Hollywood’s most elite celebrities clapped enthusiastically Sunday as actor Joaquin Phoenix condemned the dairy industry for milking cows and “plundering” the world’s natural resources.
All the while, many of the same celebrities ignore – and some openly embrace – the greatest human rights abuse of our time: abortion.
Phoenix, who won best actor at the Oscars for his role in “Joker,” gave an acceptance speech that almost sounded pro-life at times — but it wasn’t. Though he did not say where he stands on the abortion issue, many celebrities who attended the Oscars advocate for abortion on demand and the abortion industry.
“I think the greatest gift that it’s given me and many people in [this industry] is the opportunity to use our voice for the voiceless,” Phoenix began. “I’ve been thinking about some of the distressing issues that we’ve been facing collectively.”
According to the Guardian, he criticized society for embracing an “egocentric world view” and “plundering” the world’s resources.
“We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable. Then we take her milk that’s intended for her calf and we put it in our coffee and our cereal,” he said.
“We’re talking about the fight against the belief that one nation, one people, one race, one gender, one species, has the right to dominate, use and control another with impunity,” he continued.
Phoenix challenged his listeners to fight against injustice, “whether we’re talking about gender inequality or racism or queer rights or indigenous rights or animal rights.”
Eater reports Phoenix has been a vegan for almost all of his life, and he sometimes campaigns with PETA. Vox writer Kelsey Piper praised him for elevating “the moral worth of animals.”
While protecting animals from abuse is important, Hollywood repeatedly and consistently fails to acknowledge an even greater injustice in this world today. Since 1973, more than 61 million unborn babies have been killed in abortions in America alone.
These babies are discriminated against more than any other group in the world. Some are aborted because they have Down syndrome or because they are a girl instead of a boy. Some are aborted just because their parents neglected to use contraception and their life was created at an inconvenient time.
Sometimes their mothers are forced to abort them by abusers and sex traffickers. Sometimes their fathers plead desperately for their lives to no avail, because fathers do not have any legal right to protect their own children before birth.
Every year, thousands of pain-capable later term unborn babies are aborted in the U.S., many for elective reasons. Every year, tens of thousands more are killed by being dismembered, torn apart in their mothers’ wombs while their hearts are still beating.
Abortion is cruel, violent, destructive.
But Hollywood celebrates it, instead of condemns it. Few will forget how, at the Golden Globes in January, actress Michelle Williams was met with massive applause when she thanked God for her “right to choose” to abort her unborn baby.
Phoenix was right to remind his fellow actors that they are given an incredible gift – a huge audience in which to be an influence for good, a “voice for the voiceless.” But they are squandering that gift when they neglect to address the horrific plight of abortion on mothers, fathers and especially their unborn babies.
