Animal rights in China; Abortion in America

A city in China has killed nearly 5,000 dogs in an attempt to stunt the spread of rabies. Baoshan, in southwestern Yunnan province, did so after saying that there were five human deaths because of the disease. This follows closely with an incident in the city of Hanzhong, which reportedly killed about 37,000 dogs after an out break of rabies there in 2009. Dog lovers and animal rights activists are outraged.

We understand why they're so upset. The killing of dogs is far more of an concern than than the killing of human beings in China via abortion. Animals have rights which babies do not, and the animal rights enthusiasts, speaking for the animals, of course, want to make sure the animals are heard. It's too bad there is no Lorax speaking for aborted babies, or maybe the issue would get the attention it merits.

Anyway, we do understand why they are incensed. Some of the dogs were reportedly clubbed to death, an action which we cannot supported because it's inhumane, and the activists argue that vaccination would do the trick rather than exterminating the animals. The arguments do, on the surface, make sense. But do they actually believe that they will make sense to the Chinese authorities? These are people who ran tanks over their own citizens rather than tolerate protests and moved entire cities in order to flood out areas for the production of electricity. Why should think for a moment that a dog's life would matter to them?

We can't help but wonder too if all those folks riled up over animal rights were any more riled up over conscious decisions to flood out ages old towns, or more upset at the horrors of Tiananmen Square? Indeed, are they for abortion while having the pretension to speak for Fido? Because if they aren't upset at the human cost of Chinese authority, and we suspect that many were indeed not, and if favor abortion, which we suspect many do, then we find ourselves with little sympathy for their cause. Such folks are arguably mere hypocrites who we must urge to get their own houses in order before they concern themselves with Chinese animal control policy.