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from: http://www.vachss.com/av_dispatches/parade_071402.html
What We Must Do ... To Protect Our Children
A CALL TO ACTION BY ANDREW VACHSS
The Difference Between "Sick" and "Evil"
By Andrew Vachss
Originally published in Parade, July 14, 2002
Andrew Vachss, a PARADE Contributing Editor, is a lawyer whose only clients are children. For more than three decades, he has observed the devastating effects of child abuse firsthand. In light of recent headlines, we asked him to share his unique perspective on a subject of grave importance to us all.
The shock waves caused by the recent exposures of so-called "pedophile priests" have reverberated throughout America. But beneath our anger and revulsion, a fundamental question pulsates: Are those who abuse their positions of trust to prey upon children--a category certainly not limited to those in religious orders--sick ... or are they evil?
We need the answer to that fundamental question. Because, without the truth, we cannot act. And until we act, nothing will change.
My job is protecting children. It has taken me from big cities to rural outposts, from ghettos to penthouses, and from courtrooms to genocidal battlefields. But whatever the venue, the truth remains constant: Some humans intentionally hurt children. They commit unspeakable acts--for their pleasure, their profit, or both.
Many people who hear of my cases against humans who rape, torture, and package children for sale or rent immediately respond with, "That's sick!" Crimes against children seem so grotesquely abnormal that the most obvious explanation is that the perpetrator must be mentally ill--helpless in the grip of a force beyond his or her control.
But that very natural reaction has, inadvertently, created a special category of "blameless predator." That confusion of "sick" with "sickening" is the single greatest barrier to our primary biological and ethical mandate: the protection of our children.
The difference between sick and evil cannot be dismissed with facile eye-of-the-beholder rhetoric. There are specific criteria we can employ to give us the answers in every case, every time.
READ the complete article here: http://www.vachss.com/av_dispatches/parade_071402.html.
Edited by - KatieLee on 21 July 2002 11:2:22
Edited by - KatieLee on 21 July 2002 11:3:44