WALSH: We’re Still Funding The Abortion Industry, But Let’s Be Mad About Trophy Hunting Instead

Outrage erupted across the country last week when the Trump Administration announced plans to end a ban on big-game trophy hunting in some parts of Africa. The decision would have allowed you to kill elephants and bring back pieces of them to mount on your wall, or turn into shoes, or do whatever people do with elephant pieces. But the backlash was so loud and severe, particularly from conservatives, that Trump quickly backed off and said he was putting the whole thing on “hold.” In another tweet, Trump called big-game trophy hunting a “horror show,” hinting that this temporary hold would soon become permanent.

Look how quickly We The People, especially We The Conservative People, can get results from this government when we are unified in opposition to something. I use the term “we” loosely. I personally don’t care much about trophy hunting either way. I think it probably helps conservation efforts more than hinders it, but maybe it is a little weird to keep an elephant’s severed head as a trophy. Whatever. Everyone has their own taste in home decor, I suppose.

Still, the point stands. When enough of us speak up, things happen. We get a response. It’s just a shame that we’re more eager to speak up about dead elephants than dead babies.

It seems relevant to point out that this government — the one currently run by a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican President — has been funding the abortion industry for the last year, and there are no signs that it will discontinue the practice in the next. Planned Parenthood receives 500 million dollars annually to help finance an operation that slaughters over 300 thousand human beings in a 12 month span. They have not seen even a small pay cut with our “pro-life” party in charge.

Incidentally, Planned Parenthood knows a thing or two about cutting. They cut their victims into parts, much like hunters do with elephants, and sell the premium bits for profit. When this hellish (and highly illegal) practice was revealed in a series of undercover videos back in 2015, Republicans vowed to defund them once and for all. It shouldn’t have taken the videos to finally provoke a firm Republican opposition to Planned Parenthood (they were okay with baby murder so long as the bodies were thrown out rather than auctioned off?) but better late than never. The only problem was that the Republicans could not actually pass a defunding measure with Obama in the White House. They said we’d have to get them the White House in 2016 if we wanted Planned Parenthood actually defunded. In the mean time, they wrote dozens of symbolic defunding bills, and we, the dumb and gullible voters, cheered on this worthless and disingenuous stunt.

Then came 2016. We gave the them the White House, as they requested. We gave them everything. The whole government. We only took one thing from them: excuses. Fortunately for the sniveling, gutless hacks in the Republican Party, they haven’t needed excuses. They simply went ahead and actively funded the corporation that kills and dismembers millions of humans, and so far they have received almost no pushback from the conservative electorate. Nobody cares. We cared about the damned elephants. But not this. We cared about NFL players kneeling. But not this. We cared about Kathy Griffin insulting the President. But not this.

There are many things that we, as conservatives, simply will not tolerate. Elephant hunting is one, apparently. Infringement on our gun rights is another (and rightfully so). But a mountain of dead babies? Well, we aren’t crazy about it, but whaddaya gonna do. Shrug. Sigh. Let’s not overreact, folks. Planned Parenthood only kills off the population of Tucson every 24 months, after all. It’s not that big a deal. It’s not like a coffee machine company decided to pull advertisements from Sean Hannity. Now there was a reason to mobilize.

The Republicans will not retain control of both houses in 2018. They’re praying they don’t, and their prayers will be answered. They’ve already wasted one year and now have only a year left to save the taxpayers from the unthinkable moral burden of being forced to fund the baby butchers. When that final opportunity passes, the Republicans will have completed their worst betrayal (which is saying something) and finally revealed themselves as the greatest cowards in the history of American politics (which is really saying something). It won’t matter. We’ll keep voting for them. They will not be punished. They will suffer no consequences. Most of us won’t even so much as tweet angrily about it, like we did about the elephants.

I know what you’re saying to yourself. I know what you’ll write below in the comments. “It’s possible to care about both the elephants and the babies!” Yes, sure it is, but we don’t. There’s a reason why elephants and eagles have more legal protections in America than human babies. There’s a reason why people donate their money to save abused animals while their local pregnancy center can barely keep its doors open. There’s a reason why Americans tolerate the mass killing of one million unborn humans every year but would not tolerate the death of a gorilla at the Cincinnati zoo. There’s a reason why Americans call pets their “children” while they kill their real children.

So, yes, you can care about both. But if you’re anything like the average American, even the average conservative American, you don’t.

God forgive us all.