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Animal Rights I don't agree with euthanizing pets, opinions?

lunarminx

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As a person who commits suicide when a loved one passes away, pets have been known to refuse to eat anymore and dying after a beloved owner passes away. The only way a human can commit legal suicide while under medical care is to refuse feeding tubes. And then they have to prove their right frame of mind is still there. When you see famous people who are hurt, paralyzed or in major chronic pain in the news or on tv, you do not see the private fight the face, don't judge the 1% you see.

**When I say the vast majority of the planet would choose life, this really is not debatable in my opinion as it is a biological fact so any comments directed towards that statement will be ignored.**


Where is your proof on this?
 

SardonicSmile

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@Tobias2189

Nearly a year ago a doctor helped my grandfather to die. Yes, euthanasia for humans is legal in my country, though the rules are very strict.
I am very greatful to this doctor for helping my grandfather as he was suffering greatly. It wasn't a matter of if he would die, but of when and how horribly.

He was in a great deal of pain, could not eat, could barely drink. He would have starved to death, wasted away slowly and in pain until he would be out of it through morphine and then slowly waste away some more.

Instead he chose to die while he was still lucid and of very sound of mind, saving himself and his family a great deal of suffering. He said his goodbyes and went peacefully. Death was coming, he just decided to have it come slightly sooner.

Nobody will ever convince me this was the wrong thing to do. It was right, so right.




This morning I made the difficult choice to have my Lexi put to sleep. She had an infection in her jaw bone that the vet could not physically get at to clean it out. The 'treatment' was having her put on pain medication, let the infection grow bigger in the hopes an abcess would rupture in a spot where the vet could access it.
All the while this piggie would have been in pain with a very uncertain outcome, where she would probably had to have an incisor and a molar extracted if she survived the infection.
Had she been in the wild, she would have been dead already as I have had to hand feed her for weeks now.

Should I have let her suffer? I love her and already miss her, but my mind is at ease about my decision to let her go.
 

blessedmom

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Honestly I don't agree with euthanizing a pet. This might sound a little hypocritical of me but unless an animal has been so physically damaged that they are unsaveable and suffering greatly, I don't believe we have the right to choose to kill them.

Every life form on this planet with the exception of some very few, would choose to continue on with life no matter how painful or how damaged they are. I would not have my parents euthanized or my brother or even myself, why would I do that to an animal I love?

There are people unable to move from the neck down that choose life and they have the ability to actually understand that choice an animal can't even consider to live or die, how can anyone honestly say they have the right or responsibility to choose this for any pet for any reason?

I honestly want opinions on this matter, I've struggled with this subject my entire life, I've had pets euthanized as a child and if I had been given a choice by the parties involved, I would have chosen life for my pets.

If you are interested, here is a Christian viewpoint on it:

https://www.gotquestions.org/animal-pet-euthanasia.html
 

snickers33

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I do not think any pet owner desires to euthanize but if given a choice would rather have their beloved pet die peacefully in their sleep.

Snickers had a painful stone that was causing extreme suffering and if we did not euthanize him, he would have died in the most painful way imaginable (not being able to go to the bathroom).

God is merciful to us and He desires we are merciful to our pets and to extend that in showing them compassion when the suffering is unnecessary.
 

Field-of-Dreams

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I lost my horse in 2001 to colic. Got a frantic call at work that he was literally throwing himself to the ground. We made it home in record time, the girl there was holding him and I could SEE he was on his way out. Vet arrived, examined him and thought it was a blockage. We discussed treatment plans- she had no clinic to treat him, I would have had to take him to Ohio State- a three hour trip. With a horse who hated trailers on a GOOD day. $3000 to just walk IN THE DOOR at OU. Plus, he was 23 years old. Not a spring chicken.

He then pressed his head against my chest.... "Mom. Make it stop. Please.... make it stop." He'd already had Banamine. It just dulled the pain. And was wearing off already.

I OWED it to him. To let him go, peacefully, pain-free, right now. Not to die by inches in a drug-induced haze. He'd carried my butt for 21 years. I owed him - big time.

It was the hardest, yet easiest thing I ever did for him. I let him go. It was peaceful, he was ready. He folded up and went down very softly. A big sigh, and he was gone.



There are far, far worse things in life than a painless death.
 

Colorado Cavies

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I lost my dog to cancer 4 days ago. She had FOUR tumors in her chest and another in her brain or eye, we weren't able to do surgery to see which. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't see, the pressure on her head and eyes had pushed one eye almost entirely out of her skull and was starting to push the other out a bit as well. She went from okay to not in the space of a few days. She stopped eating and there was nothing we could do for her anymore. We promised to keep her until she wasn't happy anymore, until the pain go to be too much. And that's what we did, and then we let her go. I wasn't going to let her starve to death.
 

blessedmom

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this was a helpful post when I researched about laying Snickers to rest. He was in a lot of pain and it would have been unloving to keep him around in such suffering.

