World Grieved Over Orca Whale’s Dead Calf, But Doesn’t Shed a Tear for Babies Killed in Abortions

Opinion   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Aug 13, 2018   |   4:51PM   |   Washington, DC

The world mourned with a mother orca who carried the dead body of her calf for 17 days before releasing it into the ocean this week.

National media outlets highlighted the killer whale, known as J35 or Tahlequah, for her dedication and sacrifice to her dead child. USA Today reports the 20-year-old orca gave birth to her calf, a female, on July 24 near Victoria, British Columbia, but the calf died soon afterward.

Not untypical behavior, whale experts said orcas often mourn the deaths of their offspring by carrying their bodies several days, according to the report. What made Tahlequah unique was the length and distance she chose to carry her baby, experts said.

According to The Guardian, “The mother carried the baby on her head for at least 17 days, in an image of grief that struck an emotional chord worldwide.”

CNN similarly opined, “It was a journey of love, driven by a mother’s loss, stretching across a thousand miles of ocean as the world watched and wondered.”

“Tahlequah united millions of people worldwide in heartbreak and love as she carried her dead calf for 1,000 miles,” said Greenpeace USA Field Organizing Manager Ben Smith in a statement.

Human beings across the world were moved to compassion for the grieving mother orca, stirred by the ongoing media attention. News outlets and their consumers love these stories because they appeal to the human desire for the kind of love that is willing to sacrifice itself for others.

Yet, there is virtually no mainstream media attention for the human babies lost every day in abortions or the grieving mothers and fathers who learned too late that the abortion did not empower or free them. It only left them with a dead child.

Instead, the mainstream media gives on-going attention to the opposite. Through the “Shout Your Abortion” movement, the abortion industry has been trying to convince the public that it is okay for parents to be selfish and self-centered when it comes to raising children. If a woman is pregnant and she does not want to be or finds a child inconvenient to her lifestyle, she is encouraged to abort her baby. Fathers are not urged to be responsible for their children, born or unborn, either, often leaving mothers alone and desperate for support.

Self-sacrificial love, limitless love is the kind that human beings desire most. Mothers and fathers sacrificing for their children from conception through adulthood, and children sacrificing for their parents when they become incapable of caring for themselves.

Yet, every day in the United States, more than 2,000 unborn babies are aborted, and very few mourn their loss.