‘Name That School’

In her piece “Name That School” [Opinion, January 25, 2005], Diane Ravitch suggests we send Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein ironic and ludicrous names for the many small new schools the city is creating.

I would suggest they have the matter well in hand. After all, they proudly embraced the name Tweed for the refurbished Department of Education headquarters on Chambers Street. “Boss” Tweed, who swindled millions while building the structure that was once a courthouse, remains Gotham’s greatest civic scoundrel.

Then again, what can one expect from a city that has not a single school named for George Washington, a man who served here as general and president, and has six for Roberto Clemente, a baseball player?

MICHAEL MISCIONE
Manhattan

Abortion Hurts Women

The letter by Stella Daily of Brooklyn attacking Alicia Colon for her pro-life position is typical of the kind of letter one expects from the elitists that support Planned Parenthood and NARAL [“Abortion Is A Woman’s Right,” Letters, January 26, 2005]. People such as Ms. Daily always speak in terms of “rights,” “choices,” and “empowerment,” yet they refuse to give rights to the most defenseless members of society: babies in the womb, the disabled and the elderly. It is irresponsible men who have benefited from Roe v. Wade – the kind of men that one’s mother used to warn one about.

I wonder what Ms. Daily would say to the parents of 18-year-old Holly Patterson, who died in California from using RU-486? I wonder what Ms. Daily would say to the women who have had four abortions or more and then find out that they can no longer conceive? I wonder what Ms. Daily would say to the parents of an underage girl who is brought across state lines by an older predatory male to procure an abortion? The Daily’s of the world think of pregnancy as a disease and abortion as the cure. That is tragic and does not help women.

Susan B. Anthony opposed abortion and considered abortionists to be the lowest of the low. They still are. I would like to remind Stella Daily that until the 1973 ruling, babies in the womb enjoyed some measure of protection. Speaking as a former fetus, I look forward to the day that all babies are able to be born so that they can become shrill feminists such as Stella Daily.

ALICE LEMOS
Woodside, NY

Abortion Hurts Men, Too

In response to Alicia Colon’s article [“Abortion is Not a Freedom,” New York, January 25, 2005], I disagree entirely. Men do not benefit from abortion. That is a digusting and “female sexist pig” point of view. Men have feelings, too, you know.

Three women in my life have had abortions over the span of the 28 years I have been sexually active. The first was because we were too young. The second was because we were on drugs and drunk most of the time. The third was because we only knew each other a couple of weeks. The “choice” that all these women made was painful for me, too. It was a “choice” that I was powerless over and yet my DNA, the personal blueprint of my life, was intimately involved. But I had no say in the matter.

These abortions are painful reminders to me of “what could have been if only I had been…” You fill in the blanks … More responsible, more mature, more along in my career, more caring, less selfish, etc., etc. It hurts that abortion is part of my story … this man’s story.

So I have come to know in the hardest way possible that abortion is a difficult choice for both men and women because it involves human life.

And the basic decency and humanity of most Americans is not well served by either of the extremist positions on the issue.

And I have been on all sides of the issue over the years. It is that confusing and complicated.

My position on abortion has gone from one of indifference to a belief that it is a woman’s right and not to be limited in any way, to just the opposite – that abortion is murder because life begins at conception – to the position that I have now: that abortion should be legal but restricted to the first trimester (as in Roe v. Wade), which I now find to be the only ethically and morally responsible position to take on the issue.

And I still consider myself prolife because I do believe that all life is sacred, so sacred that compassion and love must be the driving force behind my beliefs on this issue. And I have come to learn that love and compassion always seem to be the first things that go missing when the black-and-white views of extremists rule the day.

CHRIS WARD
Manhattan

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