scrip, and collected a check for the full hour session. Bess had called in twice, talked for a few minutes, and Val had sent her a bill for the time rounded to the next quarter hour. Time was money. Val Riordan liked nice things. The doorbell rang, Westminster chimes. Val crossed the living room to the marble foyer. A thin tall figure was refracted through the door’s beveled glass panels: Theophilus Crowe. Val had never met him, but she knew of him. Three of his ex-girlfriends were her patients. She opened the door. He was dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a gray shirt with black epaulets that might have been part of a uniform at one time. He was clean-shaven, with long sandy hair tied neatly into a ponytail. A good-looking guy in an Ichabod Crane sort of way. Val guessed he was stoned. His girlfriends had talked about his habits. â€Å"Dr.Riordan,† he said. â€Å"Theo Crowe.† He offered his hand. She shook hands. â€Å"Everyone calls me Val,† she said. â€Å"Nice to meet you. Come in.† She pointed to the living room. â€Å"Nice to meet you too,† Theo said, almost as an afterthought. â€Å"Sorry about the circumstances.† He stood at the edge of the marble foyer, as if afraid to step on the white carpet. She walked past him and sat down on the couch. â€Å"Please,† she said, pointing to one of a set of Hepplewhite chairs. â€Å"Sit.† He sat. â€Å"I’m not exactly sure why I’m here, except that Joseph Leander doesn’t seem to know why Bess did it.† â€Å"No note?† Val asked. â€Å"No. Nothing. Joseph went downstairs for breakfast this morning and found her hanging in the dining room.† Val felt her stomach lurch. She had never really formed a mental picture of Bess Leander’s death. It had been words on the phone until now. She looked away from Theo, looked around the room for something that would erase the picture. â€Å"I’m sorry,† Theo said. â€Å"This must be hard for you. I’m just wondering if there was anything that Bess might have said in therapy that would give a clue.† Fifteen percent, Val thought. She said, â€Å"Most suicides don’t leave a note. By the time they have gone that far into depression, they aren’t interested in what happens after their death. They just want the pain to end.† Theo nodded. â€Å"Then Bess was depressed? Joseph said that she appeared to be getting better.† Val cast around her training for an answer. She hadn’t really diagnosed Bess Leander, she had just prescribed what she thought would make Bess feel better. She said, â€Å"Diagnosis in psychiatry isn’t always that exact, Theo. Bess Leander was a complex case. Without compromising doctor-patient confidentiality, I can tell you that Bess suffered from a borderline case of OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder. I was treating her for that.† Theo pulled a prescription bottle out of his shirt pocket and looked at the label. â€Å"Zoloft. Isn’t that an anti-depressant? I only know because I used to date a woman who was on it.† Right, Val thought. Actually, you used to date at least three women who were on it. She said, â€Å"Zoloft is an SSRI like Prozac. It’s prescribed for a number of conditions. With OCD the dosage is higher.† That’s it, get clinical. Baffle him with clinical bullshit. Theo shook the bottle. â€Å"Could someone O.D. on it or something? I heard somewhere that people do crazy things sometimes on these drugs.† â€Å"That’s not necessarily true. SSRIs like Zoloft are often prescribed to people with major depression. Fifteen percent of all depressed patients commit suicide.† There, she said it. â€Å"Antidepressants are a tool, along with talk therapy, that psychiatrists use to help patients. Sometimes the tools don’t work. As with any therapy, a third get better, a third get worse, and a third stay the same. Antidepressants aren’t a panacea.† But you treat them like they are, don’t you, Val? â€Å"But you said that Bess Leander had OCD, not depression.† â€Å"Constable, have you ever had a stomachache and a runny nose at the same time?† â€Å"So you’re saying she was depressed?† â€Å"Yes, she was depressed, as well as having OCD.† â€Å"And it couldn’t have been the drugs?† â€Å"To be honest with you, I don’t even know if she was taking the drug. Have you counted them?† â€Å"Uh, no.† â€Å"Patients don’t always take their medicine. We don’t order blood level tests for SSRIs.† â€Å"Right,† Theo said. â€Å"I guess we’ll know when they do the autopsy.† Another horrendous picture flashed in Val’s mind: Bess Leander on an autopsy table. The viscera of medicine had always been too much for her. She stood. â€Å"I wish I could help you more, but to be honest, Bess Leander never gave me any indication that she was suicidal.† At least that was true. Theo took her cue and stood. â€Å"Well, thank you. I’m sorry to have bothered you. If you think of anything, you know, anything that I can tell Joseph that might make it easier on him†¦Ã¢â‚¬  â€Å"I’m sorry. That’s all I know.† Fifteen percent. Fifteen percent. Fifteen percent. She led him to the door. He turned before leaving. â€Å"One more thing. Molly Michon is one of your patients, isn’t she?† â€Å"Yes. Actually, she’s a county patient, but I agreed to treat her at a reduced rate because all the county facilities are so far away.† â€Å"You might want to check on her. She attacked a guy at the Head of the Slug this morning.† â€Å"Is she in County?† â€Å"No, I took her home. She calmed down.† â€Å"Thank you, Constable. I’ll call her.† â€Å"Well, then. I’ll be going.† â€Å"Constable,† she called after him. â€Å"Those pills you have – Zoloft isn’t a recreational drug.† Theo stumbled on the steps, then composed himself. â€Å"Right, Doctor, I figured that out when I saw the body hanging in the dining room. I’ll try not to eat the evidence.† â€Å"Good-bye,† Val said. She closed the door behind him and burst into tears. Fifteen percent. She had fifteen hundred patients in Pine Cove on some form of antidepressant or another. Fifteen percent would be more than two hundred people dead. She couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t let an-other of her patients die because of her noninvolvement. If antidepressants wouldn’t save them, then maybe she could. Three Theo Theophilus Crowe wrote bad free-verse poetry and played a jimbai drum while sitting on a rock by the ocean. He could play sixteen chords on the guitar and knew five Bob Dylan songs all the way through, allowing for a dampening buzz any time he had to play a bar chord. He had tried his hand at painting, sculpture, and pottery and had even played a minor part in the Pine Cove Little Theater’s revival of Arsenic and Old Lace. In all these endeavors, he had experienced a meteoric rise to mediocrity and quit before total embarrassment and self-loathing set in. Theo was cursed with an artist’s soul but no talent. He possessed the angst and the inspiration, but not the means to create. If there was any single thing at which Theo excelled, it was empathy. He always seemed to be able to understand someone’s point of view, no matter how singular or farfetched, and in turn could convey it to others with a succinctness and clarity that he seldom found in expressing his own thoughts. He was a born mediator, a peacemaker, and it was this talent, after breaking up numerous fights at the Head of the Slug Saloon, that got Theo elected constable. That and heavy-handed endorsement of Sheriff John Burton. Burton was a hard-line right-wing politico who could spout law and order (accent on order) over brunch with the Rotarians, lunch with the NRA, and dinner with Mothers Against Drunk Drivers and wolf down dry banquet chicken like it was manna from the gods every time. He wore expensive suits, a gold Rolex, and drove a pearl-black Eldor-ado that shone like a starry night on wheels (rapt attention and copious coats of carnuba from the grunts in the county motor pool). He had been sheriff of San Junipero County for sixteen years, and in that time the crime rate had dropped steadily until it was the lowest, per capita, of any county in California. His endorsement of Theophilus Crowe, someone with no law enforcement experience, had come as more than somewhat of a surprise to the people of Pine Cove, especially since Theo’s opponent was a retired Los Angeles policeman who’d put in a highly decorated five and twenty. What the people of Pine Cove did not know was that Sheriff Bur ton not only endorsed Theo, he had forced him to run in the first place. Theophilus Crowe was a quiet man, and Sheriff John Burton had his reasons for not wanting to hear a peep out of the little North County burg of Pine Cove, so when Theo walked into his little two-room cabin, he wasn’t surprised to see a red seven blinking on his answering machine. He punched the button and listened to Burton’s assistant insisting that he call right away – seven times. Burton never called the cell phone. Theo had come home to shower and ponder his meeting with Val Riordan. The fact that she had treated at least three of his ex-girlfriends bothered him. He wanted to try and figure out what the women had told her. Obviously, they’d mention that he got high occasionally. Well, more than occasionally. But like any man, it worried him that they might have said something about his sexual performance. For some reason, it didn’t bother him nearly as much that Val Riordan think him a loser and a drug fiend as it did that she might think he was bad in the rack. He wanted to ponder the possibilities, think away the paranoia, but instead he dialed the sheriff’s private number and was put right through. â€Å"What in the hell is the matter with you, Crowe? You stoned?