I want to talk about how we value life.

Recently, Harambe, an endangered ape was shot at the Cincinnati Zoo after a young boy fell into the habitat. Of course this was very upsetting and I am sure it was a very hard decision for the zoo to make. We don’t know exactly what happened that day. We cannot pass judgment on the child or the child’s mom. I’m not a mom, but I can’t even imagine how hard it is to constantly monitor multiple children, especially at a hectic place like the zoo. We can’t pass judgment and put blame on the mom or the child. This was an accident. A defenseless child’s life was at stake. A decision had to be made.

All over Facebook, and other forms of social media, people have expressed so much anger about the ape’s death. But, as usual on Facebook, there are always people who take it too far. I have seen people commenting that the mother should be shot because she wasn’t watching her kids, I have seen comments saying that the boy should have been shot instead because that type of ape was endangered and children are not… What kind of world do we live in where the value of human life means nothing in comparison to animals?

Don’t get me wrong, I love animals and I think we should do everything we can to help them and protect them. But at the end of the day, if I had to pick between a child and an ape, I’m going to save the child.

This made me think about how we look at life in America. Everyday on Facebook I see videos of animals being rescued from abusive homes and I see pictures of abused dogs with captions about how awful their owners are. And I think that we should draw attention to these issues and help get animals into safe homes… But why is it that within the same hour that people shave videos about helping animals, they share videos of people fighting and beating each other up.

Why is it that when animals are in trouble, hurt or killed we become outraged and take to social media to defend their life, but when a human’s life is endangered either no one cares or we make it into a joke.

I know people will say, “oh, well animals are defenseless creatures,” and that someone has to stand up for them. And I agree with that, but was that small child in an ape’s habitat not defenseless? Or even worse than that, thousands of innocent babies are killed every day in America. Are they not defenseless? Do they not deserve a hashtag? Is a girl getting beat up on the way home from school for the sole purpose of making a “funny” video not important?

I understand that animal lives are important, especially when they are endangered. I just wish that we would stand up for human lives the way we do for animals.