To the Editor:

Magda Denes [“Performing Abortions,” October], ostensibly writing in a purely descriptive vein about “how people involved in the performing of legal abortions feel about the work they do,” adroitly presents the abortion question in such a way as to provoke guilt in the reader who is in favor of legalized abortion.

Though she pays verbal tribute to the unwed pregnant woman’s right to choose not to carry to term, especially if that young woman is a pregnant, exploited twelve-year-old child, she nevertheless subtly lays the groundwork for one’s sense of revulsion at the abortion concept, beginning with one’s concern for the physical suffering and panic-like anguish endured by the “patient” undergoing this experience. Thus, while one learns that the procedure is extremely efficient, safe, and relatively painless, graphic descriptions of long needles, syringes, and injections into the young girl’s vulnerable body scream forth the opposite message. Granted that tonsillectomy, appendectomy, or even hysterectomy do not involve parallel issues of terminating a fetus, one would not present an argument for or against these procedures on the basis of the patient’s fears about the prepping or the operation. And let us be very clear about the fact that this article presents an argument—albeit veiled—and that Dr. Denes is a potential opinion-maker writing in a prestigious opinion-making magazine. For we deal here with a politicized issue where informed citizens are asked to take a pro or con position in order to promote legislation which either permits or prohibits abortion.

Therefore, since the hospital Dr. Denes visited also handles abortions prior to a gestation period of sixteen weeks, why are such (admittedly less dramatic) situations never once mentioned as comprising an important piece of the total picture?

There is no doubt that every woman who opts for abortion experiences, among a myriad of conflicting emotions, ambivalence, guilt, and a real sense of loss. And in the population Dr. Denes describes, it is precisely the deep, unmet needs to love and to feel loved during each traumatic life span which coalesced to produce the pregnancy. But by recognizing the existence and validity of these emotional states, it nowhere follows that legalized abortion is “wrong.” . . .

Most illuminating for making Dr. Denes’s case is the portrayal of her encounter with the contents of the paper buckets—“the type in which one buys fried chicken from take-home stores”—again, a subtle allusion to the inhumanity of the entire process, and, on a deeper psychological level, a hint of potential cannibalistic impulses involved. The semi-humorous, pathos-laden analogy to the fetal pig gives way to Dr. Denes’s final, unabashed pitch, describing what she sees as “a small naked person . . . tragic victim . . . drowning . . . purple with bruises . . . died for his mother’s sake.” How much more clearly can she call pro-abortionists murderers?

Dr. Denes had obviously found her “measure of clarity” long before; though her struggles have not been completely resolved . . .—as no one’s can who sincerely grapples with this problem—would it not be better to declare more openly where she stands?

Helga Weiss Tanenbaum
Jackson Heights, New York

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To the Editor:

The article by Magda Denes illustrates graphically the extent to which our culture has forsaken Judeo-Christian ethics for expediency, paganism, and relativism. . . .

James C. Carper
Kansas State University
Manhattan, Kansas

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To the Editor:

Magda Denes’s article underlines how painful it is to formulate one’s views on the issue of abortion, It might be useful, therefore, to consider whether the liberal perspective offers us any guidelines in deciding this difficult question.

If evidence leads reasonable people to regard a would-be victim as perhaps a human being, then the liberal benefit of the doubt goes to the possibility that the victim is human. . . . Since abortion evidence does lead people to regard the unborn as perhaps human, liberal benefit of the doubt should go to the humanity of the unborn.

Similarly, if a free adult’s deeds lead a would-be victim into a vital dependency, then liberal policy is guided by the principle of protecting the dependent. . . . In non-rape pregnancy, a free adult’s deed . . . leads the unborn into a vital dependency. Therefore, liberal policy should be to protect the dependent unborn. . . .

George Steven Swan
Columbus, Ohio

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Magda Denes writes:

I was very saddened by Helga Weiss Tanenbaum’s letter. That even an obviously articulate, committed, and intelligent woman should misunderstand the issue so much is, I think, an ominous sign of our times.

Some of the points she raises I can answer quite directly. My opinions are not “slanted,” “veiled,” and “hidden.” I do think abortion is murder—of a very special and necessary sort. What else would one call the deliberate stilling of a life? And no physician involved with the procedure ever kids himself about that. Whether by means of suction or surgery, saline solution or hysterotomy, abortion involves the undoing of a potential human who if not interfered with could flourish at least until the moment of birth. And yes, witnessing the interruption of life again and again—the numbers mounting into the thousands—does bring with it a “sense of revulsion.” More than that. It brings with it a sense of horror and feelings of grief. Because all of us human beings very much need the belief that the world will be preserved beyond our life span, that it will be safeguarded and handed over to a next generation. The staff of the abortion hospital, whom I observed and interviewed, understands this and in different voices echoes the sentiment over and over.

As to my “subtle allusion to the inhumanity of the entire process”—Miss Tanenbaum again misinterprets me. I think of abortion as a very painful, very paradoxical, exclusively human dilemma embedded in our tragic condition of limited freedoms and total responsibilities. Also I know of no other species which voluntarily aborts.

What is ominous in Miss Tanenbaum’s critique is her confusion between favoring abortion and favoring the freedom to choose to abort.

My own position is that abortion should be legal, and that women should be free to abort whenever they wish. But I also think that putting abortion on a legal-political plane is a way of avoiding its wrenching human implications.

Abortion is a private decision of dreadful daring whereby a woman’s personal destiny is forged. But so long as the “pro-abortionist” woman must do battle against the government, or the church, or men, she can feel like a revolutionary heroine and not ever face her conflicts as internal. The same applies in reverse to the “right-to-life” women. If the state forbids, the church prohibits, and men frown, the unwanted child with whom she is saddled is not her responsibility or her choice. It is her martyrdom.

It is this aspect of the problem I was trying to shed light on, not the issue of legalization.

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[Additional correspondence on Magda Denes’s article will appear next month.—Ed.]