Op. Cit.

November/December 1997 "Broken Wings," Broken Hearts

I've just finished reading the article "Broken Wings" in the July/August issue of Liberty. Never before, in my 40 years, have I read anything so tragic as what was written regarding female genital mutilation. I cried till I thought my heart would break. I am the mother of an 18-year-old daughter, and this article penetrated my innermost soul as I thought of young girls and women suffering such humiliation, pain, and lifelong tragedy. My prayer is that somewhere, somehow, the God I worship will put an eternal end to such degradation.
Thank you for having the courage to bring such information to the needed attention of your subscribers. I value my Liberty!
PATRICIA P. KOH
via the Internet

This was the hardest article I've had to read in more than 27 years. Although the practice of FGM is sickening, I am proud that you had the courage to make this horrendous procedure known so it can be stopped.
Thank you for your many well-written, practical, truth-filled, relevant articles. Keep up the good work!
BILL TASSIE
Burlington, Michigan

Thank you for this article on FGM. People need to be aware of this unspeakable abomination. However, how is female genital mutilation any different from or more pathetic than the mutilation and subsequent slow and painful death of millions of babies within their mothers' wombs?
How is the torturer and executioner with a medical degree, in our so-called "civilized society," who suctions the child out piece by piece, any different from the individual in northern Kenya who mutilates the genitals of a young girl? And how is the mother, the accomplice to the crime, on the table in the abortionist's office, any different from those mothers in Kenya who hold the sufferer down and force her legs apart?
ERCIE BERWICK
Elmhurst, Illinois

Watched by the Watchtower

The article "The Price of Faith," by Nicholas P. Miller in your July/August issue, misapprehends and therefore misapplies the law of assumption of risk to the Gwendolyn Robbins case. In New York "there can be no assumption of risk unless it is voluntary" (Bard v. Board of Education, 140 N.Y.S. 2d 850, 852 (Sup. Ct. Kings County 1955). Indeed, the general rule is that a "plaintiff's acceptance of a risk is not voluntary if the defendant's tortious conduct has left him no reasonable alternative course of conduct to avert harm to himself or to protect a right or privilege of which the defendant had no right to deprive him" (57 Am. Jur. 2d Negligence

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