† â€Å"No more than usual,† Theo said. â€Å"What’s the problem?† â€Å"The problem is you removed evidence from a crime scene.† â€Å"I did?† Talking to the sheriff could drain all of Theo’s energy instantly. He fell into a beanbag chair that expectorated Styrofoam beads from a failing seam with a sigh. â€Å"What evidence? What scene?† â€Å"The pills, Crowe. The suicide’s husband said you took the pills with you. I want them back at the scene in ten minutes. I want my men out of there in half an hour. The M.E. will do the autopsy this afternoon and this case will close by dinnertime, got it? Run-of-the-mill suicide. Obit page only. No news. You understand?† â€Å"I was just checking on her condition with her psychiatrist. See if there were any indications she might be suicidal.† â€Å"Crowe, you must resist the urge to play investigator or pretend that you are a law enforcement officer. The woman hung herself. She was de-pressed and she ended it all. The husband wasn’t cheating, there was no money motive, and Mommy and Daddy weren’t fighting.† â€Å"They talked to the kids?† â€Å"Of course they talked to the kids. They’re detectives. They investigate things. Now get over there and get them out of North County. I’d send them over to get the pills from you, but I wouldn’t want them to find your little victory garden, would you?† â€Å"I’m leaving now,† Theo said. â€Å"This is the last I will hear of this,† Burton said. He hung up. Theo hung up the phone, closed his eyes, and turned into a human puddle in the beanbag chair. Forty-one years old and he still lived like a college student. His books were stacked between bricks and boards, his bed pulled out of a sofa, his refrigerator was empty but for a slice of pizza going green, and the grounds around his cabin were overgrown with weeds and brambles. Behind the cabin, in the middle of a nest of blackberry vines, stood his victory garden: ten bushy marijuana plants, sticky with buds that smelled of skunk and spice. Not a day passed that he didn’t want to plow them under and sterilize the ground they grew in. And not a day passed that he didn’t work his way through the brambles and lovingly harvest the sticky green that would sustain his habit through the day. The researchers said that marijuana was only psychologically addictive. Theo had read all the papers. They only mentioned the night sweats and mental spiders of withdrawal in passing, as if they were no more unpleasant than a tetanus shot. But Theo had tried to quit. He’d wrung out three sets of sheets in one night and paced the cabin looking for distraction until he thought his head might explode, only to give up and suck the piquant smoke from his Sneaky Pete so he could find sleep. The researchers obvi-ously didn’t get it, but Sheriff John Burton did. He understood Theo’s weakness and held it over him like the proverbial sword. That Burton had his own Achilles’ heel and more to lose from its discovery didn’t seem to matter. Logically, Theo had him in a standoff. But emotionally, Burton had the upper hand. Theo was always the one to blink. He snatched Sneaky Pete off his orange crate coffee table and headed out the door to return Bess Leander’s pills to the scene of the crime. Valerie Dr. Valerie Riordan sat at her desk, looking at the icons of her life: a tiny digital stock ticker that she would surreptitiously glance down at during appointments; a gold Mont Blanc desk set, the pens jutting from the jade base like the antennae of a goldbug; a set of bookends fashioned in the likenesses of Freud and Jung, bracing leather-bound copies of The Psychology of the Unconscious, The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV), The Interpretation of Dreams, and The Physician’s Desk Reference; and a plaster-cast bust of Hippocrates that dispensed Post-it notes from the base. Hippocrates, that wily Greek who turned medicine from magic to science. The author of the famous oath that Val had uttered twenty years ago on that sunny summer day in Ann Arbor when she graduated from med school: â€Å"I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but I will never use it to injure or wrong them. I will not give poison to anyone t hough asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a plan.† The oath had seemed so silly, so antiquated then. What doctor, in their right mind, would give poison to a patient? â€Å"But in purity and in holiness I will guard my life and my art.† It had seemed so obvious and easy then. Now she guarded her life and her art with a custom security system and a Glock 9 mm. stashed in the nightstand. â€Å"I will not use the knife on sufferers from stone, but I will give place to such as are craftsmen therein.† She’d never had a problem with that part of the oath. She was loathe to use the knife. She’d gone into psychiatry because she couldn’t handle the messy parts of medicine. Her father, a surgeon himself, had been only mildly disappointed. At least she was a doctor, of sorts. She’d done her internship and residency in a rehab center where movie stars and rock idols learned to be responsible by making their own beds, while Val distributed Valium like a flight attendant passing out peanuts. One wing of the Sunrise Center was druggies, the other eating disorders. She preferred the eating disorders. â€Å"You haven’t lived until you’ve force-fed minestrone to a supermodel through a tube,† she told her father. â€Å"Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will do so to help the sick, keeping myself free from all intentional wrongdoing and harm, especially from fornication with woman or man, bond or free.† Well, abstinence from fornication hadn’t been a problem, had it? She hadn’t had sex since Richard left five years ago. Richard had given her the bust of Hippocrates as a joke, he said, but she’d put it on her desk just the same. She’d given him a statue of Blind Justice wearing a garter belt and fishnets the year before to display at his law office. He’d brought her here to this little village, passing up offers from corporate law firms to follow his dream of being a country lawyer whose daily docket would include disagreements over pig paternity or the odd pension dispute. He wanted to be Atticus Finch, Pudd’nhead Wilson, a Jimmy Stewart or Henry Fonda character who was paid in fresh-baked bread and baskets of avocados. Well, he’d gotten that part; Val’s practice had supported them for most of their marriage. She’d be paying him alimony now if they’d actually divorced. Country lawyer indeed. He left her to go to Sacramento to lobby the California Coastal Commission for a consortium of golf course developers. His job was to convince the commission that sea otters and elephant seals would enjoy nothing better than to watch Japanese businessmen slice Titleists into the Pacific and that what nature needed was one long fairway from Santa Barbara to San Francisco (maybe sand traps at the Pismo and Carmel dunes). He carried a pocket watch, for Christ’s sake, a gold chain with a jade fob carved into the shape of an endangered brown pelican. He played his front-porch, rocking-chair-wise, country lawyer against their Botany 500 sophistication and pulled down over two hundred grand a year in the bargain. He lived with one of his clerks, an earnest doe-eyed Stanfordite with surfer girl hair and a figure that mocked gravity. Richard had introduced Val to the girl (Ashley, or Brie, or Jordan) and it had been oh-so-adult and oh-so-gracious and later, when Val called Richard to clear up a tax matter, she asked, â€Å"So how’d you screen the candidates, Richard? First one to suck-start your Lexus?† â€Å"Maybe we should start thinking about making our separation official,† Richard had said. Val had hung up on him. If she couldn’t have a happy marriage, she’d have everything else. Everything. And so had begun her revolving door policy of hustling appointments, prescribing the appropriate meds, and shopping for clothes and antiques. Hippocrates glowered at her from the desk. â€Å"I didn’t intentionally do harm,† Val said. â€Å"Not intentionally, you old buggerer. Fifteen percent of all depressives commit suicide, treated or not.† â€Å"Whatsoever in the course of practice I see or hear (or even outside my practice in social intercourse) that ought never to be published abroad, I will not divulge, but consider such things to be holy secrets.† â€Å"Holy secrets or do no harm?† Val asked, envisioning the hanging body of Bess Leander with a shudder. â€Å"Which is it?† Hippocrates sat on his Post-its, saying nothing. Was Bess Leander’s death her fault? If she had talked to Bess instead of put her on antidepressants, would that have saved her? It was possible, and it was also possible that if she kept to her policy of a â€Å"pill for every problem,† someone else was going to die. She couldn’t risk it. If using talk therapy instead of drugs could save one life, it was worth a try. Val grabbed the phone and hit the speed dial button that connected her to the town’s only pharmacy, Pine Cove Drug and Gift. One of the clerks answered. Val asked to speak to Winston Krauss, the pharmacist. Winston was one of her patients. He was fifty-three, unmarried, and eighty pounds overweight. His holy secret, which he shared with Val during a session, was that he had an unnatural sexual fascination with marine mammals, dolphins in particular. He’d confessed that he’d never been able to watch â€Å"Flipper† without getting an erection and that he’d watched so many Jacques Cousteau specials that a French accent made him break into a sweat. He kept an anatomically correct inflatable porpoise, which he violated nightly in his bathtub. Val had cured him of wearing a scuba mask and snorkel around the house, so gradually the red gasket ring around his face had cleared up, but he still did the dolphin nightly and confessed it to her once a month. â€Å"Winston, Val Riordan here. I need a favor.