While reading for my doctorate in English literature at Brown, I got a healthy dose of satire and parody. Please tell me I was right that the letter by Alice Lemos ’81 PhD in the March/April issue that bid “good riddance” to Lincoln Chafee ’75 and that used the phrases “abortion-loving liberals” and “the wonderful John Bolton” had to be a put-on (“Chafee’s Way,” Mail Room). Otherwise I might have to conclude that Brown had doctoral programs in flat-earth science in 1981.

Neil D. Isaacs ’59 PhD

Silver Spring, Md.

I feel morally obligated to respond to Lawrence Ross ’52, who attempts to defend former Rhode Island Senator Lincoln Chafee from the charge that he is cavalier towards the sanctity of life (“Valuing Life,” Mail Room, May/June).

In fact, the best adjectives to describe Lincoln Chafee’s attitude toward the preborn are “cruel” and “heartless.” Preborn babies, unlike the soldiers Ross cites, are incapable of defending themselves from the most dangerous people in their tiny lives: their mothers and fathers, as well as the abortion industry that will make money from their deaths and from the sale of their body parts to research laboratories.

I hope Ross is capable of understanding that, although I lament the death of any U.S. soldier, our army, the best in the world, is a volunteer army fighting what I believe is a just war. By referring to babies as “unformed and non-sentient fetuses,” Ross dehumanizes them. To quote Dr. Seuss, “A person is a person no matter how small.”

Alice Lemos ’81 PhD

Woodside, N.Y.

Lawrence Ross suggests that former Senator Lincoln Chafee’s vote against authorizing the attack on Iraq negates any suggestion that his championing of abortion on demand demonstrates a cavalier attitude towards the sanctity of life. A true champion of the sanctity of life would have opposed both the attack on Iraq and the attack on the preborn, as did Pope John Paul II.

James G. Bruen Jr. ’70

Centreville, Va.