Barbarism, Mrs Macaulay

Dear Editor,

I am all the way in Cumbria, UK, reading the article where Margarette Macaulay is unleashing a furious attack on men who commit incest. One can relate to the anger that Mrs Macaulay feels, but in her capacity as attorney and women's and children's rights advocate, I would say she is sending the wrong message in a country that is already obsessed with crime and extreme criminal practices.

I guarantee that anyone reading this article will have a good laugh because they find what Mrs Macaulay said was somewhat amusing, but really, none of it is funny and incest should never be dealt with in that way. Incest, like any other "abnormal (or normal) behaviour", starts in the brain and anyone wanting to engage in behaviours of that nature will use anything at their disposal; for example, fingers, tongue, etc. What Mrs Macaulay should be doing is to try to engage with a team of psychologists and medics to help to bring about a change in people with such warped ideas.

Mrs Macaulay should take into consideration that cutting off the organ in a case of incest will not stop the music playing, since a recording has already been made in the mind of the perpetrator. And any family member who has had to be subjected to abuse of that nature needs a different sort of weapon to annihilate such sick behaviour. She, more than anyone else should know that no country would pass such a law to "cut it off"; not even Mrs Macaulay herself as an attorney could do that, even if she had the opportunity. But now having put it into the heads of thousands of people reading the article, she may eventually have to defend someone who was daft enough to take her advice.

We are now well into the 21st century and such barbarism should have been left well behind us. The last thing our young people should be encouraged to do is to cut off organs.

Monica Cousins

monco2000@yahoo.co.uk