Cecile & Cecil: A Contrast in Values

As Walter Palmer, accidental killer of Cecil the Lion, returned to his dental practice this past Tuesday following 6 weeks of hiding from public outrage, I could not help but contrast the public responses to Cecile and Cecil.

The name similarity between Cecile and Cecil at such a time as this is painfully ironic. Cecile Richards heads up the Planned Parenthood killing fields of millions of unborn babies in this country. The other had a tail and a beautiful mane but no soul. The lion’s share (excuse the pun) of the media is outraged at the death of Cecil the lion. That same share of the media has ignored revelations of Richard’s reign of terror for the unborn.

Around the time of Cecil’s death, the Center for Medical Progress released undercover videos proving that aborted babies are earmarked for sale and sometimes cut up even while their little hearts are still beating. That was not reported by most media outlets. One dead lion, and the world goes nuts but 55,772,015 aborted babies and the discovery that many are cut up and sold, and those same people don’t care.

Hunted by Animal Rights Activists

Palmer was outed by the British media for killing Cecil and now his life will never be the same. As the big-game hunter returned to work guarded by police, he walked resolutely to his office through a media firestorm. He certainly did not get his money’s worth on the guided hunting trip near Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park. He never even set foot on reserve land but claimed his guides gave him the go-ahead to kill Cecil with a bow and arrow, not realizing the lion had wandered off the reserve.

Many are demanding that Obama extradite Palmer to Zimbabwe. Never mind that there were 800 lions legally killed there over the past decade by foreigners. Never mind that there isn’t really a Zimbabwean law under which to charge him, or that the wife of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe said she doesn’t hold Palmer responsible. The world wants revenge. Or at least some of it does.

The people of Zimbabwe don’t seem to care. Goodwell Nzou, wrote a New York Times editorial about the cultural contradiction of growing up in a Zimbabwe village compared to being a college student in the U.S. As a boy surrounded by wildlife conservations, lions were objects of terror. At 9 years old, a prowling lion imprisoned his village in fear, making walking to school a life-threatening activity.

When the lion was finally killed, Nzou said: “We danced and sang about the vanquishing of the fearsome beast and our escape from serious harm.” He acknowledged that in his country, animals are revered and respected, but not romanticized. Killing Cecil was an ordinary situation, he said, but it was turned into a “hashtag train” and “what seems to my Zimbabwean eyes an absurdist circus.”

Recently, a 14-year-old boy in a village near Nzou’s was sleeping in his family’s fields to protect crops when a lion mauled him to death. Did the world mourn that boy’s death? Nope.

Palmer insisted that the hunt was legal, and that he had no idea that Cecil was a well-known, protected animal. Still, PETA is calling for the hunter to be hanged. Seriously. The Star Tribune interviewed one women waiting to vent her hostility at Palmer outside of his office. “We are calling for some kind of accountability…it is completely unconscionable…ignorance is not an excuse…” During Palmer’s 6 weeks of hiding, signs were put up outside his office such as: Rot in Hell, Palmer, There’s a deep cavity waiting for you! Walter Palmer—the Butcher of Bloomington.

Cecile the Baby Killer

Palmer is either a poacher or a victim of circumstance. But then, what is Cecil Richards? Richards smiled coldly into her video message and insisted they have done nothing wrong at Planned Parenthood. The butchered babies, positioned for optimum cuts to be sold for research projects, were human beings. Their chopped up tiny hands and feet, hearts and brains, were thrown together with the parts of other dead babies. Multiple Planned Parenthood employees, under the approving gaze of Richards, operated on a parts-for-profit motive.

The media’s cognitive dissonance is horrifying. Blood, gore, shock, horror—there’s everything the media wants in a story. And yet, they are in sync with Richards, queen of the holocaust—nothing of interest here, just move along.

I love animals and think it’s important to protect them within reason. But one lion is accidentally killed and the hunter becomes hunted by radicalism.  Hundreds of thousands of innocent babies are killed and butchered and the media doesn’t care. Why aren’t they asking Richards the hard questions? Where is the outrage over her law breaking? Where is the disgust over the unborn babies that are hunted in their mother’s wombs?

Imagine if instead of a hunter, that Palmer was an abortionist who intentionally killed and cut up babies. Consider that instead of animal rights activists protesting, he had to face the same outrage from pro-lifers. Would that make the news? If it did, it would be to report that prolife activists had behaved in so extreme a manner.

The liberal media doesn’t get it. And here is why: “Wherever there is Animal Worship there is Human Sacrifice.” — G. K. Chesterton, “On Seriousness,” The Uses of Diversity (1920).

And so, the timing of the Cecile and Cecil stories is both symbolic and revealing. The extreme response to Cecil explains the very lack of response to Cecile. Yes, it is true what is being said about the world. People have gone mad. But there are enough of us left who can still discern the value of humans over lions. Let us pray for all those animal worshipers, that they will one day transfer their idolatry of creation into adoration of the Creator.