I wonder how many of these yahoos call themselves “pro-choice”?
Kasia April 10th, 2009
So the Bidens adopted a German Shepherd puppy from a breeder, and animal rights activists have been going (excuse the term) ape.
Ya know what? All things being equal, I’d rather they had adopted a shelter dog too. Lots of animals out there who need good homes…plus not a lot of no-kill shelters…it adds up to a sad situation.
But ya know what else?
It’s not my business.
Nor is it PETA’s. I’m not really even sure why the Veep adopting a pet is considered newsworthy; but the only people who were party to the transaction were Joe Biden, Jill Biden, and the breeder. Period. No one else gets a say. (Not even President Obama, unless the Bidens decided to consult him.)
And yes, I said “transaction”. Puppies, kittens, cats, dogs – they’re wonderful creatures. They’re cute, they’re lovable, and the long-suffering Canuck will gladly tell you what a sucker I am for them. But they’re not people. They are chattel. And although I am happy to report that it is illegal to torture or harm pets – even ones you own – you do still own them, at least in a legal sense.
How someone can make death threats against the Bidens and the puppy breeder for this is beyond me.
But I’ll bet you a cookie that the folks who did, see no problem with abortion.
C’mon, guys – isn’t this another “choice”?
When I was looking for kittens, I searched high and low to find a shelter that would let me take them before they were cats.
No go– minimum of ten pounds (!!!!) before adoption, and they wanted to make sure they were well-socialized with other cats. Besides making it so they can’t bond with human pack leaders, that makes it so they miss other cats.
So I asked my dad, and he caught a pair of kitten-brothers for me up at our barn. People always drop their unwanted cats there, and very few are fixed, so there’s a rather large supply of oddly well-bred kittens. (Dad feeds them to keep them near the barn– no marmets for a quarter mile around the barn, and zero mice. Even the mouse problem at the house is lessened.)
PETA is full of kitty litter– they killed a giant % of the pets in their care.
Gotta agree on pets not being fluffy little people.
Animals are different in kind from folks– they’re not, oh, .625% of a human life. That said, pets are a life and a responsibility, so it’s not like they’re 5.23 times the intrinsic worth of a backpack.
The sheer betrayal of the trust offered if you kill 90% of the animals in your care– when everyone else manages a much higher rate of adoption– is freekish.
http://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2009/04/peta-admits-it-kill s-adoptable-cats-and.html
FF – picking up strays or capturing *baby* ferals (have to stress that, as any degree of domestication is unlikely with a feral adult) is a wonderful thing for those who can do it. My sister literally picked up both of her cats off the street, as strays; one was an older kitten hanging around a local restaurant, and the other one was unweaned and hiding in a bush.
I applaud her for finding and adopting them. And I give you and your dad full kudos too, though obviously I wish we could get some of the older ones hanging around your dad’s barn spayed and neutered.
Shelter pets are the simplest and most cost-effective way for most people to go. I got one of my cats from the Humane Society of Michigan and the other cat from another local shelter. I’ve not the money or the inclination to go to a breeder. BUT, and this appears to be the difference between me and the folks who have been threatening the Bidens and the breeder, I see a decided inconsistency in threatening to take a human being’s life for the “crime” of adopting from a breeder (and thus, presumably, consigning a shelter pup to death by way of opportunity cost).
You’re right that animals, though not human, “are a life and a responsibility.” In other words, they still deserve to be treated with dignity, and we should seek to protect and defend their lives. I’m completely in agreement. Though how that manifests itself is going to depend – I want cows to be treated well, but I’m still going to have a steak from time to time. (On the other hand, you couldn’t pay me a million dollars to eat cat or dog meat.)
What has been befuddling me, however, is how people who adamantly defend even late-term or partial-birth abortions, are horrified at the suggestion of shelter animals being euthanized. I don’t understand how one can be so indifferent to human life – especially at its most innocent and defenseless – and yet be so solicitous for the welfare of cats and dogs.
(I can understand being solicitous for the welfare of cats and dogs. Just not independently of any concern for human life.)
I’ve run into folks who are horrified by selective abortions in animals– some horse breeders do it, so the foal they get is stronger– and pro-abortion in humans.
I don’t get it, either.
(heheh… helping my folks with yearly branding on the ranch, so as you might guess, I have beef more than every once in a while. ;^p)
Mmmm…beef…send me a pack of sirloins?
Wish I could!
I remember hearing about abortions for horses and being horrified (I was and am pro-life in humans, too). Then I thought about it.
The horses don’t have free will or self-control; they’re just following their instincts. That and horses are hugely expensive animals to maintain; it’s not like a litter of puppies where you can put an ad in the paper or ask everyone you know to adopt one. So while I understand it, I think there’s also an argument for taller fences.
That said… I’ll bet the folks at PETA don’t read up on the effects of prescription hormones in our downriver water supplies, either.
Also, full size horses are so greatly altered from what is normal, it’s rare for both foals to live and even experts in horse twins lose both nearly 10% of the time– although apparently some of the sports, or really miniature breeds, do alright. Oh, also some mules from normal donkeys on draft-horse mares.
My first pro-life lesson, that wasn’t even explicitly taught, was when some third-trimester cows got hungry and ate pine needles.
This causes pine needle abortions– absolutely perfect little calves, the size of lambs, dead. If it weren’t for the lack of hair, you wouldn’t be able to tell them from full term calves. Hard for the “it isn’t a baby” stuff to stick when you already know that fat cow tummies hold these tiny calves.
Every horse abortion I’ve ever heard of was professional breeders– too expensive for anyone else. (I know the one accidental foal I know of– from a colt that turned out to have hit puberty after all– was a perfectly good horse, but we don’t care about papers.)
In the mother alone, you can have tens of thousands of dollars– plus the stud fees. The damage carrying both can do to the mare, *if* both don’t die, or the risk of the lesser foal being partly absorbed into the greater (and there’s almost always a greater and lesser foal) is astronomical.
Some breeders have their entire livelihood balancing on a single birth– my mom once stopped us on a family trip, because a mare just “looked wrong.” She went out and got the foal’s mouth free and sent my sister to knock on the door.
Turns out that mare was having her first foal, and if anything had happened to it, the lady in the house would’ve been bankrupt.
…
This is an awful long comment when I only meant to come and direct Kasia at a post over at Secondhand Smoke….
http://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2009/04/animal-rights-extre mists-post-pictures.html
PETA mafia calling for death to the “snitches.”
Talk about deranged.