Saving elephants and squirrels, but not humans

Ann Farmer
Saving elephants and squirrels, but not humans
Reproduced with Permission
Features

Britain's Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, announced last week that the sale of ivory in Britain will be banned in a bid to stop the "abhorrent" slaughter of elephants. The ban, seen as a victory for a campaign supported by the Duke of Cambridge, will "cover ivory items of all ages and anyone who breaches it could face an unlimited fine or up to five years in jail," The Telegraph reports.

Mr Gove says this measure will be "one of the world's toughest," although it will allow the sale of certain items that contain ivory but have been deemed not to contribute to the poaching of elephants." Wildlife campaigners, while welcoming the step, warned that "coordinated global action' is necessary 'to dismantle the ivory trade and put a stop to poaching."

With around 20,000 elephants a year being slaughtered for their ivory, the ban is to be welcomed and is likely to be popular - apparently, the Government received 70,000 responses to its consultation on the issue, almost nine in 10 of them in favour of the ban.

At the same time, in this country, around 200,000 humans are killed in the womb every year, a trade even more profitable than the ivory trade. If only 63,000 people took the trouble to lobby the government regarding the latter injustice, perhaps we would not have lost nearly 9 million unborn fellow-citizens since 1967.

The World Wide Fund for Nature has praised Mr Gove's initiative. "This makes the UK a global leader in tackling this bloody trade and it's something WWF has been fighting hard for," the group said. However, the WWF, founded by proponents of human population control, with its brilliant marketing campaign, has successfully sold us the idea that human beings are a danger to "the Planet". Curbing their numbers justifies the "bloody trade" of abortion.

The global warming obsession is simply the latest incarnation of this long-running campaign, with abortion presented as the simplest and most effective way of reducing our carbon footprint. When people begin to wake up and wonder where the bandwagon is heading -- logically, to the end of human progress -- no doubt another scare campaign will emerge to justify killing unborn babies.

While we find the slaughter of elephants for profit abhorrent, we hear increasing demands for the unfettered legal right to slaughter our own unborn children - incidentally, at enormous cost to the taxpayer;

Furthermore, the National Trust (dedicated to the conservation of the nation's heritage) has submitted plans for a 25-foot high crossing over the A4080, a road in Anglesey, Wales, after reports of "tens" of red squirrels being run over by cars every year. Meanwhile, a campaign to ban pro-life vigils outside abortion clinics is gathering force, aimed at preventing offers of help being made to needy pregnant women; this is despite the fact that mothers are now coming forward with their children as proof of the help they have received to choose life rather than abortion.

Perhaps, however, the "buffer zone" campaign is actually being driven by the same phenomenon.

We may care about these children just as much as we care about elephants and squirrels, but apparently not enough to "save the humans". And yet if we do not do something soon to halt this abhorrent and needless slaughter, our economy will go into a decline that we will not be able to reverse. And however much we love them, elephants and squirrels will not pay our pensions.

If graphic depictions of dead, mutilated elephants are necessary to show the gruesome reality of the ivory trade, depictions of abortion overturn the lie that it is the lesser of two evils -- that the greater evil is illegal abortion, leading to the deaths of women.

In truth, the alternative to legal abortion is not more maternal deaths (which are fewest where abortion is illegal) but having children, which is a good thing. Abortion is the great evil, but as with the ivory trade, the even greater evil is ignoring it.


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