There’s more profit to be made off a sick person slowly dying over years than a one-time procedure.
Why is society at large okay with euthanasia for pets but not for humans?
Submitted 8 hours ago by als@lemmy.blahaj.zone to [deleted]
Comments
LuigiMaoFrance@lemmy.ml 2 hours ago
DV8@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Euthanasia is accepted and has been legal in Belgium for decades. It’s not perfect but clearly better than nothing as it has stopped many people from needlessly suffering or worse, forcing their loved ones to discover their bodies after doing it themselves. (Though it still happens as many, many things aren’t covered or extremely hard)
manuremy@sopuli.xyz 7 hours ago
Religions and doctors “vowing to protect life.” Especially religious doctors “vowing to protect life” even when the life means just pain and suffering that can’t be properly eased with pain meds either, because you know, the dying person might get addicted to the meds. That’s obviously worse.
In my country, when an elder person is too sick and “ready to be euthanized”, they just stop giving them water and let them dry to death. It can take weeks. They do give some pain medication, but there is no way of knowing what amount is enough. You’d imagine that dying that way is pretty damn painful yet they don’t have a way of communicating that. But if they OD’ed, it would be murder so better let them suffer!
But also, euthanizing animals is becoming more taboo too. Many pets live in pain, relying in “pet mobility carts” and medications. Antidepressants for cats, epilepsy meds for dogs… Vets prolong the suffering for money, for people who can’t accept facts and do the kind and right thing. Animals have no way of communicating about side-effects from medications. Endless rehoming is thought to be better than letting go.
mellow@lemmy.wtf 5 hours ago
My grandfather got that treatment. Fuck religions.
tomsh@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Society is not that sick to let animals to suffer
lost_faith@lemmy.ca 21 minutes ago
I always said we are more humane to animals than we are to humanes
codewizard@hear-me.social 4 hours ago
Fizz@lemmy.nz 3 hours ago
I think opinions are shifting as people become less religious.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
Lets be honest, most humans do not view pets as equals to a human. Valuing our own species over others is just part of our biology. (not saying that I agree with this view)
If people had the legal responsibility to keep paying thousands or tens of thousands (or potentially more) to keep a pet alive at its senior years, then like… I bet like 50% of pet owners will either become bankrupt or go to jail for animal cruelty.
Laws are just written with humans prioritized… I mean… humans have healthcare¹, pets do not.
A human in an emergency situation arriving in a hospital, and they are legally required to give treatment even if the person cannot pay at the time¹, a vet can legally refuse to treat a pet in an emergency until the owner pays (not saying that would refuse, but they could).
(¹restrictions apply, varies by country)
One could argue that if euthanasia is legal, then there would be situations of: “Hey, granny is kinda taking too much resouces… maybe we should just pull the life support?” or “Okay my child has cancer and takes up too much of my money, and all this money would be wasted if the treatment fails, I’m gonna talk to the doctor and end this parasite once and for all”
MalReynolds@slrpnk.net 3 hours ago
I don’t have a good source, but my instinct is that ‘society at large’ in many (probably most) places is at least in majority ‘okay with human euthanasia’, and has been for quite a while. It’s the laws that need to catch up, but don’t due to lack of political will and a vocal minority.
remon@ani.social 7 hours ago
Because we value humans much higher than animals.
Successful_Try543@feddit.org 7 hours ago
^* human life, not humans. Being confined like a potted plant is considered acceptable for a person in a coma or with a severe disabilities, but not for a pet.
tyler@programming.dev 5 hours ago
Uh the number of people crating their pets seems to disagree with this assertion.
muxika@piefed.muxika.org 7 hours ago
At least in the States, I believe it’s for religious and financial reasons. Correct me if I’m wrong, but allowing someone to off themselves could be condemning them to hell. Also, to be cynical, medically assisted “checking out” is the easier, cheaper way out, instead of burning through money in a hospital.
Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with ending the suffering of a terminal illness. Prolonged suffering is unnecessary, and a person should have the right to go out on their own terms.
bufalo1973@piefed.social 7 hours ago
Short answer: religion.
“Only God can take a life”… except when it an heretic, a non believer, a sinner, …
Killing believers = sin
Killing non believers = " the work of God”
And pets are animals and “you can do as you please”.
variablenine@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 hours ago
It’s honestly kind of depressing. I went all out for my dog’s end of life care, ensuring it was as dignified as possible and he was as comfortable as he could be, and I hate the idea that if I were to ever come down with Alzheimer’s or something, instead of going on my own terms in the comfort of my home with people I know and love, I would instead be kept alive as long as possible and then probably die with indignity, terrified and confused and not recognizing anyone around me or even my own self.
On one hand I am glad of what I was able to do for my dog, I loved him to death. I just wish that I could be afforded that same dignity when it’s my turn to go.
wk5ar@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
There is option of euthanasia and I think in some kind of gas chamber form atm in Switzerland but it costs money. Personally I think its fucked up, but from the standpoint of many doctors even its a humane solution. There were numerous polls about it, even in favor for those suffering from severe depression.
