Kill Knut the Polar Bear Cub?

More of the Culture of Death

David C. Stolinsky, MD
March 26, 2007

“Animal welfare” activists demand that polar bear cub abandoned by his mother be killed by lethal injection. Cub is healthy and playful, but activists claim he is “dysfunctional” and too “humanized,” and that if he can’t live “naturally” he shouldn’t live at all.
− News item

When I first saw the cute ball of white fluff on TV, I assumed the report was mistaken. Surely, not even “animal rights” activists, never known for their logic, would ask that the cub be killed. But the report was correct. Activists demanded Knut’s death, declaring, “Raising him by hand is not appropriate to the species but rather a blatant violation of animal welfare laws...In actual fact, the zoo needs to kill the bear cub.” However, officials at the Berlin Zoo assured worried Germans that the cub would remain alive.

Knut is safe, at least for now. But what about us? What about people who claim to be civilized, yet demand the death of a harmless animal that is happy himself, and will give joy to thousands of people who will see him? What could possibly have caused such warped thinking in the name of “animal welfare”? How could killing the young be thought of as not only necessary, but actually good?

What can we learn from the “Kill Knut” crowd?

Nature can be nasty.

I recall watching “Animal Planet” and seeing a deer take her fawn to a river to drink. She didn’t notice that one of the floating logs was moving. An alligator grabbed the fawn by the neck and pulled it under water. The startled deer could only jump back in fear. She was a single mom, and had no way to protect her young. That’s nature at work.

The “animal welfare” activists want Knut to live as a polar bear in the Arctic. But if his mother abandoned him there, he would die in a few days, or be eaten by another bear. Still, if the activists insist that Knut live in a “natural” state, so should they. They should give up the benefits of modern medicine, electricity and automobiles. They should dress in animal skins or go naked in the winter. They should live on berries and roots they gather, and animals they kill – or not live at all. If “nature” is good for Knut, it’s good for them, too. Those who worship “nature” should live by its rules − or shut up.

Knut isn’t living “naturally”? Cancer is natural. Pneumonia is natural. Broken bones are natural. Is fixing them “unnatural”? If so, I’m all for it.

Love and empathy are retail items.

Some people claim to “love all the peoples of the earth,” yet mistreat their own family. Some people claim to be “citizens of the world,” yet despise their own nation. Some people declare that “all life is precious,” yet favor predators – both human and animal − over victims.

Things don’t work that way. As babies, we are aware only of our own needs. Later we develop empathy for our parents and siblings, then schoolmates, and then (sometimes) our nation and all humanity. But empathy grows as a circle, never as a doughnut. We can’t “love” people in general, but not those close by. We can’t “love” animals in general, but not a specific bear cub that needs our help to survive. That kind of “love” is merely a ruse to feel good about ourselves without doing anything for other creatures. It is nothing but self-love in fancy clothes.

Love and empathy don’t work wholesale. They are retail items, or they are nothing.

Our young are not our property.

If I get tired of the chair I am sitting on, I can throw it in the trash. I can even kick it to pieces, although someone else might use it. The chair is my property – I bought it, and I can use it or destroy it at my pleasure. But many people view children that way. They call an unborn baby a “fetus,” unaware that the word is Latin for “offspring.” They think using a medical term relieves them of responsibility for the baby’s welfare. They think they can abort it, even up to the ninth month, with impunity.

They believe they have a right to do with the fetus what I have a right to do with the chair. Sadly, they are supported in this belief by many liberal “religious” leaders and “bioethicists.” Even worse, a leading “bioethicist” proclaims that parents have a right to kill defective or unwanted children up to a month after birth, later increased to up to three years after birth. This man is not some offbeat crank. He is a professor at Princeton, and was chosen to write the article on bioethics for Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Some of what now passes for “liberalism” resembles Nazi ideology. Children who are physically or mentally handicapped will be a “drain on the Fatherland” and should be “euthanized.” Who would have thought we could sink to this level?

Knut’s mother abandoned him. In effect, we are told, “The cub is her property, so we must respect her wishes. He was part of her body, so it’s none of our business. Her autonomy trumps his life.” No, it doesn’t.

“Respect for life” can be perverted.

The “animal welfare” activists demand that Knut be killed, because he doesn’t meet their standards of polar bear life. Similar people demanded the death of Terri Schiavo, because she didn’t meet their standards of human life. They narcissistically assume that they have the right to define what constitutes “real” bears and “real” humans.

Some of these people got the Supreme Court to rule that convicted murderers can’t be executed if their IQ is below 70, although Terri Schiavo had an IQ considerably below 70, and so does Knut. Do convicted murderers deserve more compassion than innocent disabled humans or baby animals? But activists now claim that no convicted murderers should be executed, because lethal injection is “terribly painful.” A federal court has stopped all executions in California for this reason. Yet at the same time, lethal injection is not only permitted, but actually required, for a healthy bear cub.

First they came for early fetuses, then late-term fetuses, then malformed newborns, then the dying, then the incurably ill. But who’s next? The mentally ill? The autistic? The elderly? The disabled? If Knut isn’t a “real” bear, and Terri Schiavo wasn’t a “real” person, how, precisely, does this differ from the Nazi notion of “life unworthy of life”? When “liberals” start talking like Nazis, we’re in real trouble.

We don’t show respect for something by killing it.

Some “animal rights” activists declare that dogs and cats should no longer be bred, because they are not “natural” animals. In other words, these people respect animals so much that they want many of them to become extinct. Perhaps they cannot love, and are jealous of those of us who do love animals. Perhaps that’s why they also want to close zoos – they don’t want to teach children to love animals. And without pets or zoos, how will children learn this valuable lesson in love and responsibility?

PETA, inaccurately called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, wants domestic animals, including dogs and cats, to die out. The head of PETA declared she hoped foot-and-mouth disease would wipe out domestic cattle. PETA condemns all medical research using animals, even research seeking cures for cancer or AIDS, even research using rats and mice, and even research to cure animal diseases. Yet this organization takes no position on abortion, or on euthanasia of the disabled. Perhaps what some of these people really worship is not nature but death.

No, we don’t show respect for humans by killing the very young, the very old, the disabled, the sick or the unwanted. We don’t show respect for animals by causing many of them to die out. We don’t show respect for humans or animals by blocking research aimed at curing their diseases. And we don’t show respect for life by wanting to kill a particularly lovable example of it.

We can learn a lot from Knut. Or we can allow the culture of death to drag our civilization down still further. The Bible tells us, “Now chose life.” But it’s still our choice.

Dr. Stolinsky writes on political and social issues. He can be contacted at dstol@prodigy.net.

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