Read more about People for the Ethical Treatment of People in the National Post Full Comment online, here:
Seal pups. Cute, cuddly, fluffy things with black eyes staring forlornly at us from a patch of ice that’s probably melting due to global warming, hoping to avoid the hunter’s club. We can’t help feel compassion. Over at ProWomanProLife, we want to know why such compassion does not extent to people.
In the hope of extending compassion all the way to our own species, today we launched a new T-shirt campaign to draw attention to the plight of women and children, “People for the Ethical Treatment of People.” Because we believe people are, well, people too.
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Great campaign ladies!
I understand and appreciate the comparisons to the treatment of seals, however the equation misses the point that the seal hunt should not be any more unacceptable than a beef cattle slaughterhouse. Here on the East Coast many communities depend on the seal hunt and every year we are barraged by American, British and French celebrities, American Humane Society people, wackos and TV cameras.
There is a slight impression from the article that both abortion and the seal hunt should be considered immoral. Perhaps this was just me? People hunt and eat seals, just as they do other animals. I am hoping the real intention was that fetuses should have much greater status than a seal – not equal consideration.
Elizabeth: Actually, I’d be happy if fetuses were at least as protected as seal pups… If abortion clinics were as barraged by media as you guys out East are every single year, you think we’d have 100,000 abortions a year in this country?
I’d say the intent of the “seal pup” example was to say this: the blood on the ice is all people see and they feel compassion for the seals. Blood from abortion, apparently, leaves no effect at all.
Any comparison is going to be flawed/limited. The driving idea for me that it’s a crying shame when mainstream culture holds baby seals or “insert cute animal of your choice here” in higher regard than babies.
So that’s the focus of the article–it’s back to the basics. Babies are more important than seal pups.
This past winter, I wrote an article for Mercatornet ( http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/seal_pup_silliness/ ) that pointed out the strange priorities of modern western society based on the newspapers on a given day, including more protection for seal pups than for unborn children. The combox comments were interesting— some took the headline (which I did not compose) given to the article and ran with it, chastising me for neglecting animal rights, when I did no such thing. I was surprised– I really thought it was clear to those sympathetic to the pro-life cause that human rights trump animal rights, but a few people didn’t like my reference to the seal hunt. It is interesting that feelings regarding the seal hunt appear to be as strong in some quarters as those regarding the abortion debate. They are animals, after all, and although it is important that we exercise our stewardship of them responsibly and humanely (for the sake of our own human dignity), there is not as much immediately at stake here. Thoughts?
I’ve been a vegetarian for most of my life, but I only embraced the pro-life perspective about seven years ago (not coincidentally when I was pregnant with my first child). Prior to that I wouldn’t have eaten a fertilized chicken egg (I would have been eating a baby chicken!) but I had no problem supporting a woman’s right to abort her own fertilized eggs at will. I wish someone had pointed out to me then the hypocrisy that I wasn’t able to see for myself, but no one ever did. Quite simply, it’s politically correct to support animal rights; it’s not politically correct to oppose abortion. Logic falls so far by the wayside that it’s absence isn’t even noticed.
I’m still a vegetarian and I believe that animals should be treated humanely, but I also believe that compassion for animals should be an extension of our compassion for people, born and not-yet-born. To put animals before people, or to support animal rights while opposing those who would end abortion, is a failure of both logic and morality.