Letters: Oct. 20, 1967

Debate Over the Dilemma

Sir: The very idea that abortion should present a dilemma [Oct. 13] infuriates me. The morality of satisfied, waistcoated male legislators complacently discussing the academics of ending a prenatal life while terrified women are desperately inserting pointed objects into their wombs is, to my mind, infinitely more questionable than the subject of abortion itself. What is the theory behind keeping abortions from those who need them most, wives who already have too many children and unwed pregnant girls? I assume it is a Puritan hangover of a need to punish them for enjoying sex, in which case denying them the operation is as logical as castrating their husbands and lovers. The objection that an abortion prevents a human from entering the world is purely intellectual, since a major problem today is precisely the fact that there are already too many people to be adequately fed, cared for. and loved. As for the Catholics, abortion legislation is none of their business; nobody wants to force abortions upon them, only to make the operation available to women who want it.

JACQUELYN S. LANMAN Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Sir: If it is too delicate and shattering a concept for the overly idealistic and moralistic lawmaking males, then let's have a national referendum in the 1968 presidential elections. By using the anonymity of the voting booth, we could all publicly feign to be utterly aghast that it was approved, and privately, all those abortions would then take place in hospitals under competent medical attention. EILEEN M. MURPHY Syracuse

Sir: If you intended to set the cause of legalized abortion back, you could not have done better than that sentence: "Bureaucratic paper shuffling often holds up legal operations until the 24th week—producing live babies that sometimes cry for hours before dying." What a frightful picture. All the male lawmakers don't seem to understand that a pregnancy cannot be held in abeyance while an appeal, is made. Let the women write the laws.

HELEN ELIZABETH BEATTIE Brooklyn

Sir: It escapes me how religious leaders can be so sure that the fetus is a living soul. What seminarian has not grappled with the question of the origin of the soul in his anthropology courses only to come away as undecided as ever? The church today is in grave danger of dogmatizing beyond the clear teaching of Scripture and perpetrating a far greater misery than it did when it put Galileo under house arrest for his "heresy."

(THE REV.) ANDRE BUSTANOBY Arlington, Va.

Sir: To say that the final decision on an abortion should be an individual rather than a legal one is to assume that abortion is not murder—I take it for granted that TIME still feels that murder should be a "legal decision." And I can't help but ask those who favor abortions in cases where the child is expected to be healthy and the mother is expected to deliver without danger: "Were you not worth saving when you were yet unborn?"

JAMES M. HALLETT New Haven, Conn.

Putting the Parts Together