On ‘“I’m Sorry We Couldn’t Do More”’: “Michael Hastings’s memoir about Iraq and the tragic death of his fiancée-to-be was emotionally brilliant and honest. I have friends in Iraq, and can only imagine how I’d feel if they died there, much less if it was the love of my life.” Azriel Satani, Olympia, Wash.
Women Having Babies for Others" Couples, straight and otherwise, can pay $20,000-plus to a military wife to carry and give birth to their child (“The Curious Lives of Surrogates,” April 7). One reason these women agree to become surrogates is that their deployed husbands make less than that in a year. The surrogate’s health care is funded by the comprehensive coverage provided to military wives, but her formerly deployed husband is not eligible for a college education funded by the government. So for a year’s salary the wealthy can rent a woman’s body with government assistance in the form of health care provided to the surrogate, but those risking their lives for their country don’t deserve a government-funded education, the benefits of which could last a lifetime. Debra Rakar West Mifflin, Pa.
How can anyone justify using the military’s medical budget to fund surrogate babies? Isn’t this unlawful? The child is never intended to become a military dependent. I don’t understand how my tax dollars can be used to fund the “employment” of someone’s womb. A military wife who chooses to do this must pay for the medical bills. Their husbands were never told that the military would pay for their wives’ employment expenses. M. Newbegin Sanford, Fla.
I am an obstetrician who has been delivering babies for 31 years. I am neutral on the ethics and insurance issues with respect to surrogate motherhood, but I think regulation is needed. Of the seven surrogate mothers in your article, two had single babies, four had twins and one had triplets. My experience has been that these surrogates are not fully informed of the increased risks associated with multiple births: diabetes, hypertension, pre-eclampsia, prematurity, C-sections and hemorrhage. And even if they were, the costs of their care falls not to them or the biological parents, but to society at large via insurance. The babies in these multiple gestations are almost always born prematurely, sometimes so early that long-term handicaps result. In much of Europe physicians aren’t allowed to transfer more than one embryo in any IVF patient. This should also be the legislated policy in the U.S. to protect the babies and the surrogates. Joseph A. Walsh, M.D. Farmington, Conn.
I have been involved in the field of reproductive medicine for 18 years, including serving as a surrogate mother of twins. The experience was life altering. Why a woman chooses to become a surrogate mother is a very personal decision, whether altruistic, financially driven or a combination of both. The majority of health-insurance providers do not cover surrogate pregnancies; Tricare is one of the few. Most couples purchase an insurance plan specifically for the surrogates’ pregnancy costing them approximately $25,000. If Tricare changes its policy, many people may be unable to have a family through surrogacy due to the cost of insurance. Amy Kaplan, Founder West Coast Surrogacy Aliso Viejo, Calif.
Your cold, transactional cover line womb for rent does a great disservice to the noble humanity of surrogacy, and belies your balanced reporting. A surrogate baby is not a commodity, but the blessed result of a commitment that overcame years of torturous anguish. I know. My two sons were born of women of unwavering strength and tenacity who endured injections, bed rest, many failed cycles and miscarriages. But they didn’t quit, having vowed that we, strangers, would know the joy of parenthood. We came to love their spouses and children. Years later, we regularly exchange notes and photos and probably always will. These women were my salvation, and will always be my friends. Diane eintraub Pohl Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.
McCain on Radical Islam In “The Evolution of the McCain Doctrine” (April 7), you write that “after 9/11, [John] McCain declared radical Islam to be the ’transcendent challenge’ of our time, and argued to take on Iraq even before George W. Bush did.” Say what? Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a solidly secular nation that had no use for radical Islam or its practitioners. Saddam may have been a brutal dictator, but he suppressed groups like Al Qaeda, which he perceived as a threat to his hold on power, and stood in opposition to the fundamentalist regime in Iran. By eliminating him, America granted the fundamentalists a boon that they could not have hoped to achieve on their own, hardly a productive response to our “transcendent challenge.” Something doesn’t add up here. Harvey Wachtel Kew Gardens, N.Y.
Billionaire Spreads His Wealth I felt inspired reading the first few paragraphs of “You Can’t Take It With You” (April 7), and interested to learn about Peter G. Peterson’s (cofounder of Blackstone Group) rise from an immigrant family to billionaire. I read on, anxious to learn how “much of [his] wealth” will be used to set up a new foundation which would help the endangered American Dream, but was flabbergasted to realize that Peterson believes the first challenge is the “78 million baby boomers” and “the costs of Social Security and Medicare”! He suggests that someone “develop an AAYP, an American Association of Young People” to counter the “power of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP).” I double-checked the article—did Peterson really migrate to America as my family did? Yes, and his father worked seven days a week, as mine did. We all worked hard, and are proud to be Americans within the lower- to middle-income majority. What a billionaire may never understand is that Social Security, Peterson’s “unfunded promise,” will help lower- and middle-income senior citizens not be a burden on their children. Sadly, Peterson doesn’t realize that for most people Social Security is the American Dream. Joann Radesca West Babylon, N.Y.
Selling Daughters to Pay Debts As the father of two teenage girls, I read “The Opium Brides of Afghanistan” (April 7) with disbelief. First, I could not imagine sacrificing one of them to a life with a middle-aged opium dealer to settle a debt, as some fathers in Afghanistan are forced to do. Second, I was struck by this subtle irony: “Islam forbids charging interest on a loan, but moneylenders in poppy country elude the ban by packaging the deal as a crop-futures transaction.” Charging interest for a loan is forbidden, but selling a daughter is acceptable? Michael J. Davis Palmer, Mass.
Ferraro on Obama’s Candidacy Ellis Cose says that there has been “an unending stream of race-baiting silliness emanating from people with strong opinions about [Barack Obama’s] candidacy” (“It Was Always Headed Here,” March 31). Every time anyone says anything that the Obama campaign think hurts him politically, they play the race card. Cose makes my point when he says that I am “famous largely because she was once selected to run for vice president.” If my name were Gerard and not Geraldine I would never have been the nominee in 1984. Does Cose believe that if Obama were a white man with limited legislative experience he could have raised the money he did and survived a primary against John Edwards? In a June 5, 2003, Chicago Tribune article after Obama was elected to the Senate, he said the same thing beginning with the phrase, “if I were white.” There is nothing racist in my comment about Obama. Yet his campaign irresponsibly seized on it in an attempt to hit Hillary. Geraldine A. Ferraro New York, N.Y.