† â€Å"Sure, Dr. Val, you need me to deliver something to Molly? I heard she went off in the Slug this morning.† Gossip surpassed the speed of light in Pine Cove. â€Å"No, Winston, you know that company that carries all the look-alike placebos? We used them in college. I need you to order look-alikes for all the antidepressants I prescribe: Prozac, Zoloft, Serzone, Effexor, the whole bunch, all the dosages. Order in quantity.† â€Å"I don’t get it, Val, what for?† Val cleared her throat. â€Å"I want you to fill all of my prescriptions with the placebos.† â€Å"You’re kidding.† â€Å"I’m not kidding, Winston. As of today, I don’t want a single one of my patients getting the real thing. Not one.† â€Å"Are you doing some sort of experiment? Control group or something?† â€Å"Something like that.† â€Å"And you want me to charge them the normal price?† â€Å"Of course. Our usual arrangement.† Val got a twenty percent kickback from the pharmacy. She was going to be working a lot harder, she deserved to get paid. Winston paused. She could hear him going through the glass door into the back of the pharmacy. Finally he said, â€Å"I can’t do that, Val. That’s unethical. I could lose my license, go to jail.† Val had really hoped it wouldn’t come to this. â€Å"Winston, you’ll do it. You’ll do it or the Pine Cove Gazette will run a front-page story about you being a fish-fucker.† â€Å"That’s illegal. You can’t divulge something I told you in therapy.† â€Å"Quit telling me what’s illegal, Winston. I’m married to a lawyer.† â€Å"I’d really rather not do this, Val. Can’t you send them down to the Thrifty Mart in San Junipero? I could say that I can’t get the pills anymore.† â€Å"That wouldn’t work, would it, Winston? The people at the Thrifty Mart don’t have your little problem.† â€Å"You’re going to have some withdrawal reactions. How are you going to explain that?† â€Å"Let me worry about that. I’m quadrupling my sessions. I want to see these people get better, not mask their problems.† â€Å"This is about Bess Leander’s suicide, isn’t it?† â€Å"I’m not going to lose another one, Winston.† â€Å"Antidepressants don’t increase the incidence of suicide or violence. Eli Lilly proved that in court.† â€Å"Yes and O.J. walked. Court is one thing, Winston, the reality of losing a patient is another. I’m taking charge of my practice. Now order the pills. I’m sure the profit margin is going to be quite a bit higher on sugar pills than it is on Prozac.† â€Å"I could go to the Florida Keys. There’s a place down there where they let you swim with bottlenose dolphins.† â€Å"You can’t go, Winston. You can’t miss your therapy sessions. I want to see you at least once a week.† â€Å"You bitch.† â€Å"I’m trying to do the right thing. What day is good for you?† â€Å"I’ll call you back.† â€Å"Don’t push me, Winston.† â€Å"I have to make this order,† he said. Then, after a second, he said, â€Å"Dr. Val?† â€Å"What?† â€Å"Do I have to go off the Serzone?† â€Å"We’ll talk about it in therapy.† She hung up and pulled a Post-it out of Hippocrates’ chest. â€Å"Now if I keep this oath, and break it not, may I enjoy honor, in my life and art, among all men for all time; but if I transgress and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me.† Does that mean dishonor for all time? she wondered. I’m just trying to do the right thing here. Finally. She made a note to call Winston back and schedule his appointments. How to cite The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove Chapter 2~3, Essay examples

Values and Ethics Theory in Counseling - MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Values and Ethics Theory in Counseling. Answer: Introduction Ethical decision making is essential in the professional conduct. In order to foster ethical decision making, certain professional organizations have emerged which provides guidelines for the ethical practices. Other than that, there are several moral theories which try to provide framework for determining ethical and non-ethical actions. Some of the common theories are utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics and social contract theory. These theories provide framework to evaluate the morality or immorality of certain actions. Although, these theories have different postulations, the basis of these theories is same. All the theories try to increase the benefits to the society. The moral theories are commonly applied to the situations of ethical dilemma. The ethical dilemma refers to the situations in which taking one course of action can harm to one stakeholder and taking another course of action can cause harm to another stakeholder. In professional practices, ethical dilemmas are common as professionals due to complex business environment. However, taking ethical decisions is important for maintaining the integrity of the profession. In this essence, the present essay evaluates the case of Doctor Susan Lim who was accused of overcharging her patients. Susan Lim is a prominent doctor in Singapore. She is one of the leading doctors and has acquired international fame. As a result, the sister of Queen of Brunei approached the doctor for the treatment of breast cancer. The doctor was approached in 2001 and the treatment went on till 2006 (Asia One Health, 2016). During this period, the doctor provided all the medical facilities to the patient. She also arranged and bore the expenses of flights of the patient from Singapore to Brunei. In order to provide the best treatment to the patient, he received numerous international training and certificates (Broad, 2000). In regard to all the above expenses, Doctor Susan Lim made a large medical bill. The Brunei family was aggrieved with the manipulated medical expenses. The Singapore Medical Association also critiqued that the fees were astonishingly high and filed a case against the doctor (John Harding, 2011). After the accusation, Doctor Lim threatened the Singapore government that if the c ase will trialed in the court, she will be required to reveal sensitive information regarding the relations between Brunei government and royal family. In response to the letter of the doctor, the government of Singapore responded severely. It ignored the appeal of the doctor and continued the case (Youtube, 2011). Identification of Ethical Issue In the above case, it can be determined that the doctor was struggling from ethical dilemma regarding whether she should reveal the sensitive information obtained during the treatment of her client. If she would not reveal the information, it will be prosecuted for overcharging her client. It is an ethical dilemma as in both the cases; she will harm the interest of one of the stakeholders. Moreover, there is also an ethical issue regarding the justification of the fees imposed upon the Brunei Family (Jacobs, 2008). In the present case, the major stakeholders are the doctor, Singapore Medical Council and the Brunei family. It is due to the fact that any course of action by the doctor will impact on one of the stakeholders. If she will reveal the confidential information between Brunei Royal Family and the government, it will compromise the interest and the confidentiality of the past client. Moreover, it is wrong to reveal personal and sensitive information of a specific person. Similarly, if she does not reveal the information; it will adversely impact on her self-interest. The Singapore Medical Council is also stakeholder in the case, as if it is the responsibility of the medical council to maintain the integrity of the medical profession. In professional conduct, it is important to take ethical decisions so that the integrity of the profession can be maintained. A person should take the decision so that there is minimum negative impact on different stakeholders of the case. In this regard, in the present section, a decision-making framework is suggested which can provide the best solution for the situation. It is 8-step decision making model and each step is crucial in the selection of ethical action (Stuart, 2014). In the first phase, all the relevant information is obtained regarding the case. The decision-maker should obtain all the possible information from all the available resources. In this phase, the individual should focus on obtaining the information from different stakeholders of the case. With appropriate information, the decision-maker will be able to take the right decision. It will also be helpful in determining the impact on different stakeholders and their extent. In the present case, the doctor should explore all the possible resources to determine the stakeholders of the decision. Moreover, the impact of actions and their extent should also be determined. Definition of the Ethical Issue: In this phase, the decision-maker should define the exact issue and its underlying causes. It will assist in determining the best fit solution for the situation. In the present case, the ethical issue can be defined as the issues regarding whether the doctor should reveal the sensitive information of the patient. Revealing the sensitive information of the patients is also against the professional ethics. However, the professional integrity of the doctor