Dear Editor:
A year ago this past summer we were surprised to have a peahen show up in our yard. As time went on it became apparent that she considered this her home. After attempts to find her owner failed, and we couldn’t catch her to give her away, we decided to just enjoy her company and Penny provided us with hours of entertainment.
At some point in early summer this year she would disappear for a day or two at a time, then show up briefly to eat and then disappear again. We began to wonder if she could be setting on a nest of eggs (which we were sure couldn’t be fertilized). After about two months of this we did, in fact, discover Penny’s nest and that she had been “setting” all that time. This made her quite vulnerable to predators. Sadly, a few weeks later Penny gave her life trying to protect her eggs.
As I pondered this touching story, I couldn’t help but think that we as humans could learn a lesson from her. We, as a society, have abandoned the God-given instinct of protecting our unborn for the “right to choose” to end those lives. We have heard so much lately about protecting the vulnerable from COVID, which I heartily agree with, yet in 2017 (the most recent year I could find stats for), in our state, we allowed over 2,000 unborn babies to be put to death. That is over three times the number of deaths as there have been from COVID in the state of Nebraska. If we are truly concerned about protecting the lives of the vulnerable, we would be wise to learn from the peahen.
Perhaps our thinking should shift from the “right to choose death for an innocent baby” to the moral obligation to protect the most vulnerable among us, even if it means sacrifice on our part. Thank you, Penny, for being an example to us!
Kathy Nauman,
Giltner
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ANR
