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Rep. Heidi Sampson sits on the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee. However, she must have skipped the lesson in school where we learned that freedom of choice does not mean freedom from consequences of that choice.

Protesters mill around the Orange County Administration Building in Santa Ana, Calif., in May, while county supervisors took public comments about the use of digital records to document a person’s COVID-19 vaccination status. In Maine this week, Rep. Heidi Sampson compared Gov. Mills’ vaccination mandate for health care workers to the medical experiments performed by Nazis. Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times via TNS

During a speech at the state Capitol on Tuesday, she compared Gov. Mills to the evil Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. Rep. Sampson’s comments are appalling, frightening and hurtful.

My great-aunt was a victim of Dr. Mengele. She was fortunate enough to escape a concentration camp and make it to America, where she suffered from the consequences of Dr. Mengele’s experiments for the rest of her life. But she never complained.

Nobody is forcing them to get a vaccine. They have many alternatives.

Work in health care and don’t want to get vaccinated? You have the freedom to go find another job. Upset because a restaurant requires vaccination? Go eat somewhere else or open your own restaurant that caters to other anti-vaxxers. Don’t want your kids to wear a mask? There are a plethora of private and home-schooling options in Maine. You can even pack up and move to a state with an anti-vaccination governor. That’s the beauty of America! You have the freedom to choose, unlike my family members who were killed in concentration camps.

Rep. Sampson needs to stop her hateful and dangerous rhetoric. Act like an adult and live with the consequences of your ill-informed choices.

Steven Silver
South Portland

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