Dogs don’t pay taxes or create new parishoners.
Society does not value animal lives as much as human lives. You’re free to draw your personal line elsewhere.
This is apparently an insane hot take, but personally, I don’t think it’s okay.
It’s okay to treat your dog as family and to reject the concept of “it’s okay to kill him if he’s in enough pain!”, same as they would never even think of suggesting doing that to a human.
– Frost
My cat suddenly became paralysed last year. What should I have done?
Found Kristi Noem’s account
One other point that I think no one has mentioned yet is the importance of informed consent when treating people with otherwise fatal conditions. Surgery and other treatments e.g. chemotherapy for cancer incur a lot of pain and suffering in those going through it as well. A person can understand that all that suffering is for the greater good of extending their life, but for a pet that is far from the case, and they may in fact need to suffer more than if they weren’t treated.
I love my dog with my whole heart, but I would never put her through chemo if she had cancer.
- Pets are not intellectually capable of communicating their feelings or desires to humans, so it is up to us as humans to assess the quality of life of our animals in order to prevent them from needless suffering. There is nothing wrong with trying to treat animal illnesses, if you have the resources to do so and can make sure that the animal is maintaining a good quality of life–but that’s sadly not always the case. We love our pets and we all want them to live happily forever after, but the sad truth is that they will eventually get old and sick and (unless they die suddenly) one of the most important acts of compassion that we owe them is giving them a humane end of life without suffering. It is sad. It breaks our fucking hearts. But it is our duty and our responsibility to them, and in a strange way, it is an act of love. We owe it to our pets to take care of them in life and in death.
- Unlike pets, human beings are typically thought to have agency and the ability to express their own wishes regarding their end of life. We can’t really decide that “ok, grandma is lives enough, time to put her down”, because even if we can see that her quality of life has degraded, we understand that it is not our decision to make whether she can continue to try to live.
- In some parts of the world, human beings do have the right to choose when to end their own life via physician-assisted suicide, especially in cases where they have some terminal prognosis where they know that their quality of life will not stay high if they continue to live. I don’t envy being put in this position, and it’s terribly sad to think about, but I do think that it’s ethically the right thing to do to allow for that.
People downvote but don’t read the name of the community the post is coming from.
I think
Democracy is, when the laws are NOT according to what you think.
Ideally the laws are according to what most people think, but this cannot be guaranteed. Therefore democracy is not the best possible form of government, but unfortunately no better one is known.
This is a tough question. I’ve had to put down a dog and a cat. They were both basically messed up beyond any kind of reasonable care. Like we could have spent tens of thousands of dollars to keep them alive, but they would have been suffering. I haven’t had a dog since that dog, and was almost brought to tears when I saw a dog like him last weekend, but it was cool because the owner let me pet it and it was super friendly.
Cats I honestly don’t care as much about, I guess because cats don’t really bond with people like dogs do. I see cats as more of a utility. You get a cat and it kills things. They’re also way cooler, IMO. But cats like to get hit by cars, they’re dumb as hell, you get another cat, it’s fine. I guess dogs do too, they chase cars, they don’t know any better. My dog was an inside dog (small breed). You can’t do that with cats (or big dogs).
As for people… there are ways. I mean, once you’re of legal age and if you aren’t impaired, you can get a DNR (do not resuscitate) order. There are bracelets. Some people get it tattooed on them. If you’re DNR and you go to the hospital, they can treat you with your consent, but if you cannot consent, they are not allowed to treat you. If they do, it’s legally considered assault. So they won’t do it. They will make you comfortable, but they will let you die. They won’t do anything to quicken your death, either — except in some places where they will.
I believe anyone should be able to choose to have their life medically terminated, if they are suffering and of sound mind and body. I have no religious opposition to it. If someone I loved made that choice, I would be sad, but I would not tell them they can’t. That’s not for me to say.
I guess because cats don’t really bond with people like dogs do.
I used to believe this, too, until I bonded with a cat. It’s definitely a different relationship than with a dog but just as valid, in my experience. Their personalities are different from dogs and vary much more from cat to cat than dog personalities do.
I have one cat that is dumb as hell and another that is sometimes dumb, but surprisingly socially intelligent and really changed the way I understand cats.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely do not think any less of people who bond with their cats (my wife, for instance — she was very upset when our last cat got hit by a car). I just don’t. I like cats, but again, I see of them more… maybe “as a thing” is less humane than I meant to be. Maybe “as a force of nature” would be a better way? But not as a family member or friend. I like cats, but I like more the idea of cats, I guess.
And I consider myself a cat person.
I’m also on the spectrum, so I don’t really bond well with people. It’s easier with kids, who basically have a “if you’re nice to me I will be nice to you” kind of ethos. Or adults who are exceptionally kind. Everyone else is like hard mode. I also realise I’m the weird one. So the experiences I speak from, I do not expect to be a base line for humanity.
Uh, if you kill yourself early the healthcare system won’t be able to extract every last dime of your wealth before you die. What, you think your family deserves to inherit it?
Because humans apply higher standards to themselves then they do to other animals.
As someone else said: helping humans find a dignified death is legal in some countries.
Your second point is more complicated though: I don’t know the laws in a lot of countries but where I’m from animals are strictly treated as property - emotional connection isn’t taken into strong consideration at all when it comes to assessing their value when it comes to legal fights but they are treated like a distinct thing different from both humans and objects in a lot of other cases (e.g. dedicated laws like “unnecessary” animal cruelty is forbidden ).
