You may have noticed an outpouring of profound grief for the thousands of sheep that died while on their way to the Middle East as part of Australia’s live sheep export. While such hyper-emotionalism is usually the prerogative of the Australian radical left who hate everything that they didn’t build (to date, nothing), this time the tumbrils were driven by Liberal MP, Sussan Ley, who announced that she would introduce a private members’ bill into the House of Representatives which would phase out the live sheep trade in 5 years.

The ABC ensured Ley’s announcement received a wider audience by regurgitating the story every fifteen minutes or so on its dedicated news radio site and God knows where else. While the likelihood of the bill passing is next to zero, Ley thought it had some hope of attracting ALP support and the ALP, hoping to be noticed, announced its support shortly thereafter. The Greens, who were having a tree-hugging moment, were reluctant to interrupt the experience given that they have always opposed the industry. The voice against cruelty to animals, the RSPCA, did not immediately jump on the bandwagon but it’s difficult not to imagine that they are there in spirit.

It would be a mistake to assume that those who are opposed to the bill were endorsing cruelty to sheep. It would also be a mistake to assume that those who endorsed the bill were vehement opponents of cruelty per se. In fact, it is that last consideration that makes Ley’s concern for the sheep so transparently hypocritical. How can one be outraged at the deaths of a few thousand sheep while demanding increased availability of abortion which currently is estimated to kill between 80-100,000 human babies each year?

There is no need to delve into the practices by which these deaths are procured. Suffice it to say that the surgeries are perfectly clean and well ventilated, the smell of disinfectant hangs in the air and the instruments are perfectly sterile. Even if the same sterility was found in the sheep transporting vessels, it would not persuade Ley who wants the industry to cease.

The great irony of this sad story is that there is legislation in each State to prevent cruelty to animals, but none that actually prevents the cruel deaths of unborn children. One might expect that as human beings are animals laws that prevent cruelty to animals would apply to human beings. Alas, not in Queensland.

In 2001, the Peter Beattie Labor Government enacted the Animal Care and Protection Act. That Act prohibits cruelty to animals (s. 18) which includes octopi, squid, crabs, reptiles even fish. You can’t be cruel to a squid so there goes the calamari. Animal also includes a live pre-natal mammalian foetus (s.11(1)(b)(i) so you can’t be cruel to an unborn possum. But, if you were wondering, the same Act declares “a human being or human foetus is not an animal.”

Whoever drafted that clause deserves his time in hell. Other Queensland laws purport to regulate abortions but these, as Hamlet said, are more honoured in the breach than the observance and, anyway, the left’s political forces in that State will soon have that breach honoured by the law.

Ley’s concern for the welfare of sheep is too readily contrasted with her lack of concern for unborn human beings to be taken seriously. In contrast, her concern is the misplaced emotionalism to which most women are given. It appears that a significant proportion of our people can no longer tell the difference between a civilised people and the barbarians within.

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