Why is pet euthanasia okay but people euthanasia not?

Great Debates
21

Two points: there is a distinction to be made between euthanasia, where a doctor administers a lethal dose of medication to a dying patient, and physician-assisted suicide, where a doctor provides a dying patient with the means to take his or her own life. Even the Wikipedia article uses these terms inconsistently. It’s a fine point, but worth making, because physician assisted suicide doesn’t apply to patients in a long-term coma.

Second, both euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are legal in the Netherlands. Also, physician-assisted suicide (but not euthanasia) is legal in the US states of Oregon, Washington, and Montana.

On rereading, I realize you may be asking for a cite about euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide for patients who are depressed, not dying. I’ve never heard of that before and would be equally interested in a cite.

22

“Why is pet euthanasia okay but people euthanasia not?” (ETA, by “euthanasia”, I mean both “pulling the plug” when there is a patient directive or brain death AND physician assisted suicide for the terminally ill of sound mind.)

The short answer is, there is no difference (both are “ok”).

The slightly longer answer, already given, is “religion”.

There is no defensible logic involved aside from religious beliefs which place humans at some different, higher level than other animals; which consider them subject to a God and His whims in a manner distinct from the rest of life, consider suffering noble, suicide a sin against God, etc…

Especially given that humans are capable of CHOOSING to die, as opposed to pets for whom we make the choice for them, it makes no sense apart from religious assumptions.

I live in a state where human euthanasia (physician assisted suicide) is legal, with strict safeguards, but we’ve had to reaffirm this right repeatedly, since the religious folks who object to this “anti-life” law keep putting it back on the damn ballot (and the rest of us keep voting to KEEP it). :rolleyes:

I recently put down my old, terminally ill cat, and it was a relief to everyone involved, her included, I’m sure (had she been capable of forming that concept).

But we routinely allow humans we love even more than pets to suffer unbearably, even as they plead with us to let them die or kill them/help them kill themselves, because, well, it’s “wrong” to kill or allow suicide for a “person”. We employ the most unnatural methods to keep them alive against their will, turn them into drug addicts, etc…all so as not to offend some imaginary Divine edict that boils down to 1. GOD owns us, we don’t have the right to control our own fate 2. we are so much more different and special than the other animals.

It’s bullshit.

23

G.I.Y.F.: Yahoo | Mail, Weather, Search, Politics, News, Finance, Sports & Videos

Also, this: Euthanasia FAQ (Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

24

People say this, but aside from minor children, anyone can refuse medical treatment. There are no cases of people hooked up to unnatural methods to keep them alive, while they beg to be allowed to die. It doesn’t happen. If you say to the docs, “I refuse consent! Turn off the machines!” they turn off the machines. Plenty of people have DNR orders.

It’s true that if the patient is unconscious and unable to direct their own medical affairs, the docs will have implied consent for livesaving measures. But I’ve had several friends who decided they’d had enough treatment, and went home rather than die in a hospital.

25

That’s a terrible mischaracterization of the religious objections to euthanasia. By that reasoning, we should euthanize Christians as quickly as possible to ensure their salvation (and I’m sure we have posters who would happily endorse that!)

The real answer (of course) is that most religious people believe that life, even our own life, is not ours to throw away. And some religions and denominations even allow euthanasia in limited circumstances.

26

But this is the thing. Euthanasia is NOT the same thing as physician assisted suicide. Suicide, whether is assisted or not, is when you decide that you don’t want to live anymore. Euthanasia is when I decide that you shouldn’t live anymore, regardless of how you feel about it, or even despite your wish to continue living.

This fundamental difference seems to have been lost in this thread.

27

Yes there are. There *absolutely *are. People get sick and can’t communicate, and they can only beg with their eyes, but that doesn’t count. They get old and demented and don’t remember where they put their Living Will, or if they made one, and they’re too demented to make another. They live in nursing homes with no family, and the nursing home sends them to the hospital when they get ill. Because they’re demented, they can’t decline. And then it takes six days in hell and a court order before the doctors are allowed to stop treating her, even if her suffering is clear to even a second year nursing student and the older and experienced RN is shaking with rage and guilt as he forces medication down her throat and ties restraints to her arms to stop her from pulling out her IV lines. These things *do *happen, and an extra week of suffering and pain before we let them starve to death is not the humane way to handle things. It’s not humane to the patients and it’s not humane to the medical staff.

28

Here’s a question… Why the fuck is it so hard to adopt a pet? I go to the animal shelter to adopt a dog, not a puppy, a dog. One that has already been housebroken and is good around children. They want to arrange a visit to my house and interview me and my family.

