EcoHearth: Come Home to the Earth

One thing the planet has no shortage of is human life. That’s why I’m always puzzled when people celebrate octuplets, and become irate that people like me don’t have—or intend to have—kids.

“If you didn’t rescue animals, you could be doing something truly meaningful,” I often hear. Translation: “If you were a kind, lovely woman, you would be having children.”

Now, I and all human and animal rescuers have devoted our lives to saving life. No matter the type of life. But it’s as if, because the lives we’re caring for don’t have our own DNA, they count for nothing. As if, because we’re not breeding, we’re not giving.

I feel differently. People who don’t exacerbate current overpopulation pressures are giving. Quite a lot.  People who choose to adopt are giving more water, more space, more life to the next generation. Plants, animals and humans will all have a little more room to breathe because some of us opted out.

One thing is clear: more adoption is needed.

Kids, dogs, cats and all sentient life… we need to take better care of what we’ve already bred. If we, on planet Earth, ever reach a point at which there aren’t enough kids, dogs, etc., let’s revisit then. Deal with any shortfall at that time.

We’re certainly not there now.

It’s true that the planet has no shortage of dogs. It’s also true that I haven’t and don’t plan on giving birth to dogs. I don’t breed dogs, either.

Animal rescuers, in general, don’t breed animals. If anything, a rescue is the ‘mop up’ operation of the breeding world. We take care of what is left behind, though there are so, so many who will never be helped. The numbers are just too great.

It’s the same, exactly, with the many kids already here on earth. The planet groans under the weight of we humans, while we produce more and more of us. And, just as we are with our animals, we’re quite cold and cruel about the result if we’re not pleased.

If our kids disappoint us, or don’t fulfill us, though we can’t neatly dump them in pounds to have them euthanized, we can certainly have more kids, and then even more, hoping to find that special perfect one that will finally please us. We can ignore, give away, mistreat and traumatize the rest of these little humans, while we wait for the ‘beautiful,’ ‘right’ one who will confirm the ideals of our lives and ourselves.

That leaves a whole lotta kids who have no one to care for them. Usually to their detriment. The same way it leaves a whole lotta animals who are abandoned—usually to their deaths.

Anyone can cry out about the unfairness of this. But abandoned kids and abandoned animals need practical, real solutions about how and where to live their lives. Breeding fewer and adopting more is a start. Opening your own home and heart to a homeless person or animal is an act of giving.

An act of giving to the entire earth.

And what could be greener than that?

Additonal reading:
The Five-Year Baby Ban

Updated 3/6/10; originally posted 2/22/09.

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