LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Hobby Lobby doesn’t follow its beliefs
4/9/2014The owner of the Hobby Lobby chain of stores professes that providing contraceptive health care coverage to his employees is against his religious beliefs (“‘Hobby Lobby’ case creates 2 unexpected allies,” op-ed column, March 27). He hides behind religious tenets when it is financially advantageous to the bottom line, but does not stand up for those beliefs when he buys products for resale.
Many of Hobby Lobby’s products come from a country that consistently advocates birth control. China has dictated to its citizens the number of children allowed in each family. China also employs children in the work force and has a record of industrial espionage.
It is time for Hobby Lobby to walk the walk instead of just talking. If it is serious about its religious beliefs, then it should throw out the money changers — a Biblical reference to greed and indulgence peddlers — and live its beliefs.
DONALD NEWMAN
Temperance
Abortion no help to poor women
Your March 26 editorial “Danger and desperation” asserted that abortion rights should become a significant issue in the next election. At Ohio Right to Life, we agree, and echo the empathy that your editorial attempts to convey for the poor.
Nevertheless, your editorial exudes hypocrisy. In attempting to defend poor women, you also advance their likelihood to have an abortion.
The idea that abortion helps a poor woman is heartless. Rather than helping a woman become a self-sufficient mother who makes moral, nonviolent choices, the abortion industry and its advocates tell her simply to kill her child.
Poor women already have a disproportionate number of abortions. Women who live below the federal poverty line make up 14.5 percent of American women — but 40 percent of abortions are performed on them, according to Planned Parenthood’s research arm, the Guttmacher Institute.
America is no longer conducting a war on poverty, but is instead waging a discriminatory war on the poor, with abortion the primary weapon.
Your editorial attempted to highlight what you call the hypocrisy of small-government, pro-life Republicans. But the whole premise of the small-government philosophy is that government’s only legitimate purpose is to defend our basic freedoms — life, liberty, and happiness — against violence.
The real ideological fringe consists of pro-choice extremists who reject standards for abortion clinics, ignoring the fact that Center for Choice in Toledo shut down after health inspectors determined it violated health and safety standards with rusty and moldy equipment.
If Ohio backtracks and exposes our children to the brutality of the pro-choice, pro-discrimination philosophy, then we will face the danger and desperation of people who ignore science and reject morality in a world that uses force to accomplish its goals.
KATIE McCANN
Public Relations Manager, Ohio Right to Life
Columbus
What’s up with gasoline prices?
Why do gasoline prices go up and down like a yo-yo, but mostly up? It seems that even when oil sells for less than $100 a barrel, the per-gallon cost of gas rises.
KATHLEEN HUNTER
Breezeway Drive