conflicts with her self-interest. In this phase, the person should determine all the possible stakeholders and the parties which can be affected by the decision. In the present case, the stakeholders of the decision can be determined as the Royal Family of Brunei, Singapore Medical Council and the doctor. In this phase, the decision-maker should examine all the possible consequences of the decision. The selection of the best action is dependent upon this phase. In this phase, the decision-maker should examine the possible outcomes of different decisions and based on this decision, the doctor should select the best decision. In the present case, the doctor can opt for two actions; however, both the actions will cause harm to one of the stakeholder. If she reveals the information, it will damage the reputation of the Brunei Family. Moreover, if she chooses to conceal the information, it can harm her self-interest. It is important to identify the obligation towards different stakeholders to take the best decision in the situation. In ethical decision-making, a person should identify his obligations towards different stakeholders try to address them. In the present case, the doctor has obligations towards her patient and the Singapore Medical Council. Doctor Susan Lim was provided the license by the medical council on the basis that she will follow the ethical and professional guidelines of the organization. Therefore, if the doctor will reveal sensitive information regarding the patient, she will breach the confidentiality norms of the organization. Moreover, doctor also has duty towards her patients. It is important to maintain confidentiality and integrity in the professional conduct. Therefore, the doctor has obligation towards the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) and the patient and her family (Levitt Moorhead, 2013). Character and Values of Decision-Maker The character and the virtue of a person impact his decision-making. Every person develops certain beliefs and virtues during his lifetime. All his decisions are based on these basic principles. It is important that the doctor take the decision which aligns with his personal values. In ethical decision-making, it is important that a person should identify different alternatives which can be used to address the situation. In the present case, the doctor can take two different actions of either disclosing the information or concealing it from the public. In this phase, the doctor should choose to conceal the sensitive information of the patient. According to the ethical decision making, this is the best decision for the doctor. Ethical theories have been developed to assist in the decision-making process because it represents the viewpoints which can be used to take decisions. There are four broad categories of ethical theories, namely, deontology, utilitarianism, rights, and virtues (Timmons, 2012). The deontological ethical theory states that the people should adhere to their obligations and duties. It states that a person should follow his or her obligations as upholding ones duty is considered as ethically correct (Hinman, 2012). According to this theory, a person must follow the rules or his or her obligations to society because upholding ones duty is ethically correct (Sher, 2012). The deontologists keep their promises and follow ethically correct decisions. A person following deontological principles will produce consistent results which are based on the individuals set of duties. According to this theory, the doctor should follow his duties to conceal the confidential information between her and the patient. Moreover, it should also follow the professional guidelines of the Singapore Medical Council. However, it can be scrutinized that there are certain limitations of this theory, for instance, there is no rational or logical basis for determining the ethical duties of a person. Second shortcoming of this theory is that sometimes the duties of a person may be in conflict. Utilitarianism is another popular ethical theory. It is based on consequentialism and states that the goodness of a decision is based on the consequences of that action. If the consequences of an action are good on different stakeholders, it is considered as morally correct action. In contrast to it, the consequences of an action are bad for the society then it would be categorized a morally incorrect action (Barrow, 2015). Utilitarianism is based on utility theory which states that the morality of an action can be determined based on its overall consequences on different stakeholders. When a person adopts utilitarianism perspective, he needs to consider the interest of all the stakeholders involved in the case rather than considering own self-interest (Mill, 2006). Accordingly, if this theory is applied to the case of Doctor Susan Lim, it can be proposed that doctor should look at the greater good for the society. If she reveals the personal information of her client, it will negati vely impact on the complete medical community. People will start distrusting the doctors with their personal information. Moreover, it can be examined that revealing the personal information of the customers can negatively impact on the reputation of the customer. The patients will be skeptical in trusting their personal information with the doctors in the future. Therefore, it is important that the doctor choose to conceal the personal information of her client. Conclusion Susan Lim is one of prominent lawyers in Singapore. In 2001, she undertook the case of the sister of Brunei queen who was suffering from breast cancer. She took care of the medical condition of the patient till the time of her death. She took care of all the medical expenses and the transportation of the patient from Singapore to Brunei. However, later when the doctor asked for her fees, the Royal family considered that the fees were very high in comparison to the services provided. They filed a case against the doctor for the exponentially high fees. However, in order to present her justification in the court, the doctor will need to reveal personal information regarding the Brunei family and government, which can bring dishonour to them. In the present situation, the doctor is suffering from the ethical dilemma regarding whether she should reveal the personal information of her client. An 8 step decision making model is proposed to assist the doctor in ethical decision making. The decision is based on different ethical theories or framework. The utilitarianism ethical theory state that any action which has better consequences on the society is morally justified. According to this theory, a person should consider the self-interest of all the stakeholders. In contrast to it, the deontological theory states that an action could be morally justified if it follows the rules and ethical obligations towards the society. References Asia One Health. (2016). Surgeon billed Brunei patient $40m over 4 years. Retrieved May 3, 2017 from https://health.asiaone.com/health/health-news/surgeon-billed-brunei-patient-40m-over-4-years Barrow, R. (2015). Utilitarianism: A Contemporary Statement. Routledge. Broad, C.D. (2000). Five Types of Ethical Theory. Psychology Press.Chew, R. (2011). DOCTORS FEES AFTER SUSAN LIMS CASE Implications for the Medical Profession. Retrieved May 3, 2017 from https://www.sma.org.sg/UploadedImg/files/Publications%20-%20SMA%20News/4511/Insight.pdf Hinman, L.M. (2012). Ethics: A Pluralistic Approach to Moral Theory. Cengage Learning. Jacobs, J. (2008). Dimensions of Moral Theory: An Introduction to Metaethics and Moral Psychology. John Wiley Sons. John Harding. (2011). Dr Susan Lims threatening letter to Foreign Minister George Yeo. Retrieved May 5, 2017 from https://johnharding.com/2011/03/dr-susan-lims-threatening-letter-to-foreign-minister-george-yeo/ Levitt, H., Moorhead, H. (2013). Values and Ethics in Counseling: Real-Life Ethical Decision Making. Routledge. Mill, J.S. (2006). Utilitarianism. ReadHowYouWant.com. Sher, G. (2012).Ethics: Essential Readings in Moral Theory. Routledge. Stuart, G.W. (2014). Principles and Practice of Psychiatric Nursing - E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences. Timmons, M. (2012). Moral Theory: An Introduction. Rowman Littlefield Publishers. Youtube. (2011). Singapore Top surgeon 'threatened' MFA - 28Mar2011. Retrieved May 5, 2017 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWuWLuSZ95Y

A Closer Look at Female Genital Mutation Essay Example

