Institut
fur Allg. u. Exper. Pathologie
der Universitat 4/17 / 70

. Innsbruck, am... fo et Sie
Vorstand: Univ.-Prov. Or. Or. Th. Wense Peter-Mayr-StraBe 2 a, Tal. 22701-2186

Professor Dr. Joshua Lederberg
Stanford University

Dear Sir,

as a reader of your highly estimated Columns in
Current Contents / Life Sciences, I feel challenged to make
some remarks on your article " #ssence of Life or Death ? "

They refer only to the last paragraph of this
article, as it is reprinted in CC, April 15, 1970 issue
15 ok. 1. There quite surprisingly, you lend strong support
to the advocates’of large - scale, easy accessible legal
abortion. May I therefore take the liberty to bring foreward
some of my doubts on your argumentation, and add that i
would be very interested in your comments.

Apart from the general statement, that every free-
dom of the person ends at the edge of other persons rights
( i.e. that there is no freedom or rizght of the mother
without the rights of the unborn child,) I would like to say:

{8% the statement that laws restricting abortion
amount to compulsary pregnancy to my mind is misleading,
because it starts out in the middie of the problem and not
at its beginning: A woman who does not want to become
pregnant, normally does not have to! It seems to me that
we should speak about personal freedom and responsability
at the beginning of human actions and not only if undesired
consequences follow. Pregnancy can hardly be regarded as a
primary and isolated event which only concerns the respective

woman and nobody und nothing else - at least not froma
biological and psychological point of view.

nd ; os ;

2 The statement that the decision for abortion

is one for private morals sounds fine, but everyone working
in this field knows that the overwhelming majority of
abortion seeking patients are not coming because of such 4
moral decision or are not even able to make this decision.
Pretending to help a woman according to her decision, one
is in fact dealing with people who because of lack of
education and information, lack of responsabiiity, lack of
morals or most times just lack of clear thinking because of
panic, pressure and despair do not make a real and free

" decision ", but just a " short circuit " - between
pregnancy and abortion. Many of them would not do so, if
instead of an " abortionist " who does not care at all about

their real problems, they would find " help ", It is
shutting ones eyes to the facts, if just taking the baby
away is considered to be the due help ! On the long run
it is always more expensive to cure the symptoms and not
the causes. Should not the aim of medical help be to
prevent abortion ( and their reasons and consequences! )
rather than to perform it ?

2rd . .

a, but not least: to me it is 4 bresk - neck
leap to plead for abortion right away after quowvting
Hitler's exterminatoria ! More philosophically speaking:
what is the difference between extermination of life which
arbitrarily has been deciared to be " sub - human", " not
worthy of living "( Hitler ) and the extermination of life,
which exactly as arbitrarily has been declared to be " only
potential " (e.g. an embryo or fetus ) as the abortionists
do ? In both cases the arbitrary, though pseudo - scienti-
fically or pseudo-ethically masked decision is made, that
the respective unwanted life in reality is no " actual " or
" valuable " lite and therefore may be exterminated. If one
agrees that man decides on what is " actual life " and which
human life under certain conditions may be " interrupted "
then nobody can condemn Hitler either ! And therefore over
here we strongly feel, that the foremost duty of the medical
profession is to stand for the integrity and inviolability
of life in all its aspects as well as for its health.
Would'nt that be a better service to every - not only the
violence~shaken american — community and more worthy of
compassionate support, than easing and promoting abortion ?

Let me summarize: What I strongly deny in current
trends, is,to pervert the ideas of freedom, human right,
responsability and moral in order to get pseudo-arguments
to make abortion on a large scale an acceptable solution
for problems, which cannot be solved in such an easy and
symtomatical way. Of course there has always been and
probably will be abortion, but it is a different thing to
regard it as something which should be replaced by better
solutions or to establish it as a solution. (By the way, the
ae have tried and abandoned this type of solution long
ago).

IZ life has to become more meaningful, then we have
to prepare'people for a happy life of fullfillment and
satisfaction also in the field of human sexuality and inter-
sexual relations. This can only be acchieved by teaching
"love " instead of " sex " only,and by integrating the whole

problem into the inseparable unity of human life, instead
of isolating it ! Therefore I think it a fundamentally wrong

way to battle the problem of unwanted pregnancy by perform-
ing more (and more) legalized abortions.

Since I am really involved, I hope you forgive me
my outspoken comments, which only plead for more human,
more comprehensive and more adequate solutions to real

complex problems.

Very sincerely ,yours

Li ff
i7, od of, Z
aed f gece:

kurt Kk. Loewit, MD
NIH — Fellow