Local culture war

Sam Killay
Claremont
To the editor,

I’d like to answer Dennis Boyer’s response (“Like Hobby Lobby”; Sept. 11) to my editorial against Hobby Lobby (“Dislike Hobby Lobby”; Sept. 7). Mr. Boyer muddles the issue considerably. I’d like to offer a few corrections.

First, I will concede a fair point: I agree that it is an interesting change to see corporations weighing in on social issues. Another recent example is Nike’s ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick. We are used to corporations being amoral money-making machines, so it truly is a change of pace seeing companies having convictions. Unfortunately, in the case of Hobby Lobby, I happen to hate their particular convictions. But it’s true, I am happier knowing where they stand. For the same reason, I avoid Home Depot whenever possible after Bernie Marcus, one of their co-founders, opined on Fox News that Democrats have “stupid brains.” Your competition thanks you for my money, Mr. Marcus. Welcome to Claremont, Harbor Freight!

I digress. Beyond that point, Mr. Boyer and I agree on nothing. It’s pretty rich, isn’t it, a man telling women what they can and can’t do with their own bodies? My my, but that sniffs suspiciously of being the same type of traditionalist, misogynistic, patriarchal attitude that makes the owners of Hobby Lobby believe they can dictate major life decisions to their (still generally underpaid) retail employees.

So I have to assert again, my extreme dislike of Hobby Lobby has nothing to do with anyone’s thoughts on the issue of abortion because that’s a separate matter. The trouble here is that if my employer tried to climb into bed with me and weigh in on my major life decisions in that way, we’d have a serious problem.

My disagreement is about personal rights. As to that, Mr. Boyer might not like it, but Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land, and women have the right to make use of it, just as with any other medical procedure — which, therefore, Hobby Lobby should be covering in its insurance plans. Anything less stinks of discrimination.

As for the issue of abortion itself, this probably isn’t the proper forum for that debate, but a thought. Mr. Boyer has hopelessly confused the question of whether “a clump of cells” is human and whether it is a person. The difference is crucial. I’ll recommend he read a book called “Practical Ethics” by a man named Peter Singer. Obviously that “clump of cells” is human: that’s just a matter of DNA. What else would it be? It’s mere common sense: a dog foetus won’t grow up to be a cow. But being human by DNA doesn’t make that clump of cells a person, any more than cutting off my hand would grant my severed hand personhood. That too would be human by DNA — what else would it be? Humanity and personhood aren’t the same thing.

In the examples Mr. Boyer gives showing why theft and assault are wrong, it’s obvious that another person has been wronged. In the case of abortion, it is NOT evident that another person is being wronged. In much the same way, we sometimes make difficult end-of-life decisions for people who are incurably ill or comatose: we don’t consider this murder because, although obviously those patients are still human (what else would they be?), they no longer possess the real personhood they once had.

“Science has spoken,” Mr. Boyer cries. Not so. Personhood isn’t a matter for science to decide, just as it isn’t a matter for science to decide whether a woman ought to raise a child or whether a family should end the life of a terribly sick family member. These are deeply personal matters, matters for our philosophy — or in Mr. Boyer’s case, his religion — to decide. Yes, Mr. Boyer: morality is a personal matter. In fact, it’s the most personal matter of all. What could be more personal than the freedom of one’s own conscience and the freedom to live one’s own life, where no other people are injured, as one sees fit?

But maybe I could have saved myself a lot of verbiage here. The simplest answer I could give to Mr. Boyer is that if he doesn’t like abortion, then probably he shouldn’t have one.

 

Sam Killay

Claremont