The Few, the Proud, the Surrogates

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.

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