Huxleian World

To the Editors:

In all fairness to Gilbert and Lesley Brown, let's stop treating their new baby daughter as a medical oddity. Like every child ever conceived and born, the so-called test-tube baby [July 31] spent about nine months in utero and entered the world in a manner acceptable to society and medicine. Louise Brown was conceived in a Petri dish, not a test tube, and she developed and was born from within her natural mother's womb. To herald this girl as a test-tube baby only perpetuates the myth that we are entering a Huxleian world of callous indifference to childbirth and motherhood. It's a glorious day for women afflicted with the type of sterility Mrs. Brown has overcome.

Stuart Kunkler

Columbus

While Dr. Steptoe may be applauded in scientific circles for his work in helping Mrs. Brown achieve pregnancy and normal delivery, his performing multiple abortions--that is, destroying pregnancy and life--takes much of the glamour from his achievement.

James T. Murphy, M.D.

La Crosse, Wis.

Your writer detected irony in the fact that Drs. Steptoe and Edwards financed the research that culminated in the birth of the first test-tube baby by doing legal abortions. In fact, the two activities spring from the same basic belief: that parenthood should be a matter of choice.

Margaret Wood

Milan, N.H.

By turning the birth of their child into a media event, the Browns have most probably guaranteed that their child, whom they so desperately wanted, will never have a chance at a normal childhood or even adulthood. They have degraded and institutionalized the child, and for that act, not for their act of medically assisted birth, the Browns should be viewed as symbols of the degeneration of Western morals.

Grant Parsons

Ann Arbor, Mich.

Cambodian Experiment

Hats off to David Aikman [July 31], who has the clarity of mind, the moral sense and the courage to expose the blind cruelty of Marxism when that atheistic, deterministic system runs its course unrestrained by Christian principles.

Allen Bowman

Marion, Ind.

Something is so grotesquely out of focus that I am in a state of awed disbelief. It is in the birth of one child and the slaughter of millions that an imbalance seems to make a mockery of humaneness.

Such a development of a child is of course newsworthy; but when we are told about the destruction of 1 million lives we turn the page and sigh, "They are at it again." No outrage, no days of prayer in churches, no outcries from protesters --nothing.

One child was awaited with great anticipation. Heaven's gates alone heard the stampeding of the million.

Ellen J. Marinucci

Houston

The statement that the situation in Cambodia is "the deadly logical consequence of an atheistic" system of values suggests that theistic value systems have never allowed or encouraged such atrocities. One need only cite the brutalities committed in the name of God, from the Inquisition to the "Kill a Commie for Christ" mentality, to demonstrate that intolerance, bigotry and cruelties of all kinds have been and continue to be more common to "religiously oriented" societies than to the few genuinely secular ones.

James Anding

Waterloo, Ont.

Aikman has seen the enemy and called them names. But are they the right names? If absolute evil exists, then absolute purity must surely exist also. No, Pol Pot and his unfortunate friends are not relativists; they are absolutists. They know. They are certain of the irrefutable laws of history, as are most Marxists and other religious types. By contrast, the language of relativity is tolerance. Isn't the problem of the 20th century how to deal with absolutists in a world of relativity?

Robert A. McDaniel

West Lafayette, Ind.

The problem is not that an "atheistic, man-centered system of values" creates social perversion. The problem begins when collectivism rather than individualism becomes the goal. Man has the ability to create a value system with out moral relativism. Our Declaration of Independence was a good beginning.

Paul A. Gregory

Killeen, Texas

Anti-Auto Bias

Charles MacArthur of Dover-Fox-croft, Me., may not know it [July 17], but the internal combustion engine he seeks to banish made its debut in Maine. My grandfather had the first Ford in the state shipped up from Boston to Bangor by boat (1905). He drove the 38 miles home to Dover-Foxcroft, without benefit of driving lessons, in a day.

I'm sure Grandfather St. Onge, now asleep beside the Piscataquis waters in Gray's Cemetery, would forgive MacArthur for his anti-auto bias and cheer him on with his plans for Brown's Mill.

Constance St. Onge Ways

New York City

The Archbishop's Stand

If all reporters did as well as Bernard Diederich [July 24], we North Americans would be more aware of what is happening here in Central America. Yes, we're proud of Archbishop Romero, and we're glad that TIME has told his story.

Bernard A. Survil

Tegucigalpa, Honduras

Alive and Well

Bettina Sulzer's grandmother may have thought she was the last survivor of the Titanic at the time of her death in 1972, but she assuredly was not [July 24]. Jack Ryerson, who survived the sinking of the Titanic, is alive, well and still playing golf.

Barbara Mulhern

Cooperstown, N. Y.

Eight other survivors have checked in with TIME so far.

Ukrainian Dissident

It was gratifying to see space devoted to one of the lesser-known Helsinki monitors, Lev Lukyanenko [July 31]. This Ukrainian has been a human rights figure for almost 20 years, and I have long felt he should be recognized for having the courage to take positions that in effect were ratified by his government but not respected by it. Last month Senator Jack Schmitt and I circulated a letter urging his release on humanitarian grounds. Thirty-three Senators signed the letter. Humane treatment of people like Lev Lukyanenko would be the best sign that the U.S.S.R. is really committed to detente.

Senator Bob Dole

Washington, D.C.

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