Please can someone explain to me rationally why we human beings decide that it is right to do the “humane” thing to injured animals, who have no choice in the matter, by putting them out of their misery yet we deny that very humanity to members of our species who wish, in the face of terminal illness and immense pain, to take the same course of action.
Not that I disagree with someones right to chose their own death over suffering but …
We as Humans consider ourselves to have the right of life and death over animals in allmost all situations, not just to end the animals suffering, but to use it for food, or resources, or because we don’t want to feed it anymore. We do not consider ourselves to have the same rights of life and death over our fellow humans.
What Bippy said, and…
Cases in which someone stands to gain financially from the mercy-killing of an animal are rare (or medium rare at best) as compared to humans who frequently have life insurance benefits earmarked for someone requiring only the demise of the person in question. How can you prove it wasn’t murder? Can you do so with enough confidence, all the time, to demonstrate mercy is the only motivation for the killing? Personally, I think if we didn’t have societal pressures to prevent/delay death we could come up with a workable solution to allow assisted suicides, but until we as a society change our perception of death & the taking of a human life no significant strides will be made in that direction.
Short version: we don’t like to equate ourselves with animals.
I do not disagree but why do we have that seemingly arrogant belief.
Does anybody think that one day, societal values will consider all life as being equal, within reason?
No, because all life isn’t equal.
Who says?
I can’t speak for the attitude of ur society from a social standpoint, but from a Christian standpoint, I think Luke 12: 22-31 makes it pretty clear that all life is not equal, and that humans are more important than the animals.
This is also a possible reason for our society at large not being vegetarians.
Do you mean you’d sincerely have a hard time choosing whether you would pull out a woman or her dog from the wreck of her car?
If it’s my mom then the dog will live. I like the dog.