Dear Editor
Dear Editor Women's Lib I suggest that Walter Goodman try the Sensitivity program he refers to in his column ("Fair Game," NL, October 19). Since when have ulcers discouraged men from reaching...
...However, should a woman decide that this is the best birth control method for her, her judgment should be respected in this matter...
...And why should they discourage women of a like mind...
...But pregnancy is not always avoidable...
...For the past 100 years, it seems, every journalistic tourist who has passed by the Taj Mahal has been unable to resist the temptation to catalogue anew India's many undeniable problems--and to conclude, again, that its progress has been mythical...
...What may seem like a great risk to one person may seem like a minor one to another, and what may seem like a small risk to one person may seem like a great one to another--and that goes for a woman deciding the matter for another woman as well as it does for a man deciding it for a woman...
...The question is discrimination against those who would like the chance--a discrimination that may well begin early in a child's life, and includes Goodman's attitude of "protecting" women from the rewards that make a man or a woman wish to undergo the strain of the executive life...
...Jerry M. Tinker...
...Some women can't take the pill...
...Yet without it India would not even be afloat today, much less boasting a relatively high growth rate, a democratic form of government and strides toward agricultural self-sufficiency...
...Sure, prevention of pregnancy is better...
...One may argue about the advantages and disadvantages of being a high-ranking executive, that isn't the point...
...No one is supposed to be on the pill all her childbearing years...
...And, finally, the weighing of risks, protection, advantages and disadvantages is a personal matter that can only be decided by each woman for herself...
...Since when have ulcers discouraged men from reaching for the executive ranks...
...Worst of all, it is misleading...
...India's progress may still not be adequate since it is being eaten away by population growth...
...A good abortion program is not a substitute for making other birth control methods known or available...
...Alternatives to the pill are not as effective...
...Even though it may seem masochistic to Goodman or to me, it may be the least masochistic choice for her...
...I think Goodman still has a very protective attitude toward women that is not even good for children, much less for adult women...
...Secondly, how is it masochistic to wish to go through a few days discomfort to abort an unwanted child who would be a burden all the days it would take the mother to raise the child...
...Washington, D.C...
...The dangers of the pill are not clear...
...New York City Joan GlueckmaN India After reading Jonathan Kwitny's "The Myth of Indian Progress" (NL, September 21), one can only sigh that we have all read so much of the same thing about the woes of India, and for so long, that it has become neither interesting nor informative...
...Forgetting the silly claims of a usis propaganda brochure (which Kwitny appears to take more seriously than even usis), if the author had been in India 10 years ago, I believe he would have been struck upon his return by the tangible progress--from more classrooms to new roads, dams and communications to better rural health programs...
...I don't think women need him to tell them what is good or bad for them...
...They are adults and are perfectly capable of deciding that for themselves...
...but to say that it has made no progress is foolish...
...Certainly much of India's economy and society is in a mess...
...The important point is that once a woman is pregnant, she should have the right to decide whether or not she will bear the child without having to undergo the unnecessary risk of trying to abort herself by her own devices or by those of someone not qualified...
Vol. 53 • November 1970 • No. 23
