Abortion Aid

To the Editors of The Crimson:

We would like to respond to the recent controversy over the financing of abortions for Radcliffe students. As persons who value human life and human dignity, we firmly support a woman's right to choose whether or not she is to bear a child.

Before abortion was legalized in the U.S., there were 10,000 deaths (a conservative estimate) from botched (illegal) abortions each year. This statistic does not include the thousands of women who were left mutilated and permanently sterile.

We wish that every woman who became pregnant became so by choice. But unfortunately this is not the case and is not likely to become so until our methods of birth control are dramatically improved in safety, efficacy, and ease of use.

We affirm the right to life. Every woman who dies horribly and unnecessarily on the floor of a tenement has been denied her right to life. Every woman who loses a job, who must leave school, who is ostracized by family and friends for bearing a child she did not choose to have is being denied her right to life with dignity. (This includes the victim of rape as well as the naive sixteen year old and the mother already struggling to support five children.)

Those who oppose a woman's right to choose often do so on the basis of the rights of the unborn. We believe in the rights of the unborn to be well-born, the right to be wanted and loved by parent(s) who can afford to support a child. We support a woman's right to choose between bearing a child and not bearing it. But the choice must be real, not just theoretical. Women without means have never had a real choice. They have delivered without adequate medical care just as they have in desperation sought abortions from back-alley butchers.

Women must be financially able either to carry a pregnancy to term with adequate medical care or to have abortions if they so choose. For this reason we support R U S's policy of making loans to women for emergency medical costs--for abortion or for delivery.

It is enough to support in the abstract women's right to choose as most of us in this community do. We must put our money where our mouths are. Since Harvard has thus far refused to assume the responsibility for guaranteeing a real choice to women, the Radcliffe community is morally obligated to do so. Until such time as the Radcliffe-Harvard student health plan covers the cost of pregnancy and of abortion we must fill the vacuum.

For that small minority who truly finds the right to choose immoral, it is your right not to fund either maternity or abortion and your are entitled to the return of the $0.25-0.50 of your R U S dues that would go into the Emergency Loan Fund. Deborah B. Leiderman '76   Ellen Kelman '76