Abandoned Babies and the Abortion Issue

Regarding the front-page article "US Hospitals Are Flooded With Babies Abandoned by Alcohol and Drug Abusers," Sept. 17: This fine article clearly points out some unforeseen consequences of the choices and actions of our society over the past decade or more.

Thanks to our willingness to live beyond our means and to let our children pay for our excesses, our nation is now faced with hard choices based on fiscal restraints. If we spend $34 million a year on boarder babies, that money will not be available to spend where it can do far more good - on prenatal care, Head Start, and positive financial incentives to promote work over welfare.

While I do not favor abortion as a primary means of birth control, there are instances when it is more moral to allow abortion rather than to bring unwanted children into the world - particularly when that child is destined to a short life fraught with medical problems paid for by the expenditures of our limited funds. Kenneth Stapp, Oneida, Ky.

It is sad to read about the flood of abandoned babies in United States hospitals - babies whose mothers don't want them, babies born with drug problems or to a mother on drugs or alcohol.

In this age of "rights," it might be said that these babies have had the right to life - a cause receiving so much attention with pressure on the government to take a final stand on the issue.

If these unwanted fetuses could foresee the future or see the countries where children are dying by the thousands from starvation, would they ask for any army to march for the protection of their right to life? Catherine Bliss, Fox Island, Wash.

Upon reading the article about abandoned babies in United States hospitals, I felt outraged and disgusted. Is our great society going the way of the third world? I just can't understand the lack of responsibility by the mothers of these unwanted babies. Fred A. Rheney, Smyrna, Ga.