At the National Arboretum are two recently hatched bald eagles, formerly known as DC2 and DC3. The eaglets have been named Freedom and Liberty, as announced in a press conference Tuesday. The names were chosen among 3,600 suggested pairs, according to the Washington Post.
The bald eagle is our national bird, and Americans were excited to participate in naming cute new eaglets. There’s nothing wrong with that. What is troubling, though, is that Freedom and Liberty had better protection while still in their eggs than preborn babies in the womb do.
The Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act , originally passed in 1940, protects eagles by:
…prohibiting the take, possession, sale, purchase, barter, offer to sell, purchase or barter, transport, export or import, of any bald or golden eagle, alive or dead, including any part, nest, or egg, unless allowed by permit.
Penalties were increased by 1972 amendments to:
a maximum fine of $5,000 or one year imprisonment with $10,000 or not more than two years in prison for a second conviction. Felony convictions carry a maximum fine of $250,000 or two years of imprisonment. The fine doubles for an organization. Rewards are provided for information leading to arrest and conviction for violation of the Act.
Ironically, the protections for eagles increased around the same time protections for preborn children decreased. Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, which made abortion legal in all 50 states throughout all nine months of pregnancy were decided in 1973.
While bald eagles are no longer an endangered species, the same cannot be said for many preborn babies in New York City. The abortion rate for 2013 in New York City was 37 percent, twice the national average. In the Bronx, it was 45 percent. More black babies were aborted than born alive that year in New York City.
When panda cub Bei Bei made his debut at the National Zoo around the same time as the March for Life, Americans were elated. And of course, ABC, CBS, and NBC devoted nine and a half minutes to covering Bei Bei – but only ABC mentioned the March for Life, for all of 22 seconds, according to NewsBusters.
Over the summer of 2015, the Center for Medical Progress released their undercover video projects showing that top employees from Planned Parenthood were engaging in the illegal sale of body parts from aborted babies. Around the same time, Cecil the Lion was killed in Africa by a dentist. And, as expected, major news networks covered more on the lion’s death in one day than they did on the abortion videos in two weeks, as NewsBusters also pointed out.
Compassion and care towards animals is a wonderful thing. But we cannot care for animals while ignoring the plight of preborn human children – something that happens all too often.
