I read, per chance, a fairly stunning declaration this week, even though the declaration itself is years old and not receiving much attention presently. It is searingly ironic and relevant to our sick culture, in which the fiercely protected and federally-funded chain of human butcher shops known as Planned Parenthood is still lauded as indispensable to women everywhere.

The declaration reads:

Based on the principle of the equal treatment of all persons;

Recognizing that scientific research gives us deeper insights into the complexities of [ ] minds, societies and cultures …

We affirm that all [ ] as persons have the right to life, liberty, and well-being.

We conclude that:

1. Every individual [ ] has the right to life.
2. No [ ] should be held in … servitude; be subject to cruel treatment; or be removed from their natural environment.
3. All [ ] have the right to freedom … and residence in their natural environment.
4. No [ ] is the property of any State, corporation, human group, or individual.
5. [ ] have the right to the protection of their natural environment.
6. [ ] have the right not to be subject to the disruption of their cultures.
7. The rights, freedoms, and norms set forth in this Declaration should be protected under international and domestic law.
8. [ ] are entitled to an international order in which these rights, freedoms, and norms can be fully realized.
9. No State, corporation, human group or individual should engage in any activity that undermines these rights, freedoms, and norms.
10. Nothing in this declaration shall prevent a State from enacting stricter provisions for the protection of [ ] rights.

Ponder for a moment what name you might insert in the [blank] in those sentences. The right to life; not subject to cruel treatment or removed from their natural environment; the right to freedom; protection in their natural environment; recognition of their rights in international law, and no limit on strict provisions to protect those rights.

Just imagine if such a clear and unequivocal statement of dignity and rights was made on behalf of the child in the womb, our most vulnerable neighbor.

The womb is indisputably the natural environment of every growing human child for the first 9 months of life. The child in the womb certainly has the right to life (whether our current laws acknowledge that or not), and absolutely should be protected from cruel treatment and removal from their natural environment.

If tearing a child limb from limb; if crushing a child’s fragile body with forceps; if splitting a child’s face open with scissors isn’t cruel treatment, I don’t know what is. Go back and read #9 again with this in mind.

Sadly, this Declaration is not concerned with the human person in the womb. The “person” to benefit from all these moral recognitions is the dolphin.

India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests recently forbade the keeping of captive dolphins for public entertainment. They did so because the behavior of cetaceans “suggests an unusually high intelligence as compared to other animals” and as such, “dolphins should be seen as ‘non-human persons’ and as such should have their own specific rights and is morally unacceptable to keep them captive. …”

We can’t get the actual unborn human being to be afforded even the protected status of “non-human persons.” They’re just “fetal tissue.”

We’ve got political leaders who go to similar lengths as this declaration to deny the right to life, freedom, and personhood of the child in the womb. Democrat party chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz even refused to say out loud that her own children were human before they were born. And on October 16, Hillary Clinton tweeted a happy birthday message to Planned Parenthood, celebrating their 99 years in America, and wishing them 99 more.

On Oct. 16, 1916, Planned Parenthood opened their first health center and changed life for women in America. Here's to the next 99 years. -H

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 16, 2015

What sort of logic and what condition of heart can look at a preborn child and find no compelling reason to object to killing that child, and then look at a dolphin or a whale and have zeal enough to demand life, freedom, legal protection against all cruelty, and the recognition of personhood under international law?

The humane treatment and respect owed to dolphins is not the issue here. Dolphins are surely remarkable, beautiful creatures with great intelligence. They do indeed deserve freedom and protection against cruelty. Yet any society that can recognize the wrongness of mistreating a dolphin but remain willfully, doggedly blind to the wickedness of slaughtering its own preborn children (and for profit, no less!) is under the spell of something demonic. And so we are.

When we are motivated to elevate animals to the status of persons while denying the personhood of actual human beings (based only on that person’s size, stage of development, and geographical location), we have officially stepped into the foyer of insanity.

There’s Only One Reason

The only reason to deny a certain class of persons the right to live; to not be vulnerable to “termination”; to be considered a human person at all is because we can only oppress someone deemed “less than” ourselves.

The only reason we deny the humanity of the child in the womb is so we can continue to kill the child with impunity, and tell ourselves there’s no loss, no harm done, no death at all.

Taking up the cause of dolphins and other animals gives the illusion that our shattered morality remains intact, and affirms our goodness as a civilized society.

The Wizard of Oz would’ve envied such a layered and impassioned façade.

Meanwhile, despite having looked behind the curtain into the brutal reality of abortion, we still cannot summon enough indignation, enough disgust, or enough sadness to end our subsidizing of the slaughter. We’re still hemming and hawing, arguing and lying, defending and excusing the greatest human rights violation in mankind’s history.

The “red water” keeps rising. But don’t worry. The dolphins will be just fine.