Fact masquerade

Setting aside the notion that Hayes Gahagan’s opinion piece “Reproduction and responsibility vital to U.S.” (BDN, Sept. 11) comes uncomfortably close to echoing Adolf Hitler’s fantasy of an Aryan nation, his article is so full of lapses of logic and unsupported statements masquerading as facts that it is a wonder it was published at all.

Where, for example, can one find statistics confirming that “the Islamofascists are reproducing at alarming rates in the East”? I checked both the CIA Factbook and the United Nations Population Division but, not surprising, neither source breaks down the figures in terms of Islamofascists or other ideologies, and the population growth figures they do report for the Middle East are not alarmingly high.

Gahagan makes clear his opposition to a nanny-government, yet he is quite willing to have the government legislate reproductive rights because “[e]ach and every individual life has value that is to be preserved, protected and defended.” But only, it seems, if it is an American life – not Middle Eastern or Islamic.

We should celebrate Mr. Gahagan’s freedom to voice his opinion but we should not tolerate such thinly-veiled xenophobia in today’s society.

Gordon Hamilton

Orono