LETTERS ABOUT LETTERS

In a letter to the editor, an abortion opponent criticizes your cover story of the previous week on the grounds that you neglected salient parts of the abortion story (“Letters to Artvoice,” Artvoice v5n20). Unfortunately the parts the story “neglected” are largely incorrect.

The letter writer, Jim Turner, protests that abortion “is a business about money.” Does he know of any medical care that is totally free?

He writes that abortions attract “the washouts and losers of the medical community.” In fact, abortions are performed as a part of their practice by ob-gyn specialists and family physicians.

“Abortion remains the most unregulated surgical industry in the nation.” In fact, clinics providing abortions in New York state must comply with some 200 pages of regulations covering the physical facility, credentials for all physicians, nurses, social workers, laboratory technicians and other employees, as well as all procedures, emergency provisions and other matters.

Despite the letter writer’s belief, there is no such thing as “abortion on demand for all nine months.” Roe v. Wade carefully delineated three trimesters with increasing state regulations in the course of pregnancy.

The inflammatory words and statements in the letter such as “legal butchery,” “insides ripped out” and “bleeding girl [sent] back to her apartment” are based solely on the fevered imaginations of people opposed to legal, safe abortions. The words better describe the horrendous experiences some woman had before the procedures were made legal.

Let’s face the truth: Women always and everywhere have obtained abortions when they felt they needed them. Only if abortions are legal can they be well regulated, to assure that women will be treated with respect, by trained professionals, in clean surroundings appropriate for surgical procedures.

Adeline Levine

Buffalo

My favorite part of Artvoice is reading the “Letters to Artvoice,” especially the ones from the rabid you-are-with-us-or-the-enemy crowd. I would be laughing myself silly if that kind of black-and-white thinking did not prevail so much in this society.

Take any political or social issue: The grossly misnamed “war” on terror. Is it necessary to prosecute mass murderers, their helpers and masterminds? Of course it is. But will brute force and crusader talk win the struggle? Absolutely not. Winning this struggle requires everything from unconditional aid to military operations, as well as to see the other side not as a demonic enemy. Take a non-issue like abortion: People thinking of abortion as a kind of contraceptive makes me mad, and yes, I do not like what happens to the fetus during abortion. But hell yes, every women should have the right to have a safe, reliable abortion within the first couple months of pregnancy if it is necessary for medical reasons or the result of a rape. It is useless for men to engage in this debate in the first place.

I wish that readers like Mr. Ziolkowski and Mr. Turner (“Letters to Artvoice,” Artvoice v5n20) would read up on issues they are concerned about, inform themselves from credible media sources, get to know the people they despise and then support sensible solutions. Maybe then we can concentrate on more important issues like healthcare, global climate change and our economy.

Tobias Boehm

Buffalo

H IS FOR HALF-BAKED

This letter is a rebuttal to President Bush’s plan to develop a hydrogen economy. The president has not been informed of the inefficiency of producing hydrogen and then using it as a vehicle fuel compared with much better and more logical alternatives.

The president fails to mention what the source of this hydrogen will be. Maybe he doesn’t know. Most hydrogen is extracted today from natural gas through processes such as steam reforming. If natural or liquefied petroleum (LP) gas is the proposed source of hydrogen, why not burn the fuel gas directly in vehicle engines instead? The losses incurred in steam reforming would be avoided. Fuel gas can be stored at far lower pressures than hydrogen. An extensive natural gas and LP distribution network already exists in the United States. Natural gas can itself be liquefied. You can currently pick up a charge of LP at your local convenience store for use in your gas grill. No hydrogen manufacturing and delivery infrastructure is in place now in the United States and to build one would be prohibitively expensive. The use of fuel gas in internal combustion engines is a well developed technology since it is extensively employed currently in engine-driven backup generators. Only a change in carburetion is necessary to enable any current vehicle engine to run on fuel gas rather than gasoline. Natural gas and LP actually emit fewer pollutants when burned than gasoline.

To use electricity and electrolysis to produce hydrogen is a similarly wasteful process. Significantly more than half the electric energy used to produce hydrogen by electrolysis is wasted. It seems to me to be far more energy efficient to use electric energy to charge vehicle batteries and run vehicles in the first place rather than incur the large energy loss penalty that use of electrolysis requires. Hybrid vehicles that run on gasoline or electricity with batteries that can be recharged from a wall outlet will be available shortly .

An even better source of vehicle fuel would be from products derived from coal. In the early the 20th century and late 19th century coal was used to manufacture fuel gas. Coal can be both gasified and liquefied. During World War II, Germany modified vehicles to run on coal gas due to its oil shortage. South Africa, because of the apartheid-related embargos, developed extensive coal conversion facilities. Current technologies can produce this fuel in a clean-burning form.

How about driving hybrid and electric rechargeable vehicles that are also powered by liquid coal as an answer to $5-a-gallon gasoline and to OPEC?

Al Coppola

Buffalo