A Closer Look at Female Genital Mutation Paper In June 1997, the Board of I igration Appeals of the United States I igration and Naturalization Service (INS) granted political asylum to a nineteen-year-old woman from Togo who had fled her home to escape the practice of genital mutilation. 1 Fauziya Kassindja is the daughter of Muhammed Kassindja, a successful owner of a small trucking business in Kpalime. Her father opposed the ritual practice: He remembered his sisters screams during the rite and her suffering from a tetanus infection she developed afterwards. Hajia, his wife, recalled the death of her older sister from an infection associated with the rite; this tragedy led Hajias family to exempt her from cutting, and she, too, opposed the practice for her children. During his lifetime, Muha ed, being wealthy, was able to defy the tribal customs of the Tchamba-Kunsuntu, to which he belonged. Both illiterate themselves, the Kassindjas sent Fauziya to a boarding school in Ghana, so that she could learn English and help her father in his business. Meanwhile, her four older sisters married men of their own choice, genitals intact. Fauziyas family was thus an anomaly in the region. Rakia Idrissou, the local genital exciser, told a reporter that girls usually have the procedure between the ages of four and seven. If weak, they are held down by four women; if stronger, they require five women, one to sit on their chests and one for each arm and leg. They must be kept still, she said, because if they jerk suddenly the razor blade used for the surgery can cut too deep. We will write a custom essay sample on A Closer Look at Female Genital Mutation specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on A Closer Look at Female Genital Mutation specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on A Closer Look at Female Genital Mutation specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer When Fauziya was fifteen, however, her father died. Her mother was summarily turned out of the house by hostile relatives, and an aunt took control of the household, ending Fauziyas education. We dont want girls to go to school too much, this aunt told a reporter from The New York Times. The family patriarch then arranged for Fauziya to become the fourth wife of an electrician; her prospective husband insisted that she have the genital operation first. To avoid the marriage and the mutilation hat would have preceded it, Fauziya decided to leave home; her mother gave her $3,000 of the $3,500 inheritance that was her only sustenance. On her wedding day, Fauziya left her aunts house, flagged down a taxi, and, with nothing but the clothes on her back, asked the driver to take her across the border into Ghana, some twenty miles away. Once in Ghana, she got on a flight to Germany; with help from people who befriended her there, she got a flight to the United States. On landing in Newark sh e confessed that her documents were false and asked for political asylum. After weeks of detention in an unsanitary and oppressive i igration prison, she got legal assistance—again with the help of her mother, who contacted a nephew who was working as a janitor in the Washington area. Scraping together $500, the nephew hired a law student at American University, Ms. Miller Bashir, to handle Fauziyas case. At first, Bashir was unsuccessful, and a Philadelphia immigration judge denied Fauziyas request for asylum. Through the determined efforts of activists, journalists, and law faculty at American University, she successfully appealed the denial. The appellate ruling stated that the practice of genital mutilation constitutes persecution and concluded: It remains particularly true that women have little legal recourse and may face threats to their freedom, threats or acts of physical violence, or social ostracization for refusing to undergo this harmful traditional practice, or attempting to protect their female children. In recent years, the practice of female genital mutilation has been increasingly in the news, generating a complex debate about cultural norms and the worth of sexual functioning. This chapter attempts to describe and to sort out some aspects of this controversy. First, however, a word about nomenclature. Although discussions sometimes use the terms female circumcision and clitoridectomy, female genital mutilation (FGM) is the standard generic term for all these procedures in the medical literature. Clitoridectomy standardly designates a suategory, described shortly. The term female circumcision has been rejected by international medical practitioners because it suggests the fallacious analogy to male circumcision, which is enerally believed to have either no effect or a positive effect on physical health and sexual functioning. 2 Anatomically, the degree of cutting in the female operations described here is far more extensive. (The male equivalent of the clitoridectomy would be the amputation of most of the penis. The male equivalent of tnfibulation would be removal of the entire penis, its roots of soft tissue, and part of the scrotal skin. 3 ) This discuss ion is onfined to cases that involve substantial removal of tissue and/or functional impairment; I make no comment on purely symbolic procedures that involve no removal of tissue, and these are not included under the rubric female genital mutilation by international agencies that study the prevalence of the procedure. Three types of genital cutting are co only practiced: (i) In clitoridectomy, a part or the whole of the clitoris is amputated and the bleeding is stopped by pressure or a stitch. (2) In excision, both the clitoris and the inner lips are amputated. Bleeding is usually stopped by stitching, but the vagina is not covered. (3) In infibulation, the clitoris is removed, some or all of the labia minora are cut off, and incisions are made in the labia majora to create raw surface. These surfaces are either stitched together or held in contact until they heal as a hood of skin that covers the urethra and most of the vagina. 5 Approximately 85 % of women who undergo FGM have type i or type 2; infibulation, which accounts for only 15% of the total, nonetheless accounts for 80 to 90% of all operations in certain countries, for example, the Sudan, Somalia, and Djibouti. The practice of female genital mutilation remains extremely common in Africa, although it is illegal, and widely resisted, in most of the countries where it occurs. 6 The World Health Organization estimates that overall, in todays world between 85 and 115 million women have had such operations. In terms of percentages, for example, 93 % of women in Mali have undergone genital cutting, 98% in Somalia, 89% of women in the Sudan, 43 % in the Central African Republic, 43 % in the Ivory Coast, and 12% in Togo. 7 Smaller numbers of operations re now reported from countries such as Australia, Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Female genital mutilation is linked to extensive and in some cases lifelong health problems. These include infection, hemorrhage, and abscess at the time of the operation; later difficulties in urination and menstruation; stones in the urethra and bladder due to repeated infections; excessive growth of scar tissue at the site, which may become disfiguring; pain during intercourse; infertility (with devastating implications for a womans other life chances); obstructed labor and damaging rips and tears during childbirth. Complications from infibulation are more severe than those from clitoridectomy and incision; nonetheless, the false perception that clitoridectomy is safe frequently leads to the ignoring of complications, Both in the implicated nations and outside, feminists have organized to demand the abolition of this practice, citing its health risks, its impact on sexual functioning, and the violations of dignity and choice associated with its compulsory and nonconsensual nature. These opponents have been joined by many authorities in their respective nations, both religious and secular. In Egypt, for example, both the Health Minister, Ismail Sallem, and the new head of Al Azhar, the nations leading Islamic institution, support a ban on the practice. The World Health Organization has advised health professionals not to participate in the practicesince 1982 and repeated its strong opposition in 1994; the practice has also been condemned by the U. N. Co ission on Human Rights, UNICEF, the World Medication Organization, Minority Rights Group International, and Amnesty International. 9 At the same time, however, other writers have begun to protest that the criticism of genital mutilation is inappropriate and ethnocentric, a demonizing of another culture when we have many reasons to find fault with our own. 10 They have also charged that the focus on this problem involves a Western glamorization tion of sexual pleasure that is inappropriate, especially when we judge other cultures with different moral norms. To encounter such positions we do not need to turn to scholarly debates, We find them in our undergraduate students, who are inclined to be ethical relativists on such matters, at least initially, hestitant to make any negative judgment of a culture other than their own- Because it seems important for anyone interested in political change in this area to understand these views in their popular and nonacademic form, I shall illustrate them from student writings I have encountered both in my own teaching and in my research for a book on liberal education, adding some points from the academic debate. 1 Many students, like some participants in the academic debate, are general cultural relativists, holding that it is always inappropriate to criticize the practices of another culture, and that cultures can appropriately be judged only by their own internal norms. That general position would indeed imply that it is wrong for Westerners to criticize female genital mutilation, but not for any reasons interestingly specific to genital mutilation itself. For that reason, and because I have already considered that family of views in chapter i, discussing the views of relativists in anthropology and development policy, I shall focus here on four criticisms that, while influenced by relativism, stop short of the general relativist thesis: (1) It is morally wrong to criticize the practices of another culture unless one is prepared to be similarly critical of comparable practices when they occur in ones own culture. Thus, a typical student reaction is to criticize the ethnocentrism of a stance that holds that ones own culture is the benchmark for the principles and practices that are appropriate for all people. ) 12 (2) It is morally wrong to criticize the practices of another culture unless ones own culture has eradicated all evils of a comparable kind. 13 (Thus, a typical undergraduate paper co ents that criticism of genital mutilation is unacceptable when one considers the domestic problems we are faced with in our own cultures. ) (3) Female genital mutilation is morally on a par with practices of dieting and body shaping in American culture. (I observed quite a few courses in which this comparison played a central role, and the comparison has often been suggested by my own students. In a similar vein, philosopher Yael Tamir writes that Western conceptions of female beauty encourage women to undergo a wide range of painful, medically unnecessary, and potentially damaging processes. 