Incest

The Howard County Sexual Assault Center has joined America's first nationwide toll-free hot line for victims of sexual assault: 1-800-656-HOPE.The number is operated by the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, a Washington-based nonprofit organization.When callers dial the toll-free number, they are connected to the nearest rape crisis center.

WASHINGTON -- Her voice is a surprise.First, because it is so deep and husky, older than her 41 years, the kind of voice that goes with a smoke and a Scotch, not a tailored, working-woman wardrobe and a perfect orb of camera-ready hair.But second, because it is so remarkably unfamiliar.After Bob Dole's four decades in public life, his repeated presidential campaigns and his just-capped career in Congress, his grown daughter, Robin, who has lived near him in the Washington area almost her entire life, has remained virtually unseen and unheard by the public.

A Prince George's County woman who is accused of videotaping herself having sex with her 9-year-old son was indicted yesterday on 11 counts, including second-degree rape, the county state's attorney office said.The 32-year-old woman, of the 1800 block of Metzerott Road in Adelphi, also is charged with child abuse, assault with intent to rape, attempted rape, two third-degree sex offenses, a second-degree sex offense, incest, assault and battery and two counts of child pornography. The boy has been placed in foster care.

On April 13, in Readers Respond, John R. Baronas praised pro-life politicians and wrote "so too will 'safe' and legal abortions someday will be a thing of the past. " If he has his way, unsafe and illegal abortions will return from the past. What would victims of incest or rape, women too ill to bear children, or other women do then? This stance reveals how little value some place on the welfare, even the lives, of women. John T. Carey, Catonsville

The Harford County Commission for Women will sponsor "Hand-in-Hand Day" Saturday at Harford Mall in Bel Air from 10 a.m. until about 9:30p.m. so county residents can get acquainted with the many support groups available.Whether it's a parent trying to cope with an emptynest or an incest victim struggling to survive, there's a support group available to help with sharing and subsequent growth and healing,county government spokeswoman Sue Collins says.Representatives from nearly 30 support groups will participate inthe daylong event and will provide brochures about their services.

Julian Bauer's May 31 letter raises some important questions. He says marriage benefits society, and therefore not everyone should be allowed to marry. He says "homosexuality ... [has] an effect on society," but the only effect he names is a supposed decline in birth rates. He doesn't explain how banning same-sex marriage would increase birth rates. Bauer says the comparison to interracial marriage is a "straw man. " He should read the arguments in Loving v. Virginia about miscegenation and God's will.

Rape is a notoriously difficult crime to prosecute. Of every 100 rapes nationwide, 46 are reported, 12 lead to arrests and three result in prison sentences. To improve those odds, advocates are encouraging more nurses to receive the training to give a forensic examination that can be key to securing a conviction. Prosecutions are difficult when a victim fails to get a prompt examination. And with TV crime dramas such as "CSI" raising expectations among juries, prosecutors and victims' advocates view the forensic exam as more essential than ever.

A s the century's sleazy first decade coasted to a finish, medicine was perhaps the only profession to emerge unslimed. Wall Street and bond raters caused 10 percent unemployment. Businesses cooked books. Journalists fabricated. Priests abused. Intelligence analysts found fantasy nukes. But doctors, again near the top of last year's Gallup "honesty and ethics" poll, may be prepping for their own Enron moment. Allegations that hundreds of patients at St. Joseph Medical Center received what might have been unneeded heart stents would, if true, combine Bernard Madoff-style fraud with Toyota-style injury.

Now that the ''rape and incest'' exceptions to laws against abortion are once again making headlines, my own experience sheds what I believe to be desperately needed light on the subject.I am a victim of child sexual abuse -- both incest, and the family-friend variety. I write this story in the hope that in the reading of it, both sides of this terrible debate will pause to think long and hard about their position.Just before I was 13 years old, I was sexually abused by an older brother, and by a college-age friend of the family.

"Marabou Stork Nightmares," by Irvine Welsh. W.W. Norton & Co 264 pages. $21This is a nightmare-fantasy of predatory life in an Edinburgunderclass neighborhood, a modern, post-industrial, Scottish breeding ground for child abuse, child molestation, incest and rape. Violence, feeding a cycle of thug-ish pride, is manifest in the Brit-hooliganism of "fitba" crews.The author takes the reader deep into the heart, the family, the street life and, ultimately, the horror of narrator Roy Strang. Life scars leave him searching for a way out. When he can't find it he gets revenge.