I call it a happy ending because the young boy lived, which is a result that would have seemed very much in question to anyone who happened to witness the situation in real time. Of course Iâm not happy the ape died â I didnât wake up on Saturday morning hoping that a gorilla in Cincinnati would meet his untimely demise â but when a humanâs life is threatened by an animal, the only thing I care about is saving the human. The moment the gorilla grabs the boy, my first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, one hundredth, one millionth, etc., priorities are to save the boy. If the boy is saved, then I am happy. Thatâs all.
But, predictably, my priorities â and more importantly, the priorities of the zoo workers and police officers on the scene â are not shared by everyone. We are living in the days of neo-paganism, where legions of depraved souls seem only capable of mustering compassion for wild beasts. As for human beings, they feel only contempt and indifference.
Over the last couple of days, weâve been treated to another round of our trademark National Outrage. People have been creating petitions and venting their seething rage on social media. A Facebook memorial page was immediately created, with a picture of Harambe accompanied by the caption, âI was someone, and my life mattered.â Heartbroken citizens planned a candlelight vigil. Others left flowers at a statue of the beast, borrowing a page from the pagan animal worshipers of ancient times. Some protested outside the zoo, claiming the gorilla should not have been shot. Scores of others have echoed this sentiment, insisting that Harambe was only very gently dragging dragging a child around his cage like a rag doll.
Many people have, calling upon their extensive zoological training and education, come to the conclusion the animal should have been tranquilized. Officials at the zoo explained that a tranquilizer would take several minutes to work, and during that time the animal would be even more agitated, further endangering the boyâs life. But thatâs a risk worth taking, according to a lot of people.
Others have been more blunt. If you make the mistake of reading the reactions on Twitter or in the comments section under articles about this incident, youâll find that a good number of folks think this should have been settled by âsurvival of the fittest.â Let the preschooler and the quarter ton beast work it out between them. If that means a child is ripped apart, so be it.
One particularly compassionate reader put it to me this way through email:
âYouâre f**king wrong on this gorilla thing. The gorilla was innocent. He wasnât hurting the kid. They should have taken BOTH lives into account. Itâs not fair to kill a gorilla because of the idiocy of people. The kid was in his habitat. If the kid ends up dead, thatâs not the gorillaâs fault. Maybe they should feed the stupid f**king parents to the lions next. F**k people.â
This is not the rambling of a fringe nutjob. Well, he is a nutjob, but heâs not fringe. Many people feel the same way.
A guy on Twitter wished that humanity would become extinct so that gorillas and other creatures could finally reign in peace. His comment received almost 1,000 âlikesâ in the space of one hour. Some have blamed the child, saying he entered the gorillaâs space âwrongfully,â and perhaps should have been left to face the consequences. Another popular opinion is that the enormous beast was âonly trying to protect the child,â which is a conclusion invented out of thin air based on nothing but Disney movies. Fortunately, the zoo was not willing to risk the kidâs life based on these childish fantasies.
Nearly everyone seems to agree that the childâs mother is a worthless scumbag who should be locked in prison on ape-manslaughter (apeslaughter?) charges. It may be true that the mother acted negligently. As of right now, we donât know anything about her or what led to this situation. If she did in fact leave her child alone near the gorilla cage while she walked a half mile away to check out the ostrich exhibit, then she does deserve much of the blame. But any parent knows that kids can create enormous, life-endangering trouble for themselves in the blink of an eye. As opposed to naive, presumptuous childless people whoâve never been responsible for anything but their pet goldfish but still feel qualified to make sweeping judgments against parents when terrible things happen.
We have all looked away from our kids for a second and turned back just in time to stop them from doing something potentially fatal. Any parent who claims otherwise is a ridiculous liar. The fact that most of us did not pay the ultimate price for that extremely momentary lapse is only a matter of luck, not virtue or skill. All that to say, I am not ready to immediately convict this mother of criminal negligence. Not only that, but, call me crazy, I feel more compassion for her than anger. For Godâs sake, the woman watched her boy get accosted by a giant gorilla for ten minutes. The horror and pain she must have felt is likely punishment enough. Unlike some members of the Twitter jury, if I were there witnessing all of this, I would not have run up to the woman as she was finally reunited with her son and screamed, âIDIOT! I HOPE THEY FEED YOU TO THE LIONS!â
In any event, the motherâs parenting ability is a separate question. The most troubling thing to come out of the incident is the reaction of people who think the gorilla should not have necessarily been sacrificed for the sake of the child. That itself is far, far more tragic than the death of the animal. And, to be clear, it is a wicked and indefensible position. Only a very sick, very troubled person would have difficulty deciding whose life should be prioritized when an ape and a human child clash. Only a person with contemptible, perverse values would, even for a moment, question the decision made by the police and the zoo. There is no real controversy here. It is very simple. And anyone who struggles with it is disturbed on a deep, spiritual level.
Thatâs why we ought to be terrified that so many people would not only place the ape and the child on the same level, but even put the ape above the child. Itâs comforting to imagine that these people occupy a very small, isolated corner of our society, but that would be wishful thinking. There are, Iâm afraid, a huge number of Americans who would watch that video of the gorilla dragging the boy and feel a greater dread for the gorillaâs fate than the boyâs. That is a fact that, although unsurprising, should fill any decent person with great sorrow and frustration.
And now it is necessary to point out that today, while the media obsesses over an ape and thousands of people cry that they will âmissâ a zoo animal they didnât even know existed on Friday, there will be another 125,000 abortions. On a daily basis, a group of people larger than the population of Provo, Utah are systematically exterminated. None of them are given a name, and there will be no candlelight vigils for any of these victims.
While the ape was killed quickly and humanely, these children will not be given the same consideration. Depending on the trimester, the executions will be carried out in a variety of different ways. A common method, probably utilized hundreds of times each day, is called a Dilation and Evacuation (D&E). In this procedure, the abortionist pries open the motherâs cervix with a metal instrument, inserts a suction tube to extract the amniotic fluid, and then uses a pair of sharpened forceps to methodically tear the baby apart limb by limb.