14 ) 4) Female genital mutilation involves the loss of a capacity that may not be especially central to the lives in question, and one to which Westerners attach disproportionate significance. Thus references to clitoridectomy commonly reveal a patronizing attitude toward women, suggesting that they are primarily sexual beings. 15 These are significant charges, which should be confronted. Feminist argument should not be condescending to women in developing countries who have their own views of what is good. Such condescension is all the more damaging when it comes from women who are reluctant to criticize the flaws in their own culture, for then it is reminiscent of the worst smugness of white mans burden colonialism. Our students are surely right to think that withholding ones own judgment until one has listened carefully to the experiences of members of the culture in question is a crucial part of intelligent deliberation. On the other hand, the prevalence of a practice, and the fact that even today many women endorse and perpetuate it, should not be taken as the final word, given that there also many women in African cultures who struggle against it, and given that those who do perpetuate it may do so in background conditions of intimidation and economic and political inequality. How, then, should we respond to these very common charges? The first thesis is true, and it is useful to be reminded of it. Americans have all too often criticized other cultures without examining their own cultural shortcomings. It is less clear, however, that lack of self-criticism is a grave problem for Americans on such issues. We find no shortage of criticism of the ideal female body image, or of practices of dieting intended to produce it. Indeed, American feminists would appear to have devoted considerably more attention to these American problems than to genital mutilation, to judge from the success of books such as Naomi Wolfs The Beauty Myth and Susan Bordos Unbearable Weight. Indeed, a review of the recent feminist literature suggests the problem may lie in exactly the opposite direction, in an excessive focusing on our own failings. We indulge in moral narcissim when we flagellate ourselves for our own errors while neglecting to a end to the needs of those who ask our help from a distance. The second thesis is surely false. It is wrong to insist on cleaning up ones own house before responding to urgent calls from outside. Should we have said Hands off Apartheid, on the grounds that racism persists in the United States ? Or, during the Second World War, Hands off the rescue of the Jews/ on the grounds that in the 19303 and 19405 every nation that contained Jews was implicated in anti-Semitic practices? It is and should be di icult to decide how to allocate ones moral effort between local and distant abuses. To work against both is urgently important, and individuals will legitimately make di erent decisions abouttheir priorities. But the fact that a needy human being happens to live in Togo rather than Idaho does not make her less my fellow, less deserving of my moral commitment. And to fail to recognize the plight of a fellow human being because we are busy moving our own culture to greater moral heights seems the very height of moral obtuseness and parochialism. We could add that FGM is not as such the practice of a single culture or group of cultures. As recently as in the 19405, related operations were performed by U. S. and British doctors to treat female problems such as masturbation and lesbianism. 16 Nor is there any cultural or religious group in which the practice is universal. As Nahid Toubia puts it, FGM is an issue that concerns women and men who believe in equality, dignity and fairness to all human beings, regardless of gender, race, religion or ethnic identity. . . It represents a human tragedy and must not be used to set Africans against non-Africans, one religious group against another, or even women against men. 17 If the third thesis were true, it might support a decision to give priority to the local in our political action (though not necessarily speech and writing): If two abuses are morally the same and we have better local information about one and are better placed politically to do something about it, that one seems to be a sensible choice to focus on in our actions here and now. But is the third thesis true? Surely not. Let us enumerate the differences. 1. Female genital mutilation is carried out by force, whereas dieting in response to culturally constructed images of beauty is a matter of choice, however seductive the persuasion. Few mothers restrict their childrens dietary intake to unhealthy levels in order to make them slim; indeed most mothers of anorexic girls are ho ified and deeply grieved by their daughters condition. By contrast, during FGM small girls, frequently as young as four or five, are held down by force, often, as in Togo, by a group of adult women, and have no chance to select an alternative. The choices involved in dieting are often not fully autonomous: They may be the product of misinformation and strong social forces that put pressure on women to make choice, sometimes dangerous ones, that they would not make otherwise. We should criticize these pressures and the absence of full autonomy created by them. And yet the distinction between social pressure and physical force should also remain salient, both morally and legally. (Similarly, the line between seduction and rape is di icult to draw; frequently it turns on the elusive distinction between a threat and an offer, and on equally difficult questions about what threatened harms remove consent. ) Nonetheless, we should make the distinction as best we can, and recognize that there remain relevant differences between genital mutilation and dieting, as usually practiced in America. . Female genital mutilation is irreversible, whereas dieting is, famously, far from irreversible. 3. Female genital mutilation is usually performed in conditions that in and of themselves are dangerous and unsanitary, conditions to which no child should be exposed; dieting is not. 4. Female genital mutilation is linked to extensive and in some cases lifelong health problems, even death. (In Kassindjas region, deaths are rationalized by the folk wisdom that pr ofuse bleeding is a sign that a girl is not a virgin. Dieting is linked to problems of this gravity only in the extreme cases of anorexia and bulimia, which, even, then, are reversible. 5. Female genital mutilation is usually performed on children far too young to consent even were consent solicited; dieting involves, above all, adolescents and young adults. 18 Even when children are older, consent is not solicited. Typical is the statement of an Ivory Coast father of a twelve-year-old girl about to be cut. She has no choice, he stated. I decide. Her viewpoint is not important. His wife, who personally opposes the practice, concurs: It is up to my husband, she states. The man makes the decisions about the children. 19 6. In the United States, as many women as men complete primary education, and more women than men complete secondary education; adult literacy is 99% for both females and males. In Togo, adult female literacy is 32. 9% (52% that of men); in the Sudan, 30. 6% (56% tha t of men); in the Ivory Coast, 26. 1% (56%); in Burkina Faso, 8% (29%). Illiteracy is an impediment to independence; other impediments are supplied by economic dependency and lack of employment opportunities. These facts suggest limits to he notions of consent and choice, even as applied to the mothers or relatives who perform the operation, who may not be aware of the extent of resistance to the practice in their own and relevantly similar societies. To these limits we may add those imposed by political powerlessness, malnutrition, and intimidation. The wife of the patriarch in Fauziya Kassindjas clan told a reporter that she is opposed to the practice and would have run away like Fauziya had she been able—but nonetheless, she will allow the operation for her infant daughter. I have to do what my husband says, she concludes. It is not for women to give an order. I feel what happened to my body. I remember my suffering. But I cannot prevent it for my daughter. 