Humane Rodent Death vs. Infant Death

How these ideas – "I want laws ensuring humane death for rats and mice!” and “I want laws ensuring abortion rights up to birth!” – can coexist in the same head is a mystery.

Whenever I come across stories of stupid ideas percolating in U.S. legislatures, such as demands for legislation authorizing the executive branch to issue false legal identification documents for a privileged group of citizens or ban glue traps to ensure that rodent extermination isn’t “inhumane,” it’s certain that a mention of my birth country "Iceland" is coming.

California Rep. (D) Ted Lieu recently introduced a bill to ban glue traps nationwide. "Pleased to introduce a bill today to place a national ban on glue traps… Glue traps are among the cruelest ways to eliminate rodents. They’re inhumane and…dangerous to humans and their pets” he said, noting that “Iceland, England, Ireland and New Zealand have... banned glue traps."

The California General Assembly and Iceland’s Parliament Alþingi are arguably the world's most ban-happy and regulation-rapt legislatures. Consequently, neither Lieu nor the Icelandic parliamentarians seem to have given much thought to whether the use of rodent traps really is within the legislature’s purview, let alone where from they believe they get the authority to regulate how private citizens eliminate disease-ridden pests in their homes.  

For the uninitiated, glue traps are shallow plastic trays filled with extremely sticky glue. Use of the traps is a violation of Icelandic statute nr. 55/2013 on the Welfare of Animals which prohibits "the use of methods [for rodent extermination] that cause needless mutilation or suffering." With glue traps "daily supervision is required" with which the witless masses obviously cannot be trusted, much less "to humanely kill the mice that land there (e.g. with a strong blow to the head)…” It’s probably safe to assume that most people are against the inhumane treatment and suffering of animals, including rodents, and that whoever sets these traps won’t leave them and the trapped contents unattended, if only to avoid the scent of Eau de Rotting Rat Flesh filling the house. But this is how much faith these legislators have in the humanity and competence of their constituency. Private citizens can’t be trusted to get rid of common house pests without government guidance.

Not only is Lieu's bill controversial, his comment the same day criticizing pro-life activists seemed to indicate cognitive dissonance of major proportions: “Monday marks 51 years since the Roe v. Wade decision,” he wrote. “Roe was overturned by the far-right Supreme Court 18 months ago and Americans’ reproductive rights remain under attack by MAGA extremists who want to ban all abortion nationwide.”

The overturn of Roe v. Wade resulted in individual states having the authority to pass their own abortion laws – to ban abortions completely, as 14 states have done; allow them up to a certain time point (six weeks in 16 states, 12-22 weeks in nine states); ban them up to the point of "viability" – “the ability [of a developing fetus] to survive independent of a pregnant woman's womb” (generally at 24 weeks) – as 24 states have, or as seven states have, allow unrestricted abortions and thus legalize murders of full-term infants.

How these two ideas – "I want laws to ensure humane death for rats and mice!” and “I want laws to ensure abortion rights up to birth!” – can coexist in the same head is a mystery to me. You want legislation to ensure that rodents don’t die inhumanely and laws guaranteeing unrestricted right to murder six-month-old to full-term infants in the womb?! (California allows abortion up until six months/24 weeks of pregnancy, but Lieu, like his Democrat colleagues, wants unrestricted abortion rights).

Since the overturn of Roe, Democrats have lost the plot when it comes to abortion rights. The sight 0:75 of women cheering the legal right to murder full-term infants in the womb after my home state Minnesota’s legislature passed a law removing any and all restrictions on abortion rights rights was mortifying. My compatriot Ólína Þorvarðardóttir, Iceland’s Social Democratic Alliance Rep. was similarly disgusted when Alþingi passed statute nr. 43/2029 on Abortion (“Law on Pregnancy Interruption,” a cowardly euphemism), legalizing abortions up to the end of 22nd week of pregnancy: “…supporters broke out in cheers and shrieks like a mob celebrating a successful football game…not a vote authorizing the killing of unborn children without any...other reason than the 'will' of the mother.”

Democrat’s gleeful fight for abortion rights would perhaps be understandable if preventing pregnancy were impossible, if there weren’t smörgåsbords providing up to 99.8% safe contraceptives, often free, even here in the U.S. Preventing pregnancy is neither difficult nor complicated, but God deliver me from bringing up personal responsibility.

I've never paid much attention to the abortion debate – in fact, I don't remember ever writing about it! Because history has shown that the alternative (back-alley wire-hanger abortions) is worse, I support a limited right to abortion up to a certain time point, which in my ignorance I thought was twelve weeks in Iceland, like it is in Denmark, Finland and Norway. However, of the Nordic countries, Iceland has the most liberal legislation (since 2019, when abortions were legalized until the end of the 22nd week); in Sweden it’s 18 weeks.

It’s worth noting that Iceland’s abortion legislation does not prohibit “the use of methods [for “fetus extermination,” or “pregnancy interruption” to use the law’s euphemism] that cause [the fetus] needless mutilation or suffering." 

If it’s possible to find a silver lining in the abortion debate, perhaps it is that the unwelcome “slysabörn” or “accidental-babies” don’t have to be born into moral wastelands where the state proudly celebrates the right to murder infants in the womb, but disrespecting rodents can result in a $5,000 fine and a year-long prison term.