[Bakersfield, California] Walter Palmer, an American dentist, recently killed a beloved lion in the nation of Zimbabwe. Cecil, as he was lovingly called, was a common sight in Hwange National Park. According to reports, Palmer paid fifty thousand dollars to hunt the beast, wounding it, tracking it for 40 hours, killing it and decapitating it to the scorn of millions worldwide. Since that time, the Internet has been abuzz with a major public-shaming campaign. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating the kill to determine the legality (or lack thereof) of the stalk and kill, and Palmer has gone into hiding. The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution designed to curtail poaching on Thursday, and celebrities around the nation are calling for nothing short of capital punishment, with the extremist animal rights group, PETA, calling for Palmer to be “hanged.”
Stateside, PETA has been strangely silent regarding Planned Parenthood’s illegal trafficking human organs. Whereas some would argue that not using surplus fetal parts is tantamount to an unlawful waste of game, poaching human infants is allowed in the United States so long as their organs are not trafficked for monetary gain. Karen Swallow Prior, research fellow for the Southern Baptist Convention’s ERLC, wrote an article published in the Washington Post, comparing the death of Cecil the Lion to infants aborted by Planned Parenthood. Clearly, there are some similarities and juxtaposed ethical presuppositions as well.
A Christian group located in Bakersfield, California, calling themselves “People for the Ethical Treatment of Infants” (PETI) has now publicized their plans to compare these two tragedies and bring moral clarity to the discussion.
PETI spokesman, Mitch Baker, told the press, “The idea came to us through out missionary clearinghouse division, which facilitates the financial end of our west African operations. We send money to missionaries and provide logistical support for short term missions. Given the uproar over this dead lion, why not capitalize on that? If we can provide the financial support to guarantee more dead lions, we can put pressure on United States government officials to defund Planned Parenthood.”
Essentially, PETI’s plan is to send money from American Christians to economically impoverished youth in Zimbabwe as payment for their taking of one major African game animal per day until enough international pressure is put upon the United States government to defund Planned Parenthood.
PETI African Operations Manager, Curt Lesley, says that it’s a simple concept and will have multiple benefits.
We’ve been trying to get the attention of the world over the indiscriminate killing of unborn babies in the United States and other first-world nations. One lion in Zimbabwe gets mowed down and everyone has a conniption fit. Animals were put here by God for our use, but not to be wasted. These lions, elephants, rhinoceroses and giraffes won’t be eaten or worn, but they’ll serve the purpose of keeping human beings from being poached. We think it’s a fair trade.
PETI plans to provide enough funding to have one major African game animal killed per day. The ventilated corpse will then be hung from a stake, and photographs will be sent to the press via the organization’s Twitter account. Given mass poverty in the region, the organization is confident there will be enough takers from the local community to ensure their plans proceed. When enough international outrage forces the change in American policy regarding the use of public tax dollars in funding human poachers, PETI will discontinue their mission.
When asked what if their plan didn’t cause enough outrage to create the pressure necessary to defund human poachers and organ traffickers, Baker responded, “We have similar plans in Alaska regarding baby seals. We don’t want to play all of our cards at once, so we’re not getting into the details of that one. The Pacific Northwest chapter of PETI is also considering a Spotted Owl bake as well, but we’re playing it by ear.”
[Contributed by JD Hall – it’s satire, people…stop killing babies, or the lions get it]