7. Female geni tal mutilation means the irreversible loss of the capability for a type of sexual functioning that many women value highly, usually at an age when they are far too young to know what value it has or does not have in their own life. In the rare case in which a woman can make the comparison, she usually reports profound regret. Mariam Razak, a neighbor of the Kassindjas, was fifteen when she was cut, with five adult women holding her down. She had had sex with the man who is now her husband prior to that time and found it satisfying. Now, they both say, things are difficult. Mariam compares the loss to having a terminal illness that lasts a lifetime. Now, her husband says, something was lost in that place. . . . I try to make her feel pleasure, but it doesnt work very well. 20 8. Female genital mutilation is unambiguously linked to customs of male domination. Even its official rationales, in terms of purity and propriety, point to aspects of sex hierarchy. Typical is the statement of Egyptian farmer Said Ibrahim, upset about the government ban: Am I supposed to stand around while my daughter chases men ? To which Mohammed Ali, age seventeen, added, Ba ing it would make women wild like those in America. Sex relations constructed by the practice are relations in which intercourse becomes a vehicle for one-sided male pleasure rather than for mutuality of pleasure. 21 By contrast, the ideal female body image purveyed in the American media has multiple and complex resonances, including those of male domination, but also including those of physical fitness, independence, and boyish nonmaternity. These differences help explain why there is no serious campaign to make ads for diet programs, or the pictures of emaciated women in Vogue, illegal, whereas FGM is illegal in most of the countries in which it occurs. 22 (In the Sudan, the practice is punishable by up to two years imprisonment. Such laws are not well enforced, but their existence is evidence of a widespread movement against the practice in the countries implicated. Women in local regions where the practice is traditional give evidence of acquiescing, insofar as they do, out of intimidation and iack of options; women in adjacent regions where the practice is not traditional typically deplore it, citing health risks, loss of pleasure, and unnecessary suffering. 23 These differences also explain why Fauziya Kassindja was able to win political asylum. We shall not see similar arguments for political asylum for American women who have been pressured by the culture to be thin—however much it remains appropriate to criticize the norms of female beauty displayed in Vogue (as some advertisers have begun to do), the practices of some mothers, and the many covert pressures that combine to produce eating disorders in our society. Similarly, whereas the prospect of footbinding of the traditional Chinese type (in which the bones of the feet were repeatedly broken and the flesh of the foot became rotten 4 ) would, in my view, give grounds for political asylum; the presence of advertisements for high-heeled shoes surely would not, however many problems may be associated with the fashion. Even the publication of articles urging women to undergo FGM should be seen as altogether different from forcing a woman to undergo the procedure. How, then, is FGM traditionally justified, when it is? In social terms, it is highly likely that FGM emer ged as the functional equivalent to the seclusion of women. African women, unlike their counterparts in India, Pakistan, and elsewhere, are major agricultural producers. There is no barrier to womens workoutside the home, and indeed the entire organization of agriculture in Africa traditionally rests on the centrality of female labor. 25 In India, womens purity is traditionally guaranteed by seclusion; in Africa, this guarantee was absent, and another form of control emerged. But this functional history clearly does not justify the practice. What arguments are currently available? It is now generally agreed that there is no religious requirement to perform FGM. The prophet Mohammeds most cited statement about the practice (from a reply to a question during a speech) makes the process nonessential, and the force of his statement seems to have been to discourage extensive cutting in favor of a more symbolic type of operation. 26 The one reference to the operaation in the hadith classifies it as a makrama, or nonessential practice. FGM is not practiced at all in many Islamic countries, including Pakistan, Algeria, Tunisia, Saudia Arabia, Iran, and Iraq. Defenses appealing to morality (FGM keeps women from extramarital sex) have resonance because they connect with the practices likely original rationale, but they presuppose an unacceptable picture of women as whorish and childish. However sincerely such arguments are addressed, they should not be accepted by people with an interest in womens dignity. Defenses in terms of physical beauty are trickier, because we know how much cultures differ in what they regard as beautiful, but even perceptions of beauty (also at issue in Chinese footbinding) should yield before evidence of impairment of health and sexual functioning. Arguments claiming that without the practice women will not be acceptable to men may state something true in local circumstances (as was also the case with footbinding) and may therefore provide a rationale for individual families to defer to custom as the best of a bad business (although this is less true now than formerly, given the widespread resistance to the practice in most areas where it occurs). Such arguments, however, clearly cannot justify the practice in moral or legal terms; similarly, arguments advising slaves to behave themselves if they do not want to be beaten may give good advice but ca ot justify the institution of slavery. The strongest argument in favor of the practice is an argument that appeals to cultural continuity. Jomo Kenyatta and others have stressed the constitutive role played by such initiation rites in the formation of a community and the disintegrative effect of interference. 7 For this reason, Kenya a opposedcriminalization of the surgery and recommended a more gradual process of education and persuasion. Although one must have some sympathy with these concerns, it is still important to remember that a community is not a mysterious organic unity but a plurality of people standing in different relations of power to one another. It is not obvious that the type of cohesion that is effected by subordination and functional impairment is something we oug ht to perpetuate. Moreover, sixty years after Kenyattas ambivalent defense, we see widespread evidence of resistance from within each culture, and there is reason to think that the practice is kept alive above all by the excisers themselves, paramedical workers who enjoy both high income and high prestige in the community from their occupation. These women frequently have the status of priestesses and have great influence over social perceptions. 28 Countries that move against the practice should certainly make provision for the economic security of these women, but this does not mean taking them as unbiased interpreters of cultural tradition. To the extent that an initiation ritual is still held to be a valuable source of cultural solidarity, such rituals can surely be practiced (as they already are in some places) using a merely symbolic operation that does not remove any tissue. Let me now turn to the fourth thesis. A secondary theme in recent feminist debates about FGM is skepticism about the human value of sexual functioning. Philosopher Yael Tamir, for example, argues that hedonistic American feminists have ascribed too much value to pleasure. She suggests that it is men, above all, whose interests are being served by this, because female sexual enjoyment in our society is seen as a measure of the sexual power and achievements of men, and because men find women who do not enjoy sex more intimidating than those who do. I am prepared to agree with Tamir to this extent: The a ention given FGM a seems to me somewhat disproportionate, among the many gross abuses the world practices against women: unequal nutrition and health care, lack of the right toassemble and to walk in public, lack of equality under the law, lack of equal access to education, sex-selective infanticide and feticide, domestic violence, marital rape, rape in police custody, and many more. Unlike Tamir, I believe that the primary reason for this focus is not a fascination with sex but the relative trac-tability of FGM as a practical problem, given the fact that it is already widely resisted and indeed illegal, and given that it is not supported by any religion. How much harder to grapple with womens legal inequality before Islamic courts, their pervasive hunger, their illiteracy, their subjection to battery and violence. But surely Tamir is right that we should not focus on this one abuse while relaxing our determination to make structural changes that will ring women closer to full equality worldwide. And she may also be right to suggest that the fasci-nation with FGM contains at least an element of the sensational or even the prurient. Tamir, however, does not simply criticize the disproportionate focus on FGM: She offers a more general denigration of the importance of sexual pleasure as an element in human flourishing. This part of her argument is flawed by the fail ure to make a crucial distinction: that between a function and the capacity to choose that function. Criticizing her opponents for their alleged belief that the capacity for sexual pleasure is a central human good, she writes: Nuns take an oath of celibacy, but we do not usually condemn the church for preventing its clergy from enjoying an active sex life. Moreover, most of us do not think that Mother Teresa is leading a worse life than Chichulina, though the latter claims to have experienced an extensive number of orgasms- It is true that nuns are offered spiritual life in exchange for earthly goods, but in the societies where clitoridectomy is performed, the fulfilling life of motherhood and child bearing are offered in exchange. Some may rightly claim that one can function as a wife and a mother while still experiencing sexual pleasures. Others believe that full devotion to God does not require an oath of celibacy. Yet these views are, after ali, a ma er of convention. 