No Opt-Outs Needed at UHS

To the editors:

In "UHS's Silence on Abortion" (Opinion, Oct. 30), Daniel H. Choi waxes righteously indignant about the fact that, unless they go out of their way to opt out, students are helping to fund abortions. I share his annoyance at this situation. People should not be permitted to opt out of helping to pay for abortions, or any other legal procedure. Should Jehovah's Witnesses who enjoy the benefits of belonging to mainstream health care organizations, but who object to the practice of blood transfusions, be given the opportunity to determine what their share would be of the annual cost of that procedure, and elect not to pay it? Should People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals members be able to determine their share of funding animal research-based products and practices and opt out of that? Do members of these groups have the audacity to expect to be coddled, as Choi seems to expect? I think not.

If some people have objections to practices which are part and parcel of the legal practice of medicine, it is their own responsibility (and not, as Choi suggests, their health care providers) to discover misfits between their providers' practices and their personal beliefs, and decide what to do about them. If such people would prefer not to pool their funds with the apparently less-moral Creatures who make up the rest of society, they should form health service organizations whose practices better comport with their beliefs. ELIZABETH STEIN '95   Albuquerque, Oct. 30, 1998