LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: BIERK AT THE DEEP END AGAIN

To the Editor:

In regard to my proposal for protecting teenage girls from pregnancy through a temporary immunization procedure like Norplant, Steve Mosley says that "Bierk's idea differs not only in degree, but in kind, from all other proposals on the table for public discussion of how to best deal with this matter." Yes, it does, and that is precisely my point.

"All" the "other proposals on the table" have been on the table for many years now, and although a variety of solutions have (and are being) tried to teach, persuade and threaten teenagers not to become pregnant, all of these solutions have failed, the result being that the "proposals" Mosley refers to are not really about stopping teenage pregnancies, but rather about what can be done -- after the fact -- with the problem of teenage mothers and the children born to them!

The truth is, then, that not only are the lives of young black, white, Hispanic, et. al females daily being ruined because of teenage pregnancies, but many of the children born to them are also at risk, the quality of their lives and their futures very much in doubt.

Under those circumstances, I would argue that a simple procedure which would protect a teenage female from becoming pregnant is far better -- and more humane and moral -- than the almost criminal harm done to masses of teenage mothers and their children without that protection.

JOHN C. BIERK

Cape Girardeau