29 There are a number of oddities in this argument. (It is hard, for example, to know what to make of the assertion that the possibility of combining sexual pleasure with motherhood is a mere matter of convention. } More centrally, however, Tamir mischaracterizes the debate. No feminist opponent of FGM is saying or implying that celibacy is bad, that nuns all have a starved life, that orgasms are the be-all and end-all of existence. I know of no opponent who would not agree with Tamirs statement that women are not merely sexual agents, that their ability to lead rich and rewarding lives does not depend solely on the nature of their sex life. But there is a great difference between fasting and starving; just so, there is also a great difference between a vow of celibacy and FGM. Celibacy involves the choice not to exercise a capability to which nuns, insofar as they are orthodox Roman Catholics, ascribe considerable human value. 30 Its active exercise is thought good for all but a few of those humans, and even for them it is the choice not to use a capacity one has {as in the case of fasting) that is deemed morally valuable. (A Catholic should hold that a survivor of FGM cannot achieve the Christian good of celibacy. FGM, by contrast, involves forgoing altogether the very possibility of sexual functioning—and, as I said, well before one is of an age to make such a choice. 31 We all know that people who are blind or unable to walk can lead rich and meaningful lives; nonetheless, we would all deplore practices that deliberately disabled people in those respects, nor would we think that critics of those practices are giving walking or seeing undue importance in human life. Can even the mothers of these girls make an informed choice as to the value of fem ale sexual pleasure? They have been i ersed in traditional beliefs about womens impurity; lacking literacy and education, as a large proportion do, they have difficulty seeking out alternative paradigms. As the immigration report points out, their situation is made more difficult by fear and powerlessness. Equally important, their own experience of sexual life cannot have contained orgasmic pleasure if they themselves encountered FGM as girls; even if they did not, they are highly likely to have experienced marriage and sexual life as a series of insults to their dignity, given the ubiquity of domestic violence and marital rape. Should they believe that FGM is a bad thing for their daughters— as a remarkable proportion of the women interviewed in the recent stories clearly do— they have no power to make their choices effective and many incentives to conceal the views they hold. Such facts do not show that women who have had a more fortunate experience of marriage and sexuality are making a mistake when they hold that the capacity for sexual pleasure should be preserved for those who may choose to exercise it. There is certainly something wrong with any social situation in which women are viewed only or primarily as sex objects; but criticizing such perceptions has nothing to do with defending FGM. Nor does Tamir give us any reason to suppose that the importance of womens sexual leasure is a mythic construct of the male ego. Many women have reportedenjoying sex a good deal, and there is no reason to think them all victims of false consciousness. It is probably true that some men find women who do not enjoy sex more intimidating than those who do, but it would be more than a little perverse to deny oneself pleasure simply in order to intimidate men. Moreover, in the situation we are contemplating in the case of FGM, the operative male fear is surely that of womens sexual agency, which is a sign that the woman is not simply a possession and might even experience pleasure with someone other than her owner. It would be highly implausible to suggest that African women can gain power and intimidate men by undergoing FGM. The attack on FGM is part and parcel of a more general attempt by women to gain control of their sexual capacities; it is thus a relative of attacks on rape, marital rape, sexual harassment, and domestic violence. It is precisely this challenge to traditional male control that many men find threatening. In the concluding section of her discussion of FGM, Yael Tamir imagines a country called Libidia, where women with u aturally enlarged clitorises find they cannot do anything else but have sex and therefore seek to remove the clitoris in order to have better lives. In this way she suggests that sexual pleasure undermines other valuable human functions—so one might plausibly deem its removal a helpful thing, rather like a trip to the dentist to get rid of a diseased tooth. She here expresses a Platonic idea about the relation between continence and intellectual creativity that may be true for some individuals at some times but is surely not a universal datum of human experience. Plato did indeed hold in the Phaedo that mental life would be much better if the bodily appetites could be put to one side insofar as possible—though even he did not maintain this position with absolute consistency, nor did he suggest genital mutilation as a remedy. 32 Aristotle, on the other hand, held that someone who was insensible to the full range of the bodily pleasures would be far from being a human being. We do not need to decide which thinker is right—or indeed for which people each of them is right—to decide sensibly that FGM is not like n a endectomy— that it involves the removal of a capability for whose value history and experience have had a great deal to say. Individuals may then choose whether and how to exercise it, just as we also choose whether and how to use our athletic and musical capacities. Internal criticism is slowly changing the situation in the nations in which FGM has traditionally been practiced. The eighteen-year-old son of the patriarch of the Kassindja family told reporters that he wanted to marry a woman who had not been cut, because teachers in his high school had influenced his thinking. The patriarch himself now favors making the practice optional, to discourage more runaways who give the family a bad name. The very fact that the age of cutting in Togo has been moving steadily down (from twelve to four), in order (the exciser says) to discourage runaways, gives evidence of mounting resistance to the practice. But many of the women and men in the relevant nations who are struggling against this practice are impoverished or unequal under the law or illiterate or powerless or in fear—and often all of these. There is no doubt that they wish outside aid. There is also no doubt that they encounter local opposition—as is always the case when one moves to change a deeply entrenched custom connected with the structures of power, (As I have suggested, some of the people involved have strong personal economic and status interests in the status quo. ) Suzanne Aho, director of Togos Office for the Protection and Promotion of the Family, explains that she tries to counsel men about womens rights of choice, but she encounters the dead weight of custom. Of the Kassindja patriarch she says: You cannot force her/ I told him. He understood, but he said it is a tradition. These upholders of tradition are eager, often, to brand their internal oppo- nents as Westernizers, colonialists, and any other bad thing that may carry public sentiment. Even so, Fauziyas father was accused of trying to act like a white man. But this way of deflecting internal criticism should not intimidate outsiders who have reasoned the matter out, at the same time listening to the narratives of women who have been involved in the reality of FGM. The charge of colonialism presumably means that the norms of an oppressor group are being unthinkingly assimilated, usually to curry favor with that group. That is not at all what is happening in the case of FGM. In the United Nations, in Human Rights Watch, in many organizations throughout the world, and in countless local villages the issue has been debated. Even the not very progressive I igration and Naturalization Service (INS) has been swayed by the data it collected. The vigor of internal resistance should give confidence to those outside who work to oppose the practice. Frequently external pressure can assist a relatively powerless internal group that is struggling to achieve change. In short, international and national officials who have been culpably slow to recognize gender-specific abuses as human rights violations are beginning to get the idea that womens rights are human rights, and that freedom from FGM is among them. Without abandoning a broader concern for the whole list of abuses women suffer at the hands of unjust customs and individuals, we should continue to keep FGM on the list of unacceptable practices that violate womens human rights, and we should be ashamed of ourselves if we do not use whatever privilege and power has come our way to make it disappear forever.