Medicaid Abortion Ban

* Congress upheld the Hyde Amendment (Sept. 29), which forbids Medicaid funding for abortions, effectively discriminating against poor women who cannot afford the procedure. The amendment’s supporters argued that millions of people are morally opposed to abortion and therefore should not have to pay for it. This line of logic is an insult to any thinking person’s intelligence. How many millions of Americans were morally opposed to Vietnam? Did they have a say as to where their money went?

There will always be a constituency that disagrees with the way its tax dollars are spent. Using this bogus formula, the government could get nothing done. When this issue comes before Congress again (as it no doubt will) I can only hope that the debate will be framed instead around the far more valid concepts of equity, fairness and constitutionality.

ADAM CARL

Studio City

* The Hyde Amendment again disallows Medicaid payments for abortions. It is “estimated that if the ban were lifted 400,000 more abortions would be performed annually.” What this really means is there will be 400,000 additional unwanted babies born each year to welfare mothers, to be supported by the taxpayers until they reach the age of 18. Unless, of course, they succumb before that to neglect or child abuse. Do the senators care about life after birth?

ELEANOR HEYMAN

Hesperia

* Your article on violence against abortion clinics (“Abortion Foes Test the Limits” Sept. 30) was ludicrous and a blatant attempt to tarnish the pro-life movement. I have been a pro-life activist for more than 15 years and I can testify to the fact that all mainstream pro-life organizations in California and nationwide are 100% opposed to violence of any sort against abortion clinics or abortionists.

However, I do not think fear is the reason fewer and fewer doctors are choosing to learn how to perform abortions, as the article states. Rather, the increasing sophistication of fetal studies, even to the point of microsurgery in utero, has convinced most of the medical profession that this is a living human being, a patient, not an inconvenient mass of tissue that feels and perceives nothing.

MARY CURTIUS

Yorba Linda

* Regarding your Sept. 30 article about fanatical abortion foes, I find it interesting that six of the anti-choice people mentioned or quoted were men as opposed to two who were women. I find it even more telling that one of them mentioned that all able-bodied men should rise to serve the cause. This is not about abortion, it is about maintaining patriarchy and controlling women. It is disgustingly self-righteous for these men to pass judgment on a decision some women make because they are physiologically capable of carrying a child to term. These are decisions that men will never have to make, so how dare they judge us.

LELAINE LAU

Venice

* Re “A Misguided Try at Conciliation,” editorial, Sept. 22:

Your extreme bias on the issue of abortion on demand has again blinded you to your own hypocrisy! To say that you condemned the so-called “litmus tests” (in the appointment of federal judges) used by Presidents Reagan and Bush while calling for President Clinton to abide by a campaign promise to invoke a reverse “litmus test” on the same issue is not only illogical, it is irresponsible editorializing. Your prejudice is keeping you from recognizing the issue of abortion on demand is not about privacy or government intrusion into private matters. It is a question of how much value society should place on a life!

Your position that only the mother’s voice has any legitimacy and that she can decide to terminate the life of another without due process is not only without constitutional foundation, it is without moral foundation. The Roe vs. Wade decision was not based on constitutional law, it was manufactured by the court to rationalize the decision to declare that no one has the right to life until they are born! This is the functional equivalent of the Dred Scott decision whereby blacks were declared property, not people, by the Supreme Court. As that decision was wrong and was later overturned, so should Roe vs. Wade be overturned.

The right to privacy carries with it a responsibility; responsibility not only for your actions, but also responsibility for the consequences of those actions. The responsibility for those actions doesn’t end at the bedroom door. Someone else’s life may be involved and the mother’s voice is not the only relevant one. The baby is not part of the mother (the genetic code is not the same); she is the caretaker of the baby. As caretaker, her voice is important but it is not absolute. The life of the baby is also important and deserves an advocate.

DANIEL BARTOWSKI

La Mirada