I go to Petland and fork over $500 and they give me a puppy and a receipt. Its that fucking easy. Sure the shelter only charges $200 but money isn’t really the issue. I want to adopt a dog so that a well trained older dog doesn’t have to die because of a shitty economy and they’re making it ridiculously difficult.

29

My $0.02 perspective comes from my Catholic upbringing, regarding either assisted suicide or euthanasia for people. Suicide is self-murder, and you will damn yourself to Hell if you do it for any reason. Euthanasia is murder, and whoever performs euthanasia on people will be damned to Hell if they to it for any reason. Animals don’t count. We eat them.

That’s the Catholic perspective I grew up with, in a nutshell.

Personally, I believe people should be allowed to die with dignity and should be able to say good-bye to their loved ones while they are still coherent and not in so much suffering they can barely verbalize. I’ve watched 2 family members and a friend all suffer incomprehensibly until they died, and all I wanted to do was put a pillow over their faces. As a veterinary technician, I’ve participated in hundreds of animal euthanasia procedures, and I can only hope someone does me the same favor if/when I’m suffering to the point of dying.

30

[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
What’s the difference? Especially given that people can consent (or could, if it was legal) and dogs/cats/whatever can’t?
[/QUOTE]
The same as the difference between eating a hamburger, and cannibalism.

Not really all that subtle a difference.

Tris

31

It’s because the animal shelter is an ethical organization that practices adoption. Petland is an alternative for people who just want to buy a dog.

32

So you’re basically agreeing with Lemur866: If a competent person refuses a treatment, they will not receive it.

Incidentally, may God and JCAHO protect me from nurses who think they can tell when patients “beg with their eyes” to not receive treatment.

33

Yet most people can recognize it when their *dogs *do it.

Yes, I agree that competent people who can communicate can, most of the time but not always, decline treatment. (Pregnant women sometimes can’t, if the treatment in question affects their fetus.) But the assertion that there are no cases of people hooked up to machines while they beg to die is very misleading. Not everyone who begs is competent, and not everyone who is competent can beg, and not everyone is presumed competent when they may be.

34

And just because they aren’t competent doesn’t mean they aren’t undergoing massive, futile suffering. I don’t know what the answer is to that, but I wish it were different. I just can’t imagine a way to make it different that isn’t terrifying: certainly, granny shouldn’t suffer if she’d chose not to, but certainly granny has the right to “not go gentle” if that’s her preference. If she didn’t make it clear either way when she was competent, what can we do?

35

Aye, there’s the rub. I don’t know. My best suggestion is to make Advance Directives/Living Wills mandatory, even if what you’re writing in it is “do everything possible for as long as possible!” Maybe link them to health insurance renewals or Medicare paperwork to make it easy for everyone to remember to do one annually. Politically, however, we’ll start hearing about “death panels” again if we go that route, and it still doesn’t help us make sure the health care providers actually get a copy of it when it’s needed.

36

Jhaco?

37

I don’t know the answer to the original question.

I do know that when I walked into my dying father’s hospital room, my first thought was why the hell can’t we end his suffering now?!? I have never wanted a giant syringeful of the Pink Juice as much as I did right then.

I’ve had many animals, and have had to euthanize many of them at the end of their days. It’s the hardest and best thing I do for them, and it damn near killed me that I couldn’t do it for my father. He wasn’t ever going to get any better, he was in pain, he was anxiuos, scared, angry. (Dad hated being in a hospitals, hated being handled by strangers, hated being a burden, hated being helpless - he was terribly upset by it all) At the consult with his doctor I, with my sister’s backing, made it very clear that we wanted Dad in NO pain, physical or mental, and that we wanted to snow him with the morphine he was on. She put on her official “oh, we can’t do that” hat, but bless her, they did up his morphine a lot. After that he pretty much just slept his last two days away.

I realize it’s a slippery slope, that doctors are sworn to heal, and that not everyone has other people’s best interests in mind. But I would like the option of euthanasia for myself, should I reach the end of my rope.

38

Doctors are sworn to heal, yes. My mother once told me that her only moral objection to euthanasia was that she couldn’t perform it herself, having sworn not to.

There’s no reason we can’t train some other class of people to do the deed under physician supervision. Midwives can bring babies into the world. Maybe midwidows can take you out.

39

Or consider the difference between what happens if your cat lays on the front porch licking his asshole and if you do it. Equal before the law? I’d say clearly not.

40

What part of their oath prohibits euthanasia?

The best I can think of is the “do no harm” bit (or however it is phrased) but that is certainly open to interpretation. Is a doctor that keeps a person alive, but in excruciating pain without any hope of cure, causing less harm than helping that person achieve a better end to their life?