U.S. courts have recognized the juridic personhood of a herd of feral hippopotamuses that once belonged to Columbian drug lord Pablo Escobar.
Meanwhile, unborn human babies in the United States are still denied this very same right.
This is a true story.
Live Action News recently reported on the jaw-dropping legal precedence, which has come as part of an effort on the part of the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) who have filed a lawsuit on the hippos’ behalf to prevent attempts to control their population.
“In the 1980s, infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar owned four hippos which he kept in a personal zoo. After his death in 1993, the hippos remained undisturbed on his property, until they bred and eventually escaped to the Magdalena River, where they have since multiplied rapidly, having no natural predators,” the website explains. “Today, the population of nearly 120 hippos has been wreaking havoc on the local ecosystem. Their waste has been responsible for dangerous algae blooms, and they have been responsible for several attacks on local fisherman.”
“Several solutions have been proposed to address the problem of the hippos, including killing, sterilizing, or giving the hippos contraceptives. That’s when the Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF) filed an application to have two hippo experts from Ohio testify on non-lethal, non-surgical options for addressing the Escobar ‘cocaine hippo’ problem,” it continues.
“They would be speaking on behalf of the hippos, who are the plaintiffs (the ‘community of hippopotamuses living in the Magdalena River’) in the suit. And in late October, federal Judge Karen Litkovitz granted the request. Her reason for doing so was based on a U.S. law that allows for ‘interested persons’ in foreign litigation to request U.S. expert depositions in their foreign case.”
What is being hailed as a legal triumph for animal rights activists is being met with horror from pro-life activists who recognize the personhood of unborn babies in the womb.
Just this week, a little boy set the world record for the youngest premature baby to survive after being born at just 21 weeks of age — well within the range that many babies can be ripped from their mother’s womb and exterminated in the United States.
Little Curtis Means of Alabama, who fit in the palm of his mother’s hand when born, is now 16 months old.
“Sadly, preborn humans are not granted the same legal status as Pablo Escobar’s cocaine hippos in U.S. federal court,” Live Action News notes, highlighting the absolutely absurd contrast.
As the outlet has previously pointed out, they say “the U.S. has among of the most extreme pro-abortion legal regimes in the world. It is only one of seven countries, along with North Korea and China, to allow elective abortion past 20 weeks’ gestation.”
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