Test-Tube Babies

To the Editors:

Your article "The New Origins of Life" [SCIENCE, Sept. 10] showed how painful infertility can be and what people will go through to conceive. The doctors who help these couples are not interfering with Mother Nature or God; they are answering prayers.

Nancy W. Heitz Crestwood, N. Y.

If the older generation found it difficult to teach us about the birds and the bees, my generation will find it impossible. How will I explain "XM & YD by AI with Gestation M" to my daughter when she asks me where babies come from?

Nancy Hamma-Clavin Sag Harbor, N. Y.

Perhaps the growing inability of couples to conceive is a message from the powers above that we have more than obeyed the biblical commandment to go forth and multiply. Maybe it is time to take a breather.

Merrie Rich New York City

Making babies through bizarre and unnatural methods would not be necessary if the aborting of these innocents would cease. There would be enough little ones to go around.

Anita L. Bonnanzio Larchmont, N. Y.

I have two youngsters who suffer from disabilities that have a genetic basis. If artificial conception using eugenics gives my children a chance to have babies who will not have to endure the physical and social problems that accompany a genetic disability, I am for it.

Martha Z. Ward Appleton, Wis.

If the women seeking abortions would get together with the women who want to conceive but cannot, we could turn abortion clinics into adoption agencies with a waiting period of only nine months. The world would be a better place.

Patty Hayek Richards New York City

My hope for children fertilized in vitro is that their parents are as diligent in raising their offspring as they are in making babies.

Sarah Ewald Houston

Church and State

The real issue in this election is not the proper role of religion in government but the proper role of government in religion [NATION, Sept. 10]. The notion of separation of church and state put forward by Thomas Jefferson appears in the Constitution only in reference to forbidding government involvement in religion, not vice versa.

Richard S. Andrews Chicago

I am an evangelical Christian who is concerned about the Reagan gospel that equates being a good Christian with espousing the President's political beliefs. Such stuff is the making of inquisitions. This Administration's record with regard to the disadvantaged and its blase attitude toward the nuclear threat are not consistent with New Testament Christianity.

Marjorie Urban Perryton, Texas

We are fortunate to have a President who will speak out on controversial moral issues. Reagan is to be commended for not backing down despite strong opposition. He is my kind of man, and most assuredly my kind of leader.

Carol L. Holmes, Philadelphia

It seems that instead of a second term, we are about to have a Second Coming.

Ulla Bauers Alta Loma, Calif.

President Reagan is wrong to address abortion, school prayer and a nuclear freeze as religious issues. They are social questions affecting everyone and require government intervention.

Rose L. Mahoney Buffalo

When the freeloaders of organized religion start paying taxes on their property and income, I will gladly hear them speak on politics.

John Matz Detroit

The well-funded Christian Right scares me. The image of God as a conservative Republican does not sit well.

Bill Dillon South Bend, Ind.

Where were the critics when religious leaders and their congregations gathered together for civil rights protests in the '60s and when they spoke out against America's war effort in Indochina or called for a nuclear freeze or campaigned for Jesse Jackson? It is not the participation of the churches in social and political issues that sends up howls but, rather, the choice of more conservative policies.

Gary S. Love San Diego

For too long the principle of a "wall of separation between church and state" has been applied as a "wall of separation between your church and my state."

Msgr. Charles F. Aucoin Mobile, Ala.

Shared Breadbasket

Hugh Sidey's warning to "Pay Heed to the Prairie" [NATION, Sept. 10] struck a chord in my Midwestern heart. His admonition should remind us that agriculture is of primary importance to this nation and all other types of commerce and production are secondary. The greatest deterrent to a nuclear holocaust is our sharing with the Soviets the grain that comes from this nation's breadbasket.

J. Brien McGarvey LaRue, Ohio

Afghanistan's Jihad

The article on Afghanistan [WORLD, Sept. 10] corroborates the view that continued resistance by Afghan freedom fighters can only lead to genocide. The U.S.S.R. will not back off until Afghanistan is subdued. Meanwhile, the U.S. goads the Afghans to resist, resulting in the destruction of the land and its people. The way out of this situation is to negotiate a truce. It is sad but true that "it is better to be Red than dead."

Louis Mihalyi

Professor of Geography

California State University

Chico, Calif.

Re-Educating Rejects

Government pressure on Prudential Insurance to train job applicants it once rejected, in order to further affirmative action, is incomprehensible [ECONOMY & BUSINESS, Sept. 3]. President Reagan is wrong if he thinks Government is becoming less involved in our daily lives.

Richard Walbert Tampa

It is too bad Prudential wanted Government contracts so badly that it was willing to accept the task of re-educating job applicants it had turned down. The company should have refused on principle to assume the obligation.

Craig Mertz Califon, N.J.

You conclude that by consenting to the Labor Department's proposal, Prudential has made life a little more equitable for everyone. It certainly did not make things more equitable for its policyholders, who have to fork out $3 million to teach misfits who could not be educated by the school system. Furthermore, it tells minority children, "Do not try. The Government will pay you $3.35 an hour to learn after you get out."

Robert A. Haskell Long Beach, Calif.

Let Sleeping Bones Lie

Hooray for the Australian aborigines who fought to reclaim the bones of their ancestors [SCIENCE, Sept. 10]. It is time scientists were more sensitive to the values and mores of other people.

Rena A. Morris Roseville, Minn.

Scientists have tended to treat skeletons as their personal research domain, showing little concern for the people to whom these bones might be sacred. The only solution is to consult Native Americans before bones are removed from burial sites.

Larry J. Zimmerman

Professor of Anthropology

University of South Dakota

Vermillion, S. Dak.

Past Lives

Your article about the various celebrities who believe they were reincarnated was both interesting and ludicrous [BEHAVIOR, Sept. 10]. The phenomenon of reincarnation has been reasonably explained by mediums as nothing more than earth-bound spirits of people who actually did live at various times in history. These spirits are hoping to influence or simply relate well to the individual or celebrity about whom they hover.

Pam O'Keefe Lakewood, Ohio

It is no more difficult to believe that the energy we call mind exists after corporeal death than to believe electricity continues to exist after the lights go out.

Ruth J. Smock Portland, Ore.

I urge Americans who are unable to believe in reincarnation not to despair. As they get older, they will find they have indeed been through previous lives. On our anniversary my wife said, "I cannot believe we have been married 45 years." I answered, "That's because I am not the same man you married."

Ralph L. Reeder West Lafayette, Ind.