A chicken. Butchered on Facebook. A clear message heard 41,000 times as we post. And a simple reason: one vote got in the way of a farmer’s harvest.
So goes the story behind a rather gruesome yet still hilarious Missouri legislator’s statement on abortion that even The Washington Post noticed. When state Rep. Mike Moon posted the video of him dismantling a chicken with the caption, “Let’s protect the lives of the innocent and end abortion,” many took the slaughter as a comparison to a common abortion procedure.
But Moon assures us that the video was meant as an attention-grabbing jab at the governor for interrupting his work, not as a reference to the abortion procedure in which the living unborn baby is ripped out of its mother’s womb piece by piece.
Moon was preparing to personally butcher about 50 chickens when Republican Gov. Eric Greitens called him back to the capitol for a special “pro-life” session. He was frustrated because the session interfered with the butchering he had scheduled months ago, and because he didn’t think the scheduled votes would do anything to advance the cause of the unborn.
“Monday morning I was due back in the afternoon,” Moon told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “I got up about 6 o’clock and got the majority of my chores done, and decided to go ahead and process some of the chickens so that we wouldn’t be delayed.”
The “meat birds” had reached the eight-week window when they’re ready for processing.
“And the more I worked on them the more I became frustrated looking at the clock. I needed to get away, you know, get to the capitol. So I just had the camera pulled out and — this wasn’t preplanned. It was just kind of a spontaneous thing.”
Moon says he hoped to make a point to the governor that he didn’t appreciate being called away from his work to participate in a session that would in his mind do nothing to actually stop abortion. The bills that the governor is pushing would add expensive new regulations for abortion clinics, such as a requirement for hospital admitting privileges, but do not directly limit abortion. So he got the camera rolling and ad libbed a bit.
“When the governor called for the second special session this year, I was right in the middle of my summer job. But like any good career politician, when I get the call, I’m going back to work,” he said in the video as he chopped off the head. “God gave man dominion over life. He allows us to raise animals properly. And care for them and process them for food, so we can sustain life.”
He continued with his work, pulling apart and then skinning the chicken.
“When I got to the evisceration portion, I pulled out the innards and the heart was still there,” he told TheDCNF. “So I pulled it out and I said, ‘We need to get to the heart of the matter.’ And the heart of the matter is that we need to stop abortion, because that was supposed to be the intent of the call for this particular special session.”
“The bills are not really complying with what the governor has been touting at rallies,” he added. “He consistently said we need to protect the unborn children. Okay governor, if that’s what you want to do then let’s get to the heart of the matter and pass a bill that will challenge Roe v. Wade.”
“It’s just mind boggling,” he went on. “They say well it’s okay, go ahead and kill the baby, but make sure you’ve got all the parts. I mean that just drives me nuts that we would allow that to happen.”
Moon’s message didn’t quite translate the way he hoped on social media, however. Pro-abortion and even some pro-life users who commented on the video voiced disgust at the slaughter, labeling the routine butchering as “animal abuse” and “despicable.” But he’s more or less unfazed, and insists it’s really not supposed to be about abortion, even if the comparison can be made.
“They are so upset about what they think is inhumane caring for a bird,” he said of some pro-abortion opponents. “But yet when it comes to abortion, there’s no outrage at all. And I don’t understand that.”
“I think abortion is far worse than butchering a chicken for a family’s food.”
Since the video was posted last week, Moon’s gotten angry messages, phone calls and postcards. Some from people who made it clear they want him dead. One card from Boston, Mass. that arrived recently and may or may not be related to the video read: “I know you. I see you. And I will remember.”
Nevertheless, Moon says he has no intention of apologizing or taking down the video.
“I think that the majority of legislators, with the exception of maybe a handful, do have other jobs, and this is an interruption of what we’re doing,” he said, adding: “I was just venting frustration. Whether it was the right thing to do, it’s done, and I’m not going to pull it back.”
Moon is sponsoring a bill to give unborn babies due process rights, and plans to try to work his language into an amendment since it won’t get a hearing in the House. He finished butchering the rest of his chickens Friday.
“We’ve got them all in the freezer,” he told TheDCNF. “I just finished this afternoon about 3 o’clock … and I’m tired. Last time we did 100 of them and that’s a lot of work.”
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