Rush-hour traffic stopped on 15th Street, N.W. in Washington, D.C., last Friday morning, according to the Washington Post. A mother duck and her four ducklings were the reason. But as they made their way through the city, not everyone was captivated by the traffic-light-reading-impaired birds.
So humans soon began moving in, sometimes nearly putting their lives on the line for the ducks:
Passerby Pat Getter shot into the street after the ducks, yelling at cars “Stop! Stop! Stop!” She threw up her hands as though she were facing down tanks.
The drivers hit the brakes, annoyed, then smiling.
“‘Oh, they are so traumatized,’” Jennifer Helburn worried. Mother duck walked on with her little ones, crossing K Street. At I Street, Helburn threw herself in front of a bus to protect the ducklings, according to the Post.
But then came a classic moment in newspaper-reading double takes: Helburn’s day job? She is communications director for the National Abortion Federation, a trade association for abortion providers in the U.S. and Canada. Her fellow duck saver, Getter, told the Post, “‘I realize you can’t save all of them all the time,’ she said, ‘but when you’re in a position to try, then you owe it to them to try.’”
The tragic ironies. You’d think human kids might deserve the same right to life ducks deserve.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the ducks survived their inside-the-Beltway rush-hour adventure. If only unborn-baby humans could stop traffic somehow.