![\"Weeping](\"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Crying_Baby_Elephant_01_225x190.jpg\")
by Fr. Ben Johnson –\nFor a few hours on Thursday, the all-seeing eyes of the world\u2019s media were fixed on the eyes of a pachyderm.<\/p>\n
by Fr. Ben Johnson –
\nFor a few hours on Thursday, the all-seeing eyes of the world\u2019s media were fixed on the eyes of a pachyderm.<\/p>\n
In a story that tugged at heartstrings around the globe, the media reported that a baby elephant named Zhuangzhuang, born in a Chinese zoo on August 30, cried for five hours after being rejected by his mother.<\/p>\n
When zoo trainers saw her trying to stomp the newborn to death in her cage, they thought it was an accident. But after the mother tried to kill her child a second time, personnel had to remove the calf for his own safety.<\/p>\n
By nature\u2019s design, a child loves his parent, even a murderous one, and the tears began to flow until his eyes turned red. \u201cHe couldn\u2019t bear to be parted from his mother and it was his mother who was trying to kill him,\u201d a spokesman from the Shendiaoshan Wild Animal Natural Reserve Area\u00a0said<\/a>. <\/p>\n On a slow news day, reporters from across the earth focused on the infant elephant. His story of abandonment began filling news outlets from the\u00a0Belfast Telegraph<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>to the\u00a0Emirates 24\/7<\/em>,<\/a>\u00a0from theInternational Business Times<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>to\u00a0Somalia Online<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n But none made the obvious connection: How does a human baby whose mother tries to kill him react?<\/p>\n How does a human baby whose mother tries to kill him react?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n MSNBC \u2013 which can be said to have nothing less than an\u00a0obsessive<\/a>\u00a0love affair with abortion<\/a>\u00a0\u2013<\/strong>posted the story, with the\u00a0opening line<\/a>: \u201cWe would like nothing more than to offer this little elephant a hug and a tissue.\u201d<\/p>\n Another stalwart of the abortion lobby,\u00a0The Huffington Post,\u00a0<\/em>explained,<\/a>\u00a0\u201cInfanticide can be attributed to stress causing factors like overcrowding and captivity, which can interfere with animals\u2019 protective instincts towards their young.\u201d<\/p>\n Elephants are not the only animals with an inborn desire to nurture their offspring. One woman who participated in veterinary abortions told LifeSiteNews\u2019 Rebekah O\u2019Brien that\u00a0post-abortive dogs and cats know something has happened, that something is missing<\/a>. \u201cThey know that something is really, really wrong,\u201d her friend said. \u201cThey wake up and they whine and they look around and they sniff around the room, and they know that they\u2019re not pregnant anymore. Some of them get really frantic, and you can tell they\u2019re searching for their babies.\u201d<\/p>\n Abortion is not just horrific but an affront against nature.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n These representatives from the animal kingdom show us something: Abortion is not just horrific but an affront against nature.<\/p>\n Post-abortion syndrome<\/a>\u00a0is infinitely more painful for women, who face a\u00a0markedly higher risk of depression and suicide<\/a>. A team of Chinese researchers from Anhui Medical College found last year that post-abortive women were 49 percent more likely to experience depression.<\/p>\n And then there is the trauma of the rejected baby.<\/p>\n We have known about the child\u2019s struggle in the womb since NARAL founder and former abortionistDr. Bernard Nathanson<\/a>\u00a0released\u00a0The Silent Scream<\/em><\/a>\u00a0in 1984.<\/p>\n Abby Johnson recorded how\u00a0seeing her first ultrasound-guided abortion<\/a>\u00a0jarred her convictions, as she witnessed \u201cthe sudden jerk of a tiny foot as the baby started kicking, as if it were trying to move away from the probing invader. As the cannula pressed its side, the baby began struggling to turn and twist away. It seemed clear to me that it could feel the cannula, and it did not like what it was feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n These events are less celebrated than the crying elephant. Instead of calming this child\u2019s screams and drying his \u2013 or,\u00a0more likely, her<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 tears, the pro-abortion lobby is doing everything it can torepeal ultrasound laws<\/a>,\u00a0fight informed consent<\/a>, and deny women the information they need about the lives that will be affected by their abortion decision. They continually\u00a0deny the science behind fetal pain<\/a>. In spite of an undeniable\u00a0scientific consensus on when life begins<\/a>, they belittle the unborn as\u00a0\u201ca cluster of undifferentiated cells\u201d<\/a>\u00a0or, more egregiously,\u00a0a parasite<\/a>.<\/p>\n And although it is not fashionable to mention, the Left is waging war against the greatest force for life and human dignity in human history: the Christian religion.<\/p>\n the Left is waging war against the greatest force for life and human dignity in human history: the Christian religion<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Deacon Keith Fournier noted that the ongoing\u00a0rash of babies being flushed down toilets, abandoned in dumpsters, or thrown into trash cans<\/a>\u00a0signals the\u00a0return of an ancient pagan practice of exposure<\/a>. In the ancient world, from Greece to Rome and Carthage, unwanted children were left to die on hills and in the wild from starvation or predators. The early\u00a0Church Fathers tied this to abortion<\/a>, as\u00a0I discussed on the air recently on \u201cNothing But Truth with Crane Durham.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n The conversion of Europe ushered in a new reverence for life.<\/p>\n If Christianity subsides, what will replace it is not, as Dawkins and other atheist proselytizers imagine, an Enlightenment paradise where reason banishes the cruel power of superstition, but a rebirth of barbarism, never fully extirpated from the human heart, now free of its cultural fetters to devour society\u2019s most helpless. As the Lord of Life is denied, the culture of death fills the void \u2013 or rather pulls the world into the abyss.<\/p>\n