I am writing in response to the editorial “Not a Prayer: Women’s Rights Get Short Shrift in Hobby Lobby Case” (July 1).

The Post-Gazette makes it seem as though women in general have been told they can be denied contraceptives and have their “rights” taken away. The editorial fails to mention that the owners of Hobby Lobby do provide contraceptives. Out of 20 the government mandated, Hobby Lobby objected to four: Plan B and Ella, the so-called morning-after pill and the week-after pill, and two types of IUDs. Hobby Lobby has concerns that these kill a pregnancy after conception.

Life has to begin somewhere, and for many religious people, they draw that line at conception. Anything that destroys the pregnancy after conception is morally wrong and is the equivalent of murder. Many people, mainly on the left, draw their lines in other spots, some at 6 weeks, some at 20, and there are even articles out there that discuss the moral difference (and the lack of any difference) between killing a 1-day-old child and having an abortion in general.

Abortion is a failure of our society to provide for the mothers and fathers (if there is one in the picture) the ability to support their families. Telling a woman to get an abortion is telling a woman that your baby is better off dead since you will fail and we (society) won’t help you. It is a sad truth, but that is what we have come to in America.

If society is judged by how it treats the old and the young, right now the United States isn’t looking good. Maybe we should start to focus on helping mothers and the children instead of killing them.

CHRIS CRATSLEY
Overbrook

First Published: July 3, 2014, 4:00 a.m.