In the wake of Monday’s Hobby Lobby ruling, a few Facebook friends yesterday linked approvingly to this progressive Christian response in the Huffington Post. One of them commented on the article, saying, “If you believe in something, it’s important to be consistent!”
The gist of the HuffPost article is the following: Because of their Christian convictions, the owners of Hobby Lobby refused to subsidize four of twenty “contraceptive” drugs mandated by the Affordable Care Act because they believe that these four induce abortions. At the same time, however, Hobby Lobby purchases many of its products from China. China’s one-child-per-family policy has compelled or forced Chinese women to have hundreds of millions of abortions over the past several decades.
If Hobby Lobby were so concerned about abortion, why do they buy products from China?
Therefore, the author says, Hobby Lobby is being hypocritical, and a few of my Facebook friends agree: “If you believe in something, it’s important to be consistent.”
But let’s think about the logic of this argument: Are there any Christians among us who don’t think that China’s policy, which enforces or compels abortions, is wrong? Since U.S. companies outsource most of their manufacturing to China, however, all of us knowingly purchase products from China often (to put it mildly). The laptop on which I’m typing this, for example, was assembled there.
Am I wrong, therefore, to believe that China’s policy is immoral, since I’m being exactly as inconsistent, on an individual level, as Hobby Lobby is on a corporate level?
Please note: I’m not passing judgment on whether purchasing goods from China has any bearing on its abortion policies; I’m just following the logic.
Regardless, as is always the case in debates like this, Hobby Lobby’s alleged hypocrisy can’t prove that its convictions are wrong.