Letters: Aug. 2, 1982

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To the Editors:

The Equal Rights Amendment [July 12] did not die; it was temporarily delayed. In the words of Susan B. Anthony: "Failure is impossible."

Steven A. Silva

San Diego

So Phyllis Schlafly is happy about the ERA'S defeat. She is proud to deny rights to less fortunate women who have only what they can earn. Schlafly is the modern Marie Antoinette. What we needed was a Joan of Arc.

Nancy E. Urmston

Tipton, Ind.

For too long too many women have remained apathetic about the rights of their sex. I was one of those who sat back and watched others do the work for me when I should have taken an active role. Apathy killed ERA.

Mildred Wells Sample

Albany, Ga.

Your cover caption "The Climb to Equity" ought to have read "The Climb to Equity" The implication of the word equality is that women are looking upward, straining to be equal to men. We've always been equal. It is equity we seek and must have to survive in this society.

Mallory Millett Jones

New York City

The history of the pro-ERA movement is replete with excesses that demonstrate contempt for the democratic process. Consider a precedent-setting time extension for ratification, boycotts, hunger strikes, bags of animal blood, to name a few. And now we hear of raising millions to "get strong and get even." This approach resembles government by extortion. The ERA supporters appear more dangerous to the nation than the presumed inequality between the sexes.

Murray Howden

Allentown, Pa.

The death of ERA was caused by its radical advocates who sought not so much to equate as to castrate.

Thomas M. Edwards

San Francisco

Mrs. Schlafly beat the ERA not because she played "to people's worst fears" but because she had the best argument. Equal rights would be balanced by equal responsibility, and that would obliterate women's traditional privileges, including exemption from the draft.

(The Rev.) Maurice Fitzgerald

Washington, D.C.

Feverish Health Costs

The ultimate solution to the nation's health-care woes [July 12] must come not from Washington, as you suggest, but from the people. They alone have the power to stop smoking, lose weight, shun fatty foods, drink less, avoid accidents, exercise regularly and manage stress as productively as possible. After all, burning less gasoline, among other conservation measures, brought down the price of fuel.

Frank Welsh, M.D.

Cincinnati

Your article correctly diagnoses ultra-modern technology as the primary cause of increasing medical-care costs. Yet as long as consumers demand the very best and consider anything less as malpractice, the situation will not change.

John T. Harris, M.D.

Portland, Ore.

Chocolate Chic

As a lawyer who is also a chocolate addict [July 12], I was intrigued by Anthropologist Jennie Keith's suggestion that chocolate may be used to get someone in your power. If this is true, the possibilities are limitless. Rather than arming myself with lawbooks and briefs the next time I must face a hostile opposing counsel, grumpy judge of recalcitrant witness, I might just fill my briefcase with Hersey Golden Almond bars.

Amy Zapp

Enola, Pa.