Dear Editor:

I am writing to correct a misconception I have seen innumerable times in the Herald and elsewhere. Israelis have never practiced "retaliation." They have taken action to wipe out known terrorists or mobs who pose a clear danger to Israeli citizens. When terrorists wage war against Israel, Israel must fight back or perish. It is not "retaliation," it is prevention, and among Israelis, it is always known as such. If Israel weren't a tiny country, hamstrung by the hostility of much of the world and by American naïveté, it would take its preventative measures a step further and cut out terrorism at its root: in Arab dictatorships. The one time it did something like this was in 1981, when Israeli jets destroyed Iraqi nuclear reactors. If not for this action, Iraq might have nuclear weapons now. Iraq and its evil allies deserve far worse than than this. The U.S. can deliver it.

In the Herald I read about the uselessness of U.S. "retaliation" [YH 9/14/01]. I agree. The U.S. must not "retaliate." It must start to fight its side of a war that has already begun. — Isaac Meyers, BR '01

Jerusalem, Israel

Abortion pill controversy an issue of politics, not safety

Dear Editor:

Emily Grant misstated the case in her opinion piece, "University should not offer abortion pill" [YH 9/7/01]: it was not medical controversy but political controversy that kept RU-486 out of American women's reach for so long.

The abortion pill first went on the market in France in 1988—13 years ago. Since then, millions of women in 20 countries have used the pill to induce safe early-term abortions. Nonetheless, the first Bush administration banned its importation. Under the Clinton administration, House Republicans tried to amend a spending bill to bar the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from even testing any abortion pill. Finally, in 2000, after seven years of FDA testing, RU-486 gained FDA approval.

It is true that the side effects of medical abortion are more severe than those of surgical abortion. Mifeprex essentially induces a miscarriage; the woman who takes it, therefore, may experience vaginal bleeding, cramping, and nausea. Nonetheless, according to the Archives of Family Medicine, more than 90 percent of the thousands of women who participated in the first U.S. trials of Mifeprex said they would recommend it to someone else seeking to terminate a pregnancy. Moreover, of the women who had undergone a previous surgical abortion (about half the women in the study), more than 75 percent said they found medical abortion preferable. A woman might prefer the relative privacy afforded by Mifeprex, which can be administered outside a clinic. Another woman might prefer medical abortion because it is non-invasive. Still another might prefer medical abortion because, unlike surgical abortion, it allows her to end her pregnancy in its very early stages—most doctors will not perform surgical abortions before the sixth week of pregnancy, whereas medical abortions can be performed almost anytime within the first seven weeks.

The choice between med-ical and surgical abortion can be difficult, complex, and often painful, much like the choice between ending a pregnancy and carrying it to term. It is crucial that these choices remain in the hands of the women who face them. Neither Grant, nor the Yale administration, nor I, have the right to tell any woman what she ought to do when she faces an unplanned pregnancy. Yale is to be commended for ensuring that women at this university have the right to choose from the full range of safe and legal options available to them.

—Alice Wolfram, MC '03, is a co-coordinator of RALY, the Reproductive Rights Action League at Yale.

Corrections

Last week's front-page photograph [YH, 9/14/01] was not credited. It should have been credited to Steve Ybarra.

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