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Friday, August 25, 2006

When is a life unworthy of common decency and compassion?

Disposable music... and now disposable pets?

Disposable pets?

I realize that due to the increased media scrutiny and our ever increasing population that the number of reported incidents of animal abuse seems to be at an all time high. Examples:

A central Florida woman allows 21 horses to live in filth while starving them.

Lancaster, PA – a sick dog is thrown away like so much trash – in a dumpster no less.

In Long Beach, CA – an employee at K-Mart beats a Chihuahua that has wandered into her store. For 20-30 minutes she pursues the dog, beating it with a 20 lb. weight-lifting bar, fracturing one of its front legs. She then places the dog – still alive and breathing (raggedly) into a plastic bag. The dog dies and she is arrested…

In Syracuse a man is arrested after putting his girlfriend’s cat in a pillow case and throwing it from a moving vehicle.

Why here in Minnesota in just the past two months:

Five meerkats from the MN Zoo are put to sleep after one of them bit a 9 year-old girl. The parents refused to allow their daughter to be treated for rabies, so all 5 meerkats had to be put down in order to perform the necessary autopsies to make sure that none had rabies (they didn’t). It seems the girl had to work hard to get her hand inside the meerkats' enclosure. She crawled over a driftwood barrier, climbed up more than 3 feet of artificial rock and reached over 4 feet of Plexiglas to get her arm into the exhibit. Because meerkats stand just a foot tall on their hind legs, she had to dangle her hand very low for an animal to bite her finger. (Hmmm - Where were the parents when their precious child was sticking her hands where they didn't belong? Should they be held liable – for the cost of replacing the meerkats and charged with child neglect? Hmmm.)

A woman finds 14 Chihuahua puppies in a trash bag in a ditch. Ten of the dogs are dead, but four survive. She adopts three of them and her sister adopts the fourth one. (Did anyone bother to dust the trash bag for prints?)

When a man discovers that his prized pit bull has given birth to mix-breed puppies – he immediately kills of all the puppies by breaking their necks. The police are summoned and he is arrested.

Country singer Darryl Worley kills a tame, caged black bear named Cubby with a bow and arrow, after purchasing the animal from its owner for $4,650 for this expressed purpose. He shoots the animal in its cage, and then drags its carcass about in order to concoct a video depicting him killing the animal in the wild. They go so far as to tag the animal and register it with the MN DNR as a wild kill. Worley and the former owner are arrested.

So what’s wrong with these people? Who raised them with such disregard for the lives of animals? What type of punishment should they receive? Who's REALLY at fault? The animals? The humans? God?

I realize there are a number of people who think that animal activists are a bunch of nut cases. When questioned about the killing of the Chihuahua in his store, the manager of the K-Mart store told the person inquiring that there are real issues in the world they should worry about - like people living in poverty and children starving to death. Animal-rights advocates are frequently maligned, thrown into the liberal cesspool along with the tree huggers and PETA members.

It makes it easier to hurl things at them then - like names - like tree hugger and liberal.

So when is a life unworthy of common decency and compassion?
Strangely enough, many of those that are quick to point out the silliness of most animal rights activists are the same people who oppose a woman’s right to abortion. They will quickly point out that the in the bible God clearly gives man dominion over animals – but then the bible, a book written a long, long time ago by – who else – men (self-serving ones from the looks of it), claims a lot of really not-very god-loving things. I frequently ponder just what such people mean when they claim to be Pro-Life. Does that mean all life? The contradictions apparent in such opposing stances are as deep rooted as they are illogical.

On the other hand – the same can’t be said of those who are pro-animal –rights, and pro-choice. Can it?

In order to be fair, yes, we have to take a look at this.

Is such a stance logical? Well, I bet that ninety-nine percent of all animal rights activists believe in the spading and neutering of domestic animals. So obviously they support proactive contraception for animals. I bet they also would love to see shame-free sex education taught in public schools – along with information about contraception for humans. The same cannot be said for those of the Pro-Life persuasion. Perhaps there are some – but not many. I bet the vast majority of Pro-Lifer’s believe that information of a sexual nature should be taught, not by educated instructors, but by the student’s parents – parents like those of that 9 year-old girl who managed, against strenuous odds, to get her hand bitten by those meerkats at the MN Zoo.


Yep – I’m sure parents like that are up to the challenge, all right.

Is it any wonder, in light of such well-thought out stances, that we have children who become adults who then throw a sick dog in a dumpster?

It would be wonderful if we lived in a world where parents were gifted enough to meet all the needs of their children as they grow up. But you see, dysfunction is like a snowball rolling down a mountain – generation after generation – it just grows in size and velocity until one day little Johnny is speeding down the interstate ready to fling his girlfriend’s cat in a pillowcase out the car window. Or the day little Suzy, who is 14 years-old, interrupts dinner to announce that she is pregnant and going to bear the fruit of her 38 year-old crack addicted, meth-producing boyfriend.

Yes, the trials and tribulations and responsibilities of being a parent are just undeniably overwhelming at times. Or so little Suzy will soon discover first hand.

Suddenly contraception doesn’t look like such a bad thing… hmmm?

Just food for thought…

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