What’s wrong with this scenario? A little girl in Nepal is returned
home after being sold for 30 dollars by her parents. The family has
been given a piglet to raise and sell. The piglet is kept tied to a
short rope outside their home.
Multiply this scenario by the thousands and you have what the latest
NOW on PBS program “Daughters for Sale” is about. According to NOW’s
host David Brancaccio, “This is part of NOW's continuing series on
innovative and sustainable solutions to world problems, what we call
Enterprising Ideas.” Apparently David Brancaccio and Olga Murray,
founder of Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation (NYOF), don’t seem to
realize that anytime you use nonhuman animals as part of the solution to
a problem you end up with more problems – for the humans as well as the
nonhuman animals. So this short-sighted “solution” of trading one slave
for another cannot be called “sustainable.” That is only turning the
oppressed into oppressors.
Anyone who has studied the origins of the major plagues of the world,
as well as common diseases, knows that there is a line that humans have
crossed in their use of nonhumans. The best explanation of this I’ve
ever heard was given at a lecture by Michael Greger, M.D. who is a
physician, author, and internationally recognized professional speaker
on a number of important public health issues. Dr. Greger has been
invited to lecture at countless universities, medical schools and
conferences around the world, including the Conference on World Affairs,
the International Bird Flu Summit, and the National Institutes of
Health.
Where there is compassion for all creation – human and nonhuman –
everyone wins. If you are really compassionate, you will be
compassionate toward all.
I will close with Proverbs 12:10 from the Hebrew Bible (Old
Testament):
“A righteous man [person] cares for the needs of his animal, but the
kindest acts of the wicked are cruel.”
By their own words and actions David Brancaccio and Olga Murray have
proven themselves to be wicked, according to this Bible definition.