It helped me as well when my little Harley hit too sick and wasn't able to barely walk. He was a Long Coat Chihuahua and only 10 years old but had 2 strokes and was having seizures and peeing on himself. He had hurt his back as well and could barely support his own weight. I'm very pro-life and against abortion as well as the death penalty (not trying to start that debate, it's my well founded belief and I respect that others have differing opinions) so I struggled with this decision greatly but knowing that it wasn't biblically wrong to do so helped me make that decision. But it was very hard nonetheless.
 

Mortiaryfaerie

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I disagree. And for reference, I'm in favor of assisted suicide for humans as well. Maybe as someone who has the experience of knowing exactly what my sick pet is going through its different for me
 

saresare93

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I can assure you that, given the choice, many people would choose death over agony. I was born with a debilitating disease and, although it wasn't an option at the time my mother was pregnant, it is now possible to detect the disease in the womb. I support health-based abortion because I know what it is like to be told that my suffering does not matter and that I should just be glad that I am alive. Now I am not trying to start a topic on abortion of course, I merely used it as an example. There is a reason so many people are fighting for the right to assisted suicide (which is generally when a patient with a painful and incurable disease is given, by their request, an overdose of anaesthetic or analgesic to give them a merciful and painless death).

What you must consider is that an animal does not know what euthanasia is. If you were walking along the street and were suddenly shot in the head and killed instantly, you would not fear the death or grieve your life. You did not know you were about to die, and you died so quickly that you did not suffer from the dying process. It would be very similar for an animal. Obviously it is different if the animal is perfectly healthy and happy, but for a suffering animal an ignorant end is best. Something to note is that the argument that we do not have the right to decide who lives or dies actually argues against itself. Either way you are choosing one of the options (life or death). A terminally ill and suffering animal will die eventually, everyone dies, and the choice to not euthanise is merely drawing out their death. So the decision is really to provide an ignorant and fast death, or a painful and drawn-out death. I am not saying this by any means to induce guilt - anyone who has to decide on euthanasia will have enough guilt! It was absolutely traumatizing for me to get my dog euthanised, and what makes it worse is knowing that she probably would have lived a couple more years, but to me quality of life is much more important than quantity of life.

Of course this is just my opinion, and one that is based on personal experience with the reality of incurable pain and disease. And, of course, no situation is the same. Everything really depends on the individual and the level of suffering, the prognosis, the quality of life, etc. There is never a clear-cut answer for anything! It is such a terrible topic to consider, and is so difficult to reconcile your guilt and your love of your pet when it arises. The bitter irony is that we unconsciously think less of the animal's need when we love them, because we cannot bear to live without them, and we will tend to value our love for them, and our need to keep them with us, over their need to be free of suffering. Ultimately nobody can tell you what is right and what is wrong, but it must always, always be regarded from the well-being of the animal, no matter how impossibly and heartbreakingly hard it is for us.
 

piggielover200

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My three pound poodle got sick within a period of 4 days. She went from completely healthy to almost dead in a short period of time. Even though it was hard for us I do think we made the right decision with putting her down. You could tell she was in pain and the vet told us there was nothing we could do as most of her organs were already shutting down.
 

Piggehs

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I realize that this is harsh, but I would not sleep well tonight if I did not say it:

If you cannot or will not euthanize an animal whose suffering is severe and cannot be effectively treated, you should not have pets.

Pets do not understand death and are, for the most part, at the mercy of their circumstances. Their every waking moment can be consumed with pain and there's nothing they can do to make it stop. In the wild, an animal in extreme pain is a slow and ineffective animal; for the most part, they don't survive long. In captivity, we can artificially extend this awful period of torment for weeks or months or years. Is this really the right thing to do for someone we love?

No. It's not.

If torturing your animal is wrong, looking the other way while your animal is tortured by someone or something else is also wrong. It doesn't matter whether the torturer is a person or another animal or an untreatable injury/illness.

Nobody who loves their pets wants to make this call, ever. It always feels like there should be another way. But sometimes the only options are 'death' and 'ceaseless suffering followed by death.'
 

mjalred

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I agree, that it is unfair to put down a healthy animal, however, imagine that you are sick beyond the point of being able to be healed. You are in extreme pain. You cannot move. You cannot eat or drink on your own. Ect ect. I believe if the suffering of an animal is so great, that the light and happiness has gone from their eyes, it's their time. Just remember that all pets go to heaven.
 

maddy harper

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I think that putting any animal to sleep would depend on the individual case...
 
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