About the reason you can discuss as much as you want, the two arguments I’ve stumbled across are:
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there must not be a distinction in terms of value because that value must be purely subjective and cannot be assessed.
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There is no objective way to classify animals based on emotional connection and therefore the law can’t create categories.
Culturally we treat animals like different to humans all the time - even your dog is not treated “family” to the extreme a child would (think of child protection laws and what that would mean if they’d apply to a dog or a hamster). And now expand this to find a definition which covers both a cow someone has as a beloved pet or a meat animal.
Note that I’m trying to not say wether this is “right” or “wrong”: morale categories and laws have some overlap but they are quite lose as soon as you get specific.
My primary source was an interview with a judge who went into an hour long discussion about how complex the relation between animals and the law is and how “emotional connection” and the need for the law to be objective and repeatable are an inherent contradiction.
In short:
It’s a very tough question because there isn’t the one correct answer. Law, morality and personal subjectivity collide and make a mess out of us.
It’s murder if you do this to humans, not euthanasia. The human has to want it.
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Because religion.
God this is a weird thread.
How come human laws don’t apply to animals?
Sorry to break it to you kids but billions of people all over the world literally eat animals every day.
Barbaric ? Perhaps, but it’s fair to assume that 100% of your ancestors in the last 100,000 years have delighted in this activity as often as possible.
You may not wish to acknowledge this but the reality is: your beloved dog or cat is a lesser being, assigned very few rights.
Obviously if you have a pet dog then you treat that dog differently as you would a chicken living in a cage in a shed with 10,000 other chickens in cages but that dog’s right to life is merely an extension of your rights as that dog’s owner.
Humans should be allowed to be put out of their misery as well
Some countries allow it. The major difference is that other people cannot choose for you. Your family can’t “put you down” but you can choose to have a doctor assist.
And shouldn’t need to be terminally ill or old.
If I wanna peace out (humanely) at any age past adulthood, I should be able to.
I agree in theory, but often the desire to end one’s life is often symptom of a treatable disease, or short term situation. Less than 10 percent of people who survive a suicide attempt, latter try again and succeed. There would need to be a lot of safety net in place, just like there is for the terminal.
Honestly I think it could save people. Knowing there is a way out, so to speak, could prevent people from attempts on their own. Not to mention it would prevent traumatizing whoever finds a successful suicide. Needing proof that other treatments are inactive would get even more the help they need.
I do wonder about that. My ex’s uncle decided that financial and legal issues were insurmountable so he could no longer be here. Obviously I have no idea whether a humane option would have been an option, but his issues were clearly temporary so any opportunity to intervene could have saved a lot of collateral damage. Including, while his family appreciated that they didn’t have to discover him, that cop shouldn’t have either
I can see where you’re potentially coming from.
But I don’t think you comprehend how violent an act of suicide is in almost all cases.
It takes an insane level of commitment to go through with that the first time, more so for the subsequent attempts.
Also of the people who really aim to end it, succeed on the first try.
I don’t know about you, but if given the choice, I probably wouldn’t be here. There’s nothing particularly wrong with me physically, I just don’t want to be here.
Been the case over a decade ago. Pretty much back as long as I can remember. Still the case today.
I do agree with the point that a humane way out will probably have a net positive impact in almost all cases. Especially if it comes with “here’s a list of things you should consider doing to lessen the impact on your family and significant other” or something of the sort. Needless to say, but should be entirely optional.
I don’t think I agree with the “other treatments” mentality though. That just sounds like what the Americans are doing with their abortion clinics trying to emotionally blackmail people into not aborting their child by forcing you to listen to heartbeats and look at ultrasounds.
The interesting thing about suicide is that it can be “contagious”. Also being under the influence increases the risk of it, not to mention access to a gun. This is some of the evidence that points to most suicides being an impulsive act. Having a plan already in place to go to the “euthanasia clinic” could curb some of the impulsive suicides. Completely understand the comparison to the stupid abortion clinic ridiculousness. It just seems like there needs to be a way to ensure the people using it are in the statistical group of multiple suicide attempts that end in success.
I’m sorry you feel like you don’t want to be here. I absolutely understand that, there have been many times in my life when I felt the same. I don’t know the right way to say this, but have you tried therapy or medication? Both have helped me at various points in my life, and it is a relief not to feel that way. I say this because it isn’t too late for you. By the time I was truly feeling excited by living, I was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I hope you can find a path to looking forward to being here in the world most of the time.
Appreciate the kind words. I have had various approaches to try and “treat” this over the course of the last 15+ years, including the ones you named, like I mentioned, not exactly a new phenomena on my end.
If there was a suicide booth or a euthanasia clinic for people who just want to peace out, I’d have visited it 15+ years ago or any day since then, including today.
Also while I understand the notion that access to substances and firearms and whatnot might increase the risks of impulsive momentary courage (or stupidity), an average home and convenience store offer many items which can effectively facilitate the deed, don’t need to be super elaborate with hugging a grenade or slobbering on the barrel of a shotgun for an effective method… granted if the plan is to go out with a bang, who am I to stop it.
Sucks about the tumor though. May you easily outlive the expectations if you so desire