IWW4@lemmy.zip 3 hours ago
Because we are so stupid and terrified about death.
Papanca@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
To add to the comments; many people and laws still view animals as objects, to do with as one pleases. I still here americans -i’m from europe- talking about animals as ‘it’.
remon@ani.social 7 hours ago
Same in Europe though. In fact “it” is just the proper pronoun for a lot of animals in gendered European languages.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 5 hours ago
Part of Me calls animals “it” because it’s kinda messed up to force human constructs of gender on them. I always try to put in effort to call babies “it” until they’re old enough to state their pronoun preference. But with animals, I don’t think the “it” pronouns are as important, because they don’t understand. So there’s a much bigger part of Me that’s willing to gender animals than babies.
pulsewidth@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Religion.
Historically the primary reason that euthanasia is repeatedly challenged / legally blocked worldwide.
Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu 7 hours ago
Because you need to control humans, but there is no need for pets.
In fact, it seems that euthanasia and abortion are more difficult where religion is stronger.
GreenShimada@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
What everyone has missed so far:
Societies typically have a value for human life - it’s often cheap. A wrongful death lawsuit is an example of this.
However, individuals with names are where it gets messy and personal and emotional.
The Republican counter to Obamacare was that “Death Panels” would tell you when it was time to put your granny down because she was costing the state too much (what they said, not what Oabamacare’s policy really was). Once it became a question of “look at your Grandma Stevens and ask yourself when it’s time to put her down” that’s when it upset people.
Also, on the flip side, pets are animals that we have forced to some degree, to put up with our BS to have a stable food source. Humans do tons of wacky shit to them. We castrate them, cut off parts of their ears and tails, cut out their uteruses, breed them to be genuine abominations, cut their hair, teach them tricks, make them wear sweaters and shoes and jewelry, and make them eat pellets made by a machine from the parts of animals we don’t want to eat ourselves. Part of breeding them and buying them is the convenience of their lives in ours - we demand they be in our lives, and so people also play a role when they exit our lives. It’s an unnatural life for most pets, and we caused it.
Which all depends on how much a society really gets into pets. Plenty of places eat dogs and cats because it’s meat that grows itself. In parts of Eastern Europe, they only fix stray female dogs, not the males, because the patriarchal men making decisions don’t want to emasculate the boy dogs.
As for euthanasia in general, compassionate care of an aged pet often doesn’t align with how people put down a pet. Many shitbag people drown inconvenient animals, including pets. Some abandon their pets miles from home in hopes of them never coming back. Some only put them down when the vet bills get too expensive. A good vet will show you a chart that helps you understand how much pain an animal is in and let the owner who wants the pet to live forever for the owner’s emotional needs understand that they have to make a decision to end it. This is exceptionally rare, and not the way things go for 99.999% of the species made our pets on this planet.
affenlehrer@feddit.org 7 hours ago
I can’t answer that but it’s like to use this discussion to say that I’m generally impressed by veterinarians. They have patients that are actually different species and (e.g. in dogs) their size and weight varies widely. They can’t speak or consent to anything and they often actively hide if they’re in pain or impaired. Placebo effect probably doesn’t really work either.At the same time the owners (if it’s a pet) often love them like a child and get super worried and / or pissed if something happens.
Semjeza@fedinsfw.app 3 hours ago
Suicide only stopped being a crime in many parts of the world recently… Euthanasia is much larger step beyond that.
Let’s give things time.
Fichtre@programming.dev 2 hours ago
TLDR : yes but (Wished it was for the greater good only, ie. respect and help people decide how they end their lives but capitalism will use it with its own vision and how it values human lives -not much-)
In addition to the usual religion + human life being supposedly more valuable than pets /many other animal, there’s the “utility” angle.
Someone here already mentioned the “is grandma Suzanne still valuable as an asset to society ? Aaaww she had a good life then. 'K bye” and it’s actually pretty huge : in a world where governments are cutting more and more social welfare budget (well, when there was one to begin with at least), promoting the right to die must include the stories of people that don’t benefit from proper care and who are way more susceptible to go with the legal way out of euthanasia. And this number, with the budget cuts, older population, whatever incapacitating fuckery that might happen will grow quickly if not properly safeguarded (and I dont trust anyone in power right now to safeguard it).
I used to be completely in favour of euthanasia as a proper, respectful ending for people in pain : we had this story in France with Vincent Humbert that encapsulated all the reasons why it should be legal.
And then, capitalism kept happening and this idea of euthanasia, as beautiful as it is if properly set, increasingly became in my mind a tool to stir the masses towards global productivity/efficiency, with a few happy yet sobbing endings.
So yeah, I’m still hesitant on this matter, and I wished it could be implemented to relieve the many persons who just want a little more respect for how they wish to die. But at the same time, if nothing more is done to increase social welfare budgets, welp. We might end up with the suicide booths from Futurama 😅