Last week’s Opinion page began with two let-ters. As with many letters to the editor, they made some curious points and provide a source for com-mentary.

Hanavan’s letter (“Highly offensive”) ad-monished The Times for printing certain letters, letters which he states are “alarming, ...highly inflammatory, ... truly embarrassing... trash...make little sense” and make The Times “...look utterly unprofes-sional.”

Besides these strong opinions, the letter also specifically questioned the knowledge and values of a frequent contributor, naming her and impugn-ing her intelligence, while calling on The Times to “establish some parame-ters” against such letters.

Ouch!

“Fact check?” by vanDyck focused on other letters from frequent con-tributors, naming the ob-jectionable writers and the “ugliness'” of many letters. After alleging that some of David Adler’s pri-or statements are “not true,” vanDyck expounds the virtues (in her opin-ion) of Planned Parenthood, stating that it “does more than any other organization in the United States to prevent abortions.” She concludes with: “Try using Fact Check before you submit your letter -- I did.”

This raises two ques-tions. Firstly, aren’t let-ters to the editor in-tended to simply represent the writer’s opinion, which would be perhaps more persuasive if supported by discernible, verifiable facts, but don’t really re-quire anything more than being the writer’s opin-ion? Secondly, about this Fact Check: how exactly does one objectively verify the claim that “Planned Parenthood does more than any other organiza-tion...to prevent abor-tions.”

Would National Right to Life and other pro-life groups agree with this claim or perhaps have some evidence to the con-trary? Just wondering.

In any case, I applaud The Times and Editor Mike Scharnow for facili-tating freedom of speech and providing a conven-ient, reliable, local forum for people to express their views on the mundane as well as the controversial topics of the day.

Many thanks!