REALity   Volume XXXV Issue No. 7 July 2016

According to the Globe and Mail (April 30, 2016), almost every major fast food chain in North America – McDonalds, Starbucks, Burger King and Tim Hortons – are fussy about the eggs they use. They insist that their eggs come from hens that are being housed in specially furnished cages or maintained cage-free.  This provides the hens room for a perch, etc. or to roam free, rather than being placed in the former “battery” type housing with limited space, which is used for 90% of the 40 million eggs laid in Canada each year.

What’s behind the fight for this feathered freedom? It is public opinion and pressure via the power of social media and the internet.  Activists and animal rights groups have, by this route, gained unprecedented influence in shaping the public’s perceptions about the food industry.

Another example of public pressure to ease the lives of animals is that meat processing plants now provide curved corrals for cattle to walk in as they’re led to slaughter. This reduces the cattle’s ability to see what’s coming and also reduces their anxiety.

This humane treatment of animals campaign has been put in place to reduce anxiety and stress in the lives of creatures who are destined to become hamburgers and chicken nuggets.

This effective campaign has been based on videos by activists who have recorded undercover images depicting horrendous abuse: animals being punched, kicked or worse – and then these images have been broadcast.

Does this sound somewhat familiar? How about the images exposed on videos of Planned Parenthood, cruelly cutting up and then selling and trafficking the body parts of unborn babies aborted on its premises?  Yet, it was the maker of the videos, David Deleiden, who was charged by a Texas Grand Jury with a felony charge of allegedly tampering with government records, and a misdemeanour relating to buying human tissue (he pretended to be a purchaser of body parts).  These charges were politically motivated, owing to a Planned Parenthood member who works in the District Attorney’s Office, and also Planned Parenthood’s donation of $81,000 to the election campaign of the same District Attorney.  No charges have been laid against Planned Parenthood.

Additionally, the abortion industry, which makes billions of dollars annually via the killing of unborn babies and the exploitation of their mothers, has been heavily lobbying Democrats in the US Congress to stop its investigation of their industry and Planned Parenthood. There are 98 Democrats in Congress who are demanding that the Select Panel on Infant Lives in Congress stop its investigations of Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry.  They also want the panel to be dismantled, despite mounting evidence of the horrors taking place in Planned Parenthood facilities and throughout the industry.  The abortion industry is buying its influence in Congress: evidence shows that top Democrats on the investigating panel have numerous ties to abortion advocates.  This includes generous election funding made to them by the industry.

The pro-life movement in the US has been teaching the facts about unborn babies and abortion for years. These facts have spread, with the result that more women are rejecting abortion.  Abortion clinics are closing at a rapid rate because of a lack of business. The number of abortions in the US fell to a historic low in 2011.  The 2011 teenage abortion rate was the lowest since 1973 when the US Supreme Court ruled in support of abortion on demand in Roe vs. Wade.  This decline in teen abortions reflects a larger trend across the US.  Even in the pro-abortion bellwether state of New York, in seven years (2008-2014), the abortion rate dropped 21%.

The pro-life movement in Canada has heroically been doing the same thing here – exposing the facts about abortion. As usual, although Canadians are slower to take notice and react than Americans. Our turn will come.  Until then, if Canadians are worked up over the care of animals destined for the food industry, we will eventually get worked up over the fear, stress and pain caused to unborn children, who are poked, poisoned and torn to pieces by a suction machine during an abortion.

The Globe and Mail in an editorial (May 14, 2016) congratulated Canadians for their growing concern about animals. It stated:

We are recognizing the familiar, human-like traits of creatures who could formerly have been dismissed and mistreated as alien beings.

Then it stated:

Anyone who develops a deep relationship with a pet is well-placed to extend that empathy to other creatures, including other humans.

Let’s hope so! Canadians care about animals.  Hopefully, this concern will extend to